_Pollux writes_:
“Don’t take it as a matter of course,” the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once wrote, “but as a remarkable fact, that pictures and fictitious narratives give us pleasure, occupy our minds.”
Christ, what an asshole!
I refer not to Wittgenstein, but to a universal caption that could be applied to all _New Yorker_ cartoons in the magazine’s caption contest. Emily “wrote”:http://emdashes.com/2006/02/more-uncaptions-for-your-click.php on the phenomenon when it made its appearance in cyberspace.
As scientifically “demonstrated”:http://modernarthur.com/blog/christwhatanasshole.html by Charles Lavoie, “Christ, What an Asshole!” can be applied to multiple _New Yorker_ cartoons without sacrificing their humor or coherence.
The caption seems to work, creating a fictitious and humorous narrative. Perhaps it’s the shock value of using profanity for classic _New Yorker_ cartoons, or the fact that it exposes their basic formula: a bizarre figure or situation amidst a normal, workaday one.
“Christ, What an Asshole!” gives us pleasure and occupies our minds.