The elephant in the room| Examining visual metaphors of Chris Christie in political cartoons

• Main Author: Lopez, Alixandria Gabriela
• Language: EN
• Published: California State University, Long Beach 2015
• Subjects: Communication|Rhetoric
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1591634

<p> New Jersey governor Chris Christie has gained widespread media attention for his aggressive public persona, his involvement in the Bridgegate scandal, and for weighing almost 400 pounds at the beginning of his political career. In this thesis, I conduct a metaphor analysis on political cartoons featuring Christie. By alternately focusing on his weight and his Italian heritage, cartoons utilize body-centric attacks to transform Christie into monsters, inanimate objects, manual laborers, women, and other entities, inextricably tying Christie's politics to his physicality. I argue that Christie's body is heavily gendered throughout the cartoons, reinforcing the conservative masculinist script and hegemonic masculinity. Thus, I end this thesis by exploring how the denigration of Christie's body could prove damaging to Christie's career and aid in the construction of non-normative bodies in the public sphere.</p>