Catalan Cartoons: A Cultural and Political History

Series Editors

Professor David George (Swansea University)

Professor Paul Garner (University of Leeds)

Editorial Board

David Frier (University of Leeds)

Lisa Shaw (University of Liverpool)

Gareth Walters (Swansea University)

Rob Stone (University of Birmingham)

David Gies (University of Virginia)

Catherine Davies (University of London)

Richard Cleminson (University of Leeds)

Duncan Wheeler (University of Leeds)

Jo Labanyi (New York University)

Roger Bartra (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

Other titles in the series

The Mexican Transition: Politics, Culture and

Democracy in the Twenty-first Century

Roger Bartra

Adolfo Bioy Casares: Borges, Fiction and Art

Karl Posso

Barcelona: Visual Culture, Space and Power

Helena Buffery & Carlota Caulfield

From Silver Screen to Spanish Stage: The Humorists

of the Madrid Vanguardia and Hollywood Film

Stuart Nishan Green

Modern Argentine Poetry: Exile, Displacement, Migration

Ben Bollig

Catalonia: National Identity and Cultural Policy

Kathryn Crameri

Melancholy and Culture: Diseases

of the Soul in Golden Age Spain

Roger Bartra

The Poetics of Otherness in Antonio

Machado’s ‘Proverbios y Cantares’

Nicolas Fernandez-Medina

IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

Catalan Cartoons

A Cultural and Political History

RHIANNON McGLADE

© Rhiannon McGlade, 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to The University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff CF10 4UP.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library CIP

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN978-1-78316-804-0

e-ISBN978-1-78316-806-4

The right of the Rhiannon McGlade to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published with the support of The Centre for Catalan Studies, Queen Mary University of London, and Institut Ramon Llull

Cover image taken from Per Catalunya (May 1946), attrib. ‘Xiu Xiu’.

Contents

Series Editors’ Foreword

List of Illustrations

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1The Golden Age of Catalan Political Cartoons (1898–1931)

2Catalan Cartoon Humour and ‘Otherness’ in the Second Republic and Civil War (1931–1939)

3Humour under Franco, Part I: Continuing a Tradition (1939–1962)

4Humour under Franco, Part II: From Fraga to Freedom (?) (1962–1975)

5Humour and the Transition to Democracy (1975–1982)

Conclusion

Bibliography

Series Editors’ Foreword

Over recent decades the traditional ‘languages and literatures’ model in Spanish departments in universities in the United Kingdom has been superseded by a contextual, interdisciplinary and ‘area studies’ approach to the study of the culture, history, society and politics of the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds – categories that extend far beyond the confines of the Iberian Peninsula, not only in Latin America but also to Spanish-speaking and Lusophone Africa.

In response to these dynamic trends in research priorities and curriculum development, this series is designed to present both disciplinary and interdisciplinary research within the general field of Iberian and Latin American Studies, particularly studies that explore all aspects of Cultural Production (inter alia literature, film, music, dance, sport) in Spanish, Portuguese, Basque, Catalan, Galician and indigenous languages of Latin America. The series also aims to publish research in the History and Politics of the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds, at the level of both the region and the nation-state, as well as on Cultural Studies that explore the shifting terrains of gender, sexual, racial and postcolonial identities in those same regions.

List of Illustrations

Figures

All images are the property of the cited artists or their descendants.

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

As this book owes much to the research undertaken for my doctoral thesis, I would like to reiterate my thanks to those who supported me in bringing the original project to fruition. In particular: to Louise Johnson and Helena Buffery for their continued encouragement and advice, to Jaume Capdevila for his enthusiastic and informative contributions, and to Enric Ucelay da Cal, to whom I am indebted for the many consultations over the years. I would also like to thank David George for continuing to support my research and for giving me the confidence to put forward the project for this book. I would like to add my thanks to Queen Mary, University of London for giving me the opportunity to see the book through as part of my appointment as Lecturer in Catalan Studies.

To my family I owe everything. Thank you.

My special thanks go to Susie for her unwavering understanding, love and support throughout.

Introduction

‘You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war’

This apocryphal quotation, attributed to William Hearst in relation to the Spanish–American War, is often cited to corroborate the media’s influence in society.¹ Although there is no historical evidence to tie the statement to Hearst, the anecdote nevertheless serves to evoke the widely held belief that the media has the power to galvanise public opinion and often indirectly influence the formation of policy agenda particularly through a judicious use of visual images. This is particularly true in the world of satirical cartoons.²

Satirical cartoons have thus far been undervalued as a media form worthy of academic attention. However, by combining elements of visual and verbal humour to create an overall message that requires a multi-layered process of decoding, cartoons are in fact a complex form of communication. Indeed, in a world increasingly dominated by the visual, our understanding of the role and influence of comics and cartoon humour in popular culture has become increasingly necessary.

In recent times, some commentators have come to consider the violent reactions sparked by the Muhammad cartoons in Denmark and Paris as evidence of the medium’s power to provoke.³ However, for Raskin, Oring and Davies, the Danish cartoons – and indeed humour itself – are ‘politically inconsequential’.⁴ They are among those humour scholars who argue that satirical cartoons are simply forms of entertainment and have little or no power to effect change in the course of social and political history, since they are no more than a reflection of current events.⁵ If, as Hall remarks, the function of the media is not only to reflect reality, but also to engage in defining how it is perceived, since cartoons are often used as a tool for commentary, they are by extension part of that same persuasive process.⁶ Walker argues that their agenda-setting power does not equate to a goal of persuasion but simply demonstrates that cartoons are a tool with which to ‘constrain public opinion for the benefit of major corporate interests’.⁷ However, if a cartoon has the ability to ‘constrain’ opinion by extension it also has the power to shape that opinion. Moreover, if humour can reinforce or indeed construct group identity, as will be argued, it follows that cartoons employing this form of humour have the power to influence at least this aspect of society. This is not to say, however, that all cartoons will necessarily, or intentionally, provoke change. One of the oldest condemnations of satirists is that while they freely criticise, they fail to suggest alternatives. Nevertheless, humorous qualities must be considered within a framework set to examine cartoons as a media form with its own specific modes of production and consumption.⁸ Thus, in order to address the impact of the medium of political cartoons it is necessary to contextualise their locus in a given society.

The work in this project introduces a critical and cognitive focus to the production of twentieth-century Catalan cartoon humour with the aim of introducing its utility as an analytical resource. It explores the complex, multi-layered relationship between satire and social context, opening new avenues for cultural, historical and socio-political research by revising current understandings of the history of the Catalan cartooning genre. Across five chronological chapters, it captures the changing fortunes of Catalan humour production against a shifting political landscape; charting the rise and fall of its golden age – from the turn of the century until the Spanish Civil War – moving on to examine its survival from the brink of collapse following the installation of the Franco dictatorship, and, finally, considering the development of a free press as part of the wider political transition to democracy in Spain.

As well as introducing the most representative cartoonists and publications of the period, the book focuses on four main routes of inquiry. First, it considers how Catalan satire has been influenced by different socio-political contexts, including periods of relative calm as well as military and Church censorship, violence, conflict, war and dictatorship. Second, it discusses the power of satire to provoke reactions and to affect its own context. It considers the role of humour in shaping opinion and group identity, looking in particular at the Madrid–Barcelona relationship, which is developed throughout the book in different ways. Third, it argues that the tradition for Catalan satire was not ended by the installation of the Franco dictatorship, but rather that it continued in a number of adapted forms and had its own role in the evolution of the period. Finally, it highlights the importance of the cartooning tradition as a resource for Catalan cultural analysis.

Where the shifting political situation that forms the backdrop to the period under examination alters the modes of production and consumption, it is of particular importance to account for these changes in order to allow, for example, for the different types of cartoons produced under Franco and in exile. Thus, specific examples taken from the Catalan cartooning tradition are used to guide the discussion of how cartoons have both reflected and shaped the political and cultural Catalan landscape of the twentieth century.

One of several taxonomical challenges facing this project is the complex notion of Catalan identity, which is further complicated by the period of linguistic and cultural repression created during the Franco regime. The difficulty in identifying authors and works as specifically Catalan outside the custom markers of language or location, through exile, has a direct effect on the classification of exclusively Catalan satire. In this respect, the bilingual situation of Catalonia was a mixed blessing. For although the Catalan people could continue to produce cultural output through their ‘second’ or ‘other’ language of Castilian, it is then more difficult to prevent its assimilation under the all-encompassing ‘Spanish’ cultural umbrella. For the purpose of this book, which takes an inclusive approach to Catalan cultural history, Catalan satire is used to describe humour produced in the Catalan language and/or in the Catalan region. In spite of the weight given to language as an identity marker, few claims have been made that national identity ceases to exist when this channel of expression is blocked. Therefore, and particularly within the context of the Franco period, it is understood that when the principal marker of cultural expression – that is language – is repressed, culture lives on in other forms.

The Nature of Humour: Some Theoretical and Definitional Guidance

The interdisciplinary nature of cultural analysis allows us to approach satirical cartoons from many different, sometimes diametrically opposed angles, driving us to consider the wider social and cultural context of this specific medium of humour and its intention and effect. Supported by the analysis of selected cartoons from the period, the present project uses an adaptation of the methodological framework developed in my doctoral thesis, which combines semiotic, psychological and cultural historical approaches to humour discourse in order to develop an anthological history of the Catalan tradition.⁹ Rather than an extensive exposition of the framework, where possible I have sought to allow theoretical insights to inform the development of the book’s discussion. Nevertheless, a brief introduction to some basic concepts is included in what follows in the hope of enabling their discussion as part of an integrated analysis throughout the chapters of the book.

Since the publication of D. H. Munro’s Argument of Laughter, standard humour analysis has been organised into superiority, relief and incongruity theories.¹⁰ Rather than three competing viewpoints, these approaches to humour differ in the questions they seek to address and often overlap. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes explains laughter as the expression of ‘a sudden glory arising from some conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly’.¹¹ The concept of pleasure derived from our own elevation over others, known as ‘superiority humour’, has been widely stated as a primary component of humour theory discourse. However, Hobbes’s proposals are driven by a focus on gelotophobia – the fear of being laughed at – and it should be noted that although a sense of superiority can often create humour, it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition. Nevertheless, as a branch of humour concerned with elevation and/or reduction of one individual, group or ideal over another, Hobbes’s general concepts of derisive laughter and superiority are relevant to this study of political cartoons and, more specifically, its discussion of the relationship between humour and collective identity.

Humour’s relationship with the framing of identity is connected to Hobbes’s theory since humour occurs when we perceive ourselves as superior to an identified ‘other’ in a given contrast.¹² In their study of superior versus subordinate relationships, Dolf Zillmann and Joanne Cantor correctly predicted that the subordinate group would appreciate humour involving the temporary domination of its superiors.¹³ Holmes and Marra added to the debate by noting that ‘making fun of other groups, or rendering aspects of their behaviour in a comical way, effectively drives a wedge between the speaker’s group and the butt of the humour’.¹⁴ Developing the tentative claims made by Solomon, the discussions in this book also underline the important role of inferiority in humour.¹⁵ Since superiority humour is often achieved by emphasising the inferiority of the ‘target’ rather than the superiority of the joker, superiority is achieved vicariously through an exposition of inferiority. Therefore, the expression of solidarity and in-group identity is one of the most common social functions of humour, since jokes are typically based on a set of shared values that can be stressed for humorous effect.¹⁶ Indeed, according to Holmes and Marra, ‘humour can contribute to the on-going construction and reinforcement of inter-group boundaries by providing an acceptable means of objectifying or distancing the other group’.¹⁷ Furthermore, in national identity construction as Knight observes, ‘simple nationalistic satire stresses the distinction of one’s own country from others by exaggerating their negative qualities’.¹⁸ In fact, Ford and Ferguson have found that derogatory jokes about disadvantaged subgroups can lead to a greater tolerance of discrimination and violence by those already prejudiced towards them.¹⁹ Superiority humour is found to be a common feature of Catalan satire in the selected period and drawing on the concepts outlined above, I discuss this as a reflection of the growing group identity polarity that came to prominence in the twentieth century, as well as considering the role of cartoon humour in reinforcing this Catalan group identity construction.

The main proponent of the relief theory was Sigmund Freud. In The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious, Freud describes the function of jokes both as a means of relieving the accumulated aggression produced by social control and as a tool of aggression themselves.²⁰ In the first case, Freud argues that jokes

make possible the satisfaction of an instinct, whether aggressive or lustful, in the face of an obstacle that stands in its way. They circumvent this obstacle and in that way draw pleasure from a source, which that obstacle made inaccessible.²¹

In other words, in a situation that creates aggressive or lustful instincts, a kind of energy is required. Where a joke allows us to express these instincts, the energy is no longer necessary and can be expelled through laughter. For Freud:

A joke will allow us to exploit something ridiculous in our enemy, which we could not, on account of obstacles in the way, bring forward openly or consciously […] the joke then represents a rebellion against that authority, a liberation from its pressure.²²

Like Hobbes, Freud’s approach is only relevant in certain cases. Nevertheless, his theory of jokes as a form of release-valve for accumulated aggression underpins the analysis of humour under totalitarian regimes and is therefore relevant to the chapters discussing the Primo de Rivera and Francisco Franco dictatorships.²³ Moreover, this theory informs our consideration of humour produced in times of tragedy or suffering, a topic that permeates the discussions in the book.

For the origins of incongruity theories we look to Cicero (106–43 bce), who in De Oratore had already observed that ‘the most common kind of joke is that in which we expect one thing and another is said; here our own disappointed expectation makes us laugh’.²⁴ While humour depends on an individual processing the conflict between the expected and the result, the subsequent reaction often lies with his or her own emotional response to the incongruity, i.e. what is funny to one person may not be to another. As Goethe famously observed, ‘men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable’. Although, research into humour appreciation has formed part of clinical practice for over half a century, in the case of historical studies of humour, reception data is unfortunately rare. For this reason, apart from in specified cases, the reception of individual examples will not be the principal focus of discussion.

Building on classical interpretations, Bergson argues that ‘a situation is invariably comic when it belongs simultaneously to two altogether independent series of events and is capable of being interpreted in two entirely different meanings at the same time’.²⁵ This conception of incongruity is widely recognised as playing a central role in linguistic humour studies. By far the most influential theories in this domain are the Semantic Script Theory of Humour (SSTH)²⁶ and its subsequent assimilation into the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH).²⁷ The SSTH defines the two processes that facilitate a joke as a set-up and a punch-line. The theory holds that a binary script opposition occurs between these two stages causing a humorous outcome. The GTVH addressed the limitations of a semantic-focused framework by converting the SSTH – under the heading ‘script opposition’ (SO) – into one of six categories in the processing of verbal humour, known as ‘knowledge resources’ (KR).²⁸ A basic appreciation of these concepts allows for the successful deciphering of the textual humour in cartoons. However, within the cartooning field an important point for consideration is the role of, and relationship between, the image and the text in producing a humorous climax.²⁹ Of particular relevance in this respect is Tsakona’s use of a GTVH framework to discuss this interaction for cases where the image plays the crucial role in joke comprehension.³⁰

The past twenty years have seen a number of studies in the field of cartoon art as the subject of academic research. Primarily focusing on taxonomy and technical construction, the most relevant definitions come from Randall Harrison, Scott McCloud and Mort Walker.³¹ For the purpose of this study the comprehensive terms strip cartoon and single-panel cartoon are used to negotiate the distinction between the various forms selected for analysis. Deconstruction of the aesthetic components of cartoons is made possible by an understanding of Visual Organisational Principles (VOP) or Gestalten. According to this approach, humans process pieces of information by organising them into a contained whole (or ‘Gestalt’) striving towards the simplest structure attainable.³² In images, the Gestalt principle refers to the fact that ‘things are seen as relating to each other and not as discrete elements’,³³ for example letters read as words. Since the primary focus of the cartoon case studies in this book is the evolution of the Catalan tradition and its imbrications with society, discussions of technical composition will implicitly inform analysis apart from those cases where further elaboration is considered necessary