Description
Satire is a type of composition that ridicules or censures someone or something. But does this mean that satirical texts are -by nature- critical of a certain state of affairs? This paper analyses the representation of the "crisis" on account of the Iranian nuclear program (2002-2015) in the Spanish satirical magazine El Jueves. The paper conducts a narrative-visual analysis of a sample of cartoons published between 2002 (the onset of the “crisis”) and 2015 (when the “nuclear deal” was brokered between the P5+1 and Iran). It argues that the discourse of Nuclear Orientalism (Gusterson, 1999), articulated with other discourses such as petro-masculinity (Daggett, 2018), shapes the narratives through which the cartoons join the public debate on the (il)legitimacy of the Iranian nuclear program. The paper concludes that, despite the irreverent ways in which a satirical genre such as the political cartoon participates in discussions on world politics, it, de facto, contributes to consolidate the political and epistemic privileges of a rational liberal political subject over the pursuers of the “Islamic bomb".
