Invading New Markets

LK Abitur 2008 II,  Com­po­si­ti­on Topic 4 (Von Neal Con­way, LK)

Com­ment on the car­toon.

In my opi­ni­on, the car­toon is sup­po­sed to illus­tra­te the ruthl­ess­ness and over­ly offen­si­ve tac­tics with which US cor­po­ra­te giants take con­trol of for­eign mar­kets in the era of globalisation.

By show­ing an army con­quering a tro­pi­cal island (as well as its popu­la­ti­on) while fly­ing the flags of glo­bal firms such as McDo­nalds and Micro­soft, the car­too­nist makes the view­er think of colo­ni­sa­ti­on and impe­ria­lism. He thus jux­ta­po­ses eco­no­mic dealings with colo­ni­al war­fa­re. This impres­si­on is rein­forced by the diver­si­ty of brands (such as Nike on the upper right ship and Moto­ro­la on the upper left pla­ne) as well as the sol­diers’ hur­ry to sei­ze the land by hois­ting their flag, in this case equip­ped with the Micro­soft logo, which might repre­sent a world­wi­de mono­po­ly. As colo­ni­sa­ti­on is today lar­ge­ly seen as unjust and ille­gi­ti­ma­te, US eco­no­mic poli­cy is cri­ti­ci­zed as a lethal inva­si­on, whe­re peo­p­le even die (cf. the dead man beneath the “Iwo­ji­ma” group).

All sol­diers are actual­ly comic-book cha­rac­ters by Walt Dis­ney, which is yet ano­ther US enter­pri­se which has a long-stan­ding mono­po­ly on the juni­or enter­tain­ment mar­ket. Not only do they all repre­sent the same film stu­di­os, but the majo­ri­ty of sol­diers are even iden­ti­cal replica­tions of the Goofy” cha­rac­ter. The­se sol­diers, tog­e­ther with the inap­pro­pria­te grin of Mickey Mou­se in the fore­ground, can be seen as repre­sen­ting the peo­p­le alre­a­dy “brain­wa­shed” by the media, par­ti­cu­lar­ly the big com­pa­nies’ adver­ti­se­ment. They are dis­play­ed in stark con­trast to the nati­ve popu­la­ti­on, who, thus far unaf­fec­ted by for­eign firms and the cul­tu­re they repre­sent, are depic­ted with human and indi­vi­du­al fea­tures. (262 words)

But the car­toon can also be asso­cia­ted with the war in Iraq, as Texa­co and Shell are among the inva­ding cor­po­ra­ti­ons. The USA has often been accu­sed of abusing its posi­ti­on as the world’s domi­nant power to take con­trol of that country’s oil reser­ves. So the fact that the car­too­nist has pla­ced the two brands in the fore­ground, thus making it look as if they are lea­ding the way, is in all likeli­hood not a coin­ci­dence. By crea­ting this allu­si­on, the car­toon indi­rect­ly accu­ses Ame­ri­can com­pa­nies such as Hal­li­bur­ton of irre­spon­si­bly pro­mo­ting a devas­ta­ting war, just for the sake of hig­her pro­fits. (362 words)