Messiah Seen in a Potato Chip (Week 3 Reading Assignment #3)

In the cartoon titled “Potato Chip that Looks Like the Messiah,” Eric Allie, the artist that drew the cartoon, has portrayed an oddity of popular political culture, and is playing off that oddity, making a parody of it. The cartoon shows an apparent news anchorman reading a piece of paper, in a little bubble box the news anchorman says, “Reports of a potato chip that resembled the messiah sparked a media frenzy today.” Then in another bubble just below the first it says, “But upon further inspection the chip looked nothing like Mr. Obama.”

This cartoon is alluding to the strange phenomena that seems to be following Mr. Obama, one of the Presidential Candidates vying for the American Presidency, around as he travels the country attending political rallies and debates. Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott was quoted in The Australian, saying that, “… Obama is part politician, part cult,” according to obamamessiah.blogspot.com.

In the cartoon drawn by artist Eric Allie, this phenomena is being portrayed in the same light as people that sometimes claim to see revelations in the clouds or messages from god in their breakfast cereal. More or less, the artist is attempting to make fun of the “messiah-like” persona that Mr. Obama seems to have taken on within the minds of many of his biggest supporters. The message of the cartoon does not seem to be slanted toward one side of an argument or another, it seems instead to be poking fun at the phenomena as a whole.


Eric Allie. “Potato chip that looks like the messiah-color.” CagleCartoons. 5 Feb. 2008. 11 Feb. 2008
http://caglecartoons.com/viewimage.asp?ID={80317C5D-1A3A-427C-B817-2B8F43C6CDB4}


“Is Barack Obama the Messiah.” Blogspot. 11 Feb 2008. http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/