The Portrayal Analysis Of Nick Anderson's Football Emergency

The National Football League has always been evolved in some sort of scandal and Nick Anderson, the cartoonist of Football Emergency, has a very strong opinion of the NFL. His cartoon is easy enough for anyone to understand whether or not they follow the NFL but is much more interesting with a little football knowledge. He tries to argue that the NFL is focusing on useless scandals like deflated footballs instead of the more pressing issues of domestic violence and concussions.

Nick Anderson’s cartoon depicts doctors carrying off a football on a stretcher while a woman is laying on the floor and an unknown player is sitting on the side looking confused. The doctors are checking on the football which is an obvious nod to the Deflategate scandal.

It doesn’t show a perpetrator or any actual damage to the woman and child. The woman is simply laying on the ground looking helpless. Interestingly, the audience is unable to see the face of the child which allows the audience to interpret what the face of the child actually looks like. The woman and child are more centralized in the image than the player with the concussion is. There are two ways the audience could interpret this choice. Domestic violence could be seen as a larger issue than the issue of concussions. Because domestic violence is something that happens in the homes of players, maybe the cartoonist considers this to be a more pressing issue in the eyes of the public. The cartoonist could also be trying to depict the fact that the NFL has dealt with some instances of domestic violence and that it is on the radar of the NFL. Obviously the cartoonist doesn’t believe that it has been enough considering he is including this issue in his cartoon but he may be trying to acknowledge that it has been dealt with. We are unable to tell if the woman is looking at her child or the doctors which may be trying to depict the complicated issue of domestic abuse. Many women who are in situations of domestic abuse don’t seek out help, whether it is medical or otherwise, because they are too afraid that it may cause other love ones to be harmed

Kairos is defined as the significance of the time or occasion of the argument (Book). Viewing it right after the AFC Championship is a much different experience than it is viewing it at the start of the second NFL season after the scandal broke. When you think about it within the context of just a few days after the game it seems more reasonable than it is 2 seasons later. Knowing how much effort was put into the Deflategate case and how it almost went to the Supreme Court, one can see this situation as absurd. Also, knowing now that Brady has received a four game suspension and that Ray Rice (another player who committed domestic violence towards his wife) only served a two game suspension just 1 year before makes this entire case unfair. Also this cartoon was published before the movie Concussion came out. This movie sparked a lot of conversation about concussions and football. The cartoonist is hoping that the audience will understand his plea that the NFL focuses more on these issues of domestic violence and