I wish I was taller
April 24, 2021 8:02 PM Subscribe
Can someone explain this New Yorker cartoon? I know what the words mean. I know that New Yorker cartoons are often funny-ironic rather than funny-haha. I know that despite all his rage he is still just a rat in a maze. Beyond that, it’s beyond me.
I think it might be a slam against academia. You spend your life doing pointless things (running mazes), and then you retired to emeritus status.
posted by alex1965 at 8:15 PM on April 24, 2021 [39 favorites]
posted by alex1965 at 8:15 PM on April 24, 2021 [39 favorites]
When I saw this I thought it was about academia. The academic life is like being in a huge maze both figuratively and because the physical buildings where the professors' offices are often have a maze-like quality. Now one puts a rat in a maze as an experiment to see whether he can find his way out -- it's not as if the rat has anything really to do in the maze. But this rat never found his way out and instead set up shop and stayed so long he has retired in the maze. So it's a kind of allegory of the academic life as a pointless, cruel experiment from which one cannot escape.
Yeah, so on preview, I agree with alex1965
posted by bertran at 8:21 PM on April 24, 2021 [9 favorites]
Yeah, so on preview, I agree with alex1965
posted by bertran at 8:21 PM on April 24, 2021 [9 favorites]
Instead of getting to retire, the rat has to run yet another maze, which has been glorified to make it less insulting.
posted by unknowncommand at 8:39 PM on April 24, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by unknowncommand at 8:39 PM on April 24, 2021 [5 favorites]
Relevant somehow (probably) is that the door is bogus.it's not strictly impossible, but the doorway would be bisected by a wall if it is real.
This feels like a 'Cow Tools' comic. A somewhat too specialized joke, with details that seem to almost cohere, but weren't meant to and don't actually.
posted by wotsac at 8:51 PM on April 24, 2021 [10 favorites]
This feels like a 'Cow Tools' comic. A somewhat too specialized joke, with details that seem to almost cohere, but weren't meant to and don't actually.
posted by wotsac at 8:51 PM on April 24, 2021 [10 favorites]
It's probably significant that the other side of the door is essentially the end of a wall? Maybe it's impossible to make it "out" of the maze to the "rat emeritus" reward?
posted by amtho at 8:52 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by amtho at 8:52 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
Emeritus is a perceived escape from the maze (of academia) - that’s why it’s a door - but it’s not a real
Escape. That status depends upon the rat still being within the maze.
posted by Miko at 9:04 PM on April 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
Escape. That status depends upon the rat still being within the maze.
posted by Miko at 9:04 PM on April 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
I think the wall bisecting the door is just poorly drawn, not an additional comment on futility. other than that, I agree with the consensus here.
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:13 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:13 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
Maybe it could also be read this way: Most of the folks who experiment on rats are academics in behavioral biology. So what we are seeing could be understood as literally an image of a real rat-in-maze experiment. But its designers have recognized a certain similarity between this rat's predicament and their own, so they decorate the maze in a somewhat bitter fashion with the door and emeritus sign.
It's not being an actual door is excused in this reading, with the shift in focus to the not depicted scientist-academic maze designers.
posted by bertran at 11:48 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's not being an actual door is excused in this reading, with the shift in focus to the not depicted scientist-academic maze designers.
posted by bertran at 11:48 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
You guys are so funny. As an ex-academic this seems so obvious to me.
The rat gets dropped in the maze and he tries to find his way out. Maybe some rats do but this guy can’t. He just wanders around forever, trapped, and eventually he’s been there so long that they give him an honorary title, as though this were something he’d done on purpose instead of a mark of failure. And then a new young rat comes along and is like: is this my fate? Is this something I should aim for? What will the future bring and how should I live?
It’s like how when I got to college all I wanted to do was read books and I figured I should probably acquire some actual job skills but that seemed hard so I never really mastered it so I just declared an English major and figured I’d sort it out eventually, and then when graduation time came I still didn’t know so I was like, might as well apply to grad school, and surely something else will come along in the meantime and I can just get the Masters instead of staying for the whole PhD, but the only thing the PhD really trains you for is teaching so even though by then I knew I’d rather write I figured it’d be worth it to go on the job market and then that took so much out of me I didn’t write for several years and when I did finally get a job I needed to keep my health insurance so I decided to stick it out until I got tenure and by the time that happened I had two kids I needed to support so I obviously wasn’t going to give up such a plum job but I figured when I retired I could really devote myself to the book I’d always mean to write and in the meantime I did lots of advising of kids who really loved to read but didn’t have any job skills about what they should do with their lives, so I suggested grad school as an option for buying themselves some time while they figured that out and they were all so grateful that I was nominated for an award and I got this nice plaque on my door and I was so pleased but then ironically I died at my desk of a heart attack the very night I was finally going to start my book, and everyone agreed I’d been taken too young at the promising age of 105.
It’s not so much a “joke” as a horror story, really.
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 2:59 AM on April 25, 2021 [25 favorites]
The rat gets dropped in the maze and he tries to find his way out. Maybe some rats do but this guy can’t. He just wanders around forever, trapped, and eventually he’s been there so long that they give him an honorary title, as though this were something he’d done on purpose instead of a mark of failure. And then a new young rat comes along and is like: is this my fate? Is this something I should aim for? What will the future bring and how should I live?
It’s like how when I got to college all I wanted to do was read books and I figured I should probably acquire some actual job skills but that seemed hard so I never really mastered it so I just declared an English major and figured I’d sort it out eventually, and then when graduation time came I still didn’t know so I was like, might as well apply to grad school, and surely something else will come along in the meantime and I can just get the Masters instead of staying for the whole PhD, but the only thing the PhD really trains you for is teaching so even though by then I knew I’d rather write I figured it’d be worth it to go on the job market and then that took so much out of me I didn’t write for several years and when I did finally get a job I needed to keep my health insurance so I decided to stick it out until I got tenure and by the time that happened I had two kids I needed to support so I obviously wasn’t going to give up such a plum job but I figured when I retired I could really devote myself to the book I’d always mean to write and in the meantime I did lots of advising of kids who really loved to read but didn’t have any job skills about what they should do with their lives, so I suggested grad school as an option for buying themselves some time while they figured that out and they were all so grateful that I was nominated for an award and I got this nice plaque on my door and I was so pleased but then ironically I died at my desk of a heart attack the very night I was finally going to start my book, and everyone agreed I’d been taken too young at the promising age of 105.
It’s not so much a “joke” as a horror story, really.
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 2:59 AM on April 25, 2021 [25 favorites]
Emeriti in academia frequently get to keep their offices - so even when you "leave" the maze you're still in the maze.
posted by capricorn at 8:38 AM on April 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by capricorn at 8:38 AM on April 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
I also assumed it was academia and remain confused by the door that ends in a wall. If it weren't for that, I'd interpret it as an aging rat frustrated to discover they've been given a new title and door plaque that just leads to more of a maze instead of escape. But, the architecture seems so obviously weird that I assume I'm missing something.
Also, it looks like the cartoonist who drew it just celebrated 50 years drawing for the New Yorker with several articles and interviews about his body of work and photos of events. It could be a more personal reference that I don't understand.
posted by eotvos at 9:52 AM on April 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Also, it looks like the cartoonist who drew it just celebrated 50 years drawing for the New Yorker with several articles and interviews about his body of work and photos of events. It could be a more personal reference that I don't understand.
posted by eotvos at 9:52 AM on April 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yeah, emeritus professors are “retired” but never actually leave or stop working, which I feel is another part of the joke.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:09 AM on April 26, 2021
posted by en forme de poire at 6:09 AM on April 26, 2021
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posted by bleep at 8:09 PM on April 24, 2021 [4 favorites]