Mind over Media Matters

In the Sunday, October 21, 2007 issue of the Manchester Union Leader the following comic appeared depicting Frankenstein’s monster masked for Halloween as an innocent little girl, wearing the moniker “SOCIALIZED MED” and toting a bag that reads, “SCHIP OR TREAT.”

The cartoonist, H. Payne, characterizes the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) as sinister and its proponents as wolves in sheep's clothing. Payne utilizes the monster to demonize the idea of health insurance for uninsured children, and makes the idea even more frightening to those still in the grips of the Red Scare, as SCHIP is shown as merely a front for socialized medicine and/or a step in the direction of communism.

With the monster in a mask of an innocent little girl, the cartoon brings to mind recent events of children pleading to congress in favor of SCHIP. But Payne flips whatever sympathy one might feel upon viewing those scenes upside down, and makes the pleas seem to be more so guided by heavy-handed adults, likely “left-wing,” instead of sincere attempts made by socially aware kids and their families. The cartoon wants to characterize the young proponents not as speaking for their own interests, but as puppets being mastered by a nefarious other.