The problem with the New Yorker caption contests
No, it's not that the right answer to all of them is "Christ, what an asshole!", nor that the submitted captions nearly always suck (though those are problems). The chief problem, or at any rate the problem which the cartoon for which a winning caption was picked in the Jan 15 issue, is that no caption is necessary. There's a couple, in a jail cell, in bed; the woman is smoking. The caption reads "How about we just stay in tonight?". You see, it's funny, because they're in jail, so they couldn't actually go out if they wanted to, but the dialogue seems "out of sync" with their situation—it's as if they took no notice of their actual surroundings but instead thought themselves in a perfectly ordinary bedroom, free to leave at any time. Ha! Ha! But we knew that much from the postures, expressions, and activities captured mid-action in the cartoon before the caption. To the extent that it's clever, the cartoon needs no gussying up with words. I thought maybe that particular cartoon was a test by the editors, to see if anyone contributed a caption that was actually a suggestion that they leave it blank.
The editors of the New Yorkers set middle America a test, and it failed.
Comments
on 2007-01-11 23:09:53.0, bitchphd commented:
Nonsense. The editors aren't "testing" "middle America" (you snob). They're running a stupid ongoing contest in an attempt to "engage" readers, possibly increase circulation, encourage folks to subscribe rather than pick it up on a newsstand, capitalize on a popular feature, and probably find something out about who reads the thing.
The caption contest completely sucks, regardless of the quality of the captions, because the whole idea is annoying. It's marketing crap, but what are you gonna do? Magazines need subscribers.
and, further, on 2007-01-11 23:11:05.0, ben wolfson commented:
The editors aren't "testing" "middle America" (you snob).
Nothing could possibly disabuse me of my favored interpretation.
and, further, on 2007-01-11 23:13:02.0, bitchphd commented:
I can respect that.
and, further, on 2007-01-12 7:19:44.0, F. Winston Codpiece III commented:
Mr. Wolfson,
You fail to discern the deeper meaning that the caption gives to the cartoon. The obvious subtext of the situation is the idea of marriage as a prison, and just as in the cartoon I recently analyzed, the conceit here is to take that common idea at its word -- that the normally astute Mr. Wolfson misses this crucial aspect of the cartoon frankly shocks me.
With that in mind, the winning caption turns out to be rich in polyvalent meanings. The wife could be defying the social structure that seeks to reduce love to a prison -- she would thus be saying, in effect, "Even though I have to be here with you, I am here voluntarily." She could also be read as really regarding her marriage as a prison, but nonetheless making an active gesture to embrace her inevitable fate -- making the first movement of human agency that can lead, with time and patience, to full self-actualization. Many other meanings are possible, but in short, this simple cartoon that you so callously dismiss artfully traces out the paradoxes and the small -- but real -- human triumphs of marriage.
And the wife is also portrayed with her mouth open, meaning that a captionless cartoon would make no sense.
and, further, on 2007-01-12 7:38:07.0, apostropher commented:
Maybe she was yawning, FWC3.
and, further, on 2007-01-12 9:01:04.0, ben wolfson commented:
She's saying something—we know that from her mouth—but we need not know what. A cartoon can display communication without letting us in on the content of the communication via a caption.
Or perhaps Codpiece simply can't handle uncertainty and ambiguity.
I considered many interpretations similar to those FWC3 proposes, and I have to say, they all strike me as last-ditch efforts to save something that really isn't worth saving.
and, further, on 2007-01-12 10:05:50.0, F. Winston Codpiece III commented:
You're an equivocating coward, Wolfson. Your inability to discern the deeper human meanings of this cartoon -- and here I quietly note that in the very comment to which you are responding, I posited an intrinsic and irreducible ambiguity to the wife's statement, surely a strange practice for one who fears uncertainty and ambiguity -- renders your inability to respond to Claire's heartfelt attempt to reach out to you chillingly comprehensible.
and, further, on 2007-01-12 16:32:38.0, dave zacuto commented:
I thought the implication was that they sometimes get tired of breaking out of jail just for an evening.
and, further, on 2007-02-03 16:45:51.0, Carter commented:
Out of curiousity, do you think they actually read all of the captions that are submitted? Do you think the artists already have a caption in mind when they draw it?
and, further, on 2007-11-03 17:14:34.0, ben wolfson commented:
Actually, I now think that the cartoon is a commentary on free will and autonomy, and that the caption is therefore acceptable.