Assessing the current condition of editorial cartooning invites
engagement in a number of potential perspectives: Cartoons may be
positioned as journalism, artistic expression, entertaining satire, and
political and historical record. A rhetorical perspective examines
cartoons as expressions of political discourse positioned within the wider
culture that defines, constructs, and frames larger social ideologies as a
backdrop to events of the day. Cartoonists accomplish this task not only
by devising explicit messages about their subjects, but in the implicit
expression of societal norms and values in the conceptual lenses and
commonplaces they employ. This essay considers the conceptual lens of
gender as it has been used by cartoonists in recent years to frame
politicians, and the implications of that framing.