American Idol

If neces­sa­ry revi­se How to Inter­pret a Car­toon. Then stu­dy the fol­lo­wing car­toon and inter­pret it. Final­ly compa­re your ans­wer with my model interpretation.

Model interpretation

In my opi­ni­on the car­toon is sup­po­sed to cri­ti­ci­ze the NRA’s obses­si­on with guns. Accor­ding to the car­toon guns are a com­ple­te­ly irra­tio­nal, reli­gious “fetish” and not some­thing (as the NRA con­stant­ly claims) you need to defend yours­elf. The inscrip­ti­on on the pedes­tal allu­des to the First Com­mandment Thou shalt have no other gods befo­re me. The gun on the pedes­tal tog­e­ther with the “offe­ring” reminds the view­er of the Bibli­cal sto­ry of the Gol­den Calf, which rein­forces the mes­sa­ge that NRA and its sup­port­ers wor­ship guns with reli­gious zeal. They are even wil­ling to “sacri­fice”, i.e. des­troy any oppon­ents. The count­less skulls repre­sent all the vic­tims of gun vio­lence. The cap­ti­on is ambi­guous. The first mea­ning of idol is “a sta­tue that is wor­ship­ped as a god”. The second mea­ning is that Ame­ri­can Idol was the title of the TV pro­gram, which in Ger­ma­ny was cal­led DSDS. In this show stars are also mind­less­ly adored.