More on Visual Puns ... or is that Moron Visual Puns???

Sorry for the very bad joke. I promise to leave all future punning to Avi Kirshner and other professionals.

Dylan has sent me an entire site-worth of visual puns. I will post four examples of these, but if you want to check out the site itself, here's the link:

http://www.urlesque.com/2010/04/20/18-goofy-and-hilarious-visual-puns

HOWEVER, it is my contention that these puns are NOT exactly the same type of pun as the two visual puns on our previous visual pun post. Therefore, my next challenge to you is to see whether you can successfully distinguish and articulate the difference. Publish your answer as a comment to this post.

Clues:
Clue #1: "Now is the winter of our discontent..." (from Shakespeare's Richard III)
Clue #2: What did the announcer say about the Von Hindenburg?

Visual Puns and Other Reasons to Laugh

As long as we're on the subject of visual rhetoric, can you see why this would be called a visual pun? I would love to collect more of these. Contributions accepted and rewarded. (In fact, I've just received a first contribution from Efroni, which I'll post here. If I get more, I'll start a page for them on our google website. Maybe you can come up with some that don't have anything to do with hair.)




The real point is that some of what... maybe even much of ... what goes on in language ... certain rhetorical shenanigans ... goes on in music and in the visual arts. This includes jokes.

What do you think a musical joke would be like? Mozart has actually written one. You can listen to all 20 minutes of it (I guess it's a shaggy dog story kind of joke) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFPoRmsiFzc You probably won't get the joke unless you're familiar with classical music. The idea is that the music is very simple-minded, cliched and repetitious. Also, it has a lot of trouble ending. But if you listen to the last couple of minutes, you'll get the idea. For more modern versions of musical jokes, listen to the Beatle's Rocky Raccoon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNRH7_Kd5Yc or Jimi Hendrix's version of Wild Thing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qut6Pw0FdTk (The Hendrix is half sneering joke, half pure virtuosity.)

Visual Rhetoric

The image above is of Rosie the Riveter, an iconic character created during the 1940's to encourage women to enter the work force as factory laborers in support of the war effort. Rosie appeared on posters and in magazines everywhere throughout the United States as American men left their factory jobs in increasing numbers to join the military. In response, the number of working women in America rose by 57% from 1940 t0 1944. These women helped keep American production of munitions and materiel at all-time highs in spite of a shortage of male labor. When the war was over, many of these women returned to domestic life, and those who remained in the workplace opted for more traditionally female jobs such as typist or administrative assistant.

How do logos, ethos and pathos operate in this poster? Which elements in the depiction of Rosie the Riveter support the purpose of the government campaign to attract women to traditionally male jobs? At whom is the poster aimed and what strategies are being deployed to appeal to this audience? Consider all elements of the above poster: words, the depiction of the subject (how she is posed, her clothing, her facial expression), and purely graphic elements like lay-out and color, even the choice of font in the lettering. How do they serve the purpose?

Please comment thoughtfully and in detail. Minimum length: 250 words, hopefully more. Responses are due in by 7 am on Thursday, August 24th. You will not see comments posted until later on Thursday ... I will be collecting these first and then publishing them all at the same time tomorrow.