Social Commentary in Argentine Cartooning: From Description to Questioning

Abstract

Argentina has undergone several decades of social and political turmoil since the Second World War with the rise to power of Juan Pero'n, labor strife, and the protracted battle between leftists and the government. In her examination of the social content of Argentine single‐drawing cartoons appearing in mass audience publications since the 1940s, Naomi Lindstrom focuses on the Peronist period (1946‐1955) and immediately afterward. She observes that descriptive, nonevaluative humor characterized the cartoon until the latter half of the fifties, when hrtmorists became more explicit in their criticism of social hierarchy and the distribution of power. After Pergn's demise, a new wave o f humor appeared which was indecorous and irreverant. Examples are drawn from several Argentine publications including Rico Tipo, Esto and Que'. Along with David Foster's article on Quino's Mafalda, readers have an interesting overview of Argentine cartoons during the last thirty years.

Mafalda and Women’s Rights: A Canvass of the Sixties

“…Quino gives birth to Mafalda well within this transcendental time period. And despite the censorship that was present in other cultural expressions, cartoons such as this one were not targeted because they were considered inoffensive (Lindstrom 1980;Rommens 2005). MARLAS 4(1), 2020, DOI: 10.23870/marlas.291…”