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![[0043] The Rose Is A Bullet…](/comics/2009-03-19-[0043]-the-rose-is-a-bullet....png "[0043] The Rose Is A Bullet…")
The current story arc started with this strip: People Like You and Me.
- Woman: You can count yourself lucky that you have not yet had to experience the brutal persecution of exotic pet owners in our society.
- Sandra: Say what?
- Woman: It’s true! Just yesterday, the neighbor of my tiger pen called me a “crazy cat lady”. Can you believe it?!
- Caption: Meanwhile at 20°47’N, 97°02’E.
- Military officer: That’s what you get for opposing our discipline-flourishing democracy.
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I don’t get it…
The last panel, I mean. Is the guy being threatened by a rose?
Yeah, I don’t get it either.
I guess that the allegorical nature of the last panel can be hard to get, it’s certainly not a joke in the usual sense. Having a second look at the title of the strip might help, though. However, I don’t want to limit myself to making random jokes about raccoons gagging fennecs with their own ears. Sorry. I like this strip a lot.
It’s quite simple really. It puts “brutal persecution” into persepctive.
sooo… the alternative interpretation would …. don’t sell rich people endangered species, or this can happen to you
be… it’s missing a be
@BritBloke
Yeah, that was my first thought as well, but I was wondering what the rose had to do with it.
Unless there is a type of rose called a “bullet”, I think we can agree that this strip has no punch line. …and I’m fine with that.
Okay – with a little thought, starting from the title; the lady is claiming that someone complaining about her keeping exotic animals is “brutal persecution”.
And the final panel is sort of an allegorical way of saying “And in places like Burma they give roses to dissidents?”
Perhaps the analogy is a bit forced, but so often i hear people in this country complaining about things like how they’re oppressed and persecuted because they can’t download comics free from the internet and actually are going to have to pay for them: http://www.peterdavid.net/index.php/2009/02/28/scans-daily/
The prison(?) in the last panel is in a candle balloon shop (?) in Ayetharyar, just outside of Taunggyi the capital of Shan State, Myanmar?
If you have Google Earth, you could see for yourself by opening http://www.mediafire.com/?dwxyod11nqd
I see the point here, there’s persecution, and then there’s persecution. Our lady is complaining that she’s been called a name by people in here elite society. Whereas the man in Mymar is not going to get a rose for disagreeing with the powers that be in his government, he’s going to be shot.
Also, a few strips back, Cloud mentioned that the Burmese junta has ‘disappeared’ her aunt’s husband, which could be him in that last panel. Many people can forget just how many degrees of variation persecution can have.
Oh, I get it. At first, I thought the guy in the last panel wes the “crazy-cat-lady’s” neighbor.
*reads* …I….Don’t get it….
*reads some comments and re-reads the strip*
OH! Okay..Now I get it. Huh….Kind of odd, dark, humor not quite funny ‘ha ha’ but like funny ‘people should know what they’re talking about before speaking’
Interesting strip today, I was expecting another gag and instead got something that made me think, kudos.
Well the coordinates given do seem to be within Burma.
this is one I think deserves a bit of explanation,
Ok. The “crazy-cat-lady’s” statement about brutal prosecution was put into perspective by example of TRUE brutal prosecution in countries like Burma. No, the rose is not a punishment per se. It’s symbolic- the man would likely throw it at the prisoner’s feet, an action immediately followed by the execution. No, it’s not exactly funny, but it is a rather poignant reminder.
“Persecution,” excuse me.
Huh. I had to think about it a little bit and read the strip 3 or 4 times (which is not a bad thing), but I have to say: nicely done!
I was more confused by the hand the officer had behind his back, which mad it look like he was holding a knife.
For some reason, this brings Ranier Maria Rilke(who was fascinated by roses) to mind
i didn’t get it at 1st, had to read the comments.
but yeh, i get it now i think. you’re comparing what someone thinks is monstrous persecution to a more serious situation, but i’m still not sure what the rose is supposed to represent, although i do sorta see a sorta humour in it of giving him the rose insteadof shooting him, but it’sa semi-confused humour to me.
I did not get this at first either, and would have been lost without the help in the comments, even looking up the location. I wasn’t looking for a joke; I just lost the meaning. I’m still confused by the point of the rose. Is this persecution? Is this supposed to be ironic? I hope its not a pun on flourishing.
I belive that he is about to be shot. The officer is giving him the flower prior to shooting a) as a way to avoid showing him being shot(note the title) b)as an ironic gesture, or c) both.
I didn’t recognize it as a joke, at first, because to me it was a perfectly serious comparison of “persecution” to real persecution. Having lived in other countries, (tho thankfully not ones with that degree of persecution) I guess it’s understandable that I had a different initial reaction to it. Good job on bringing up the different plot threads in such a fashion, and on the point you were bringing to people’s attention.
*checks online dictionary*
See, I wondered if there was some play on words going on with rose / rosette. Like the owners get given rosettes at the show, the prisoner gets given a rose (presumably blood red as is iconic; but I do English Lit so I could talk on the rose as a symbol of irony here for at least 3000 words :P)… but the rose is a bullet!
The thing is “Rosette” in German translates (so I’m told) as both rosette (for prizes) and rose, as in the flower
The last panel, as i said, seems to be basically saying “Oh, gee, lady, you have it so hard. I suppose that in Burma they hand out flowers to people they don’t approve of…”
There are bullet holes in the wall. It’s a firing squad. He’s about to get a bullet.
If so, what’s up with the tranq. darts???
Those are actually regular darts. They’re just using her face as a target.
…
On a concrete wall. I dunno.
He’s not giving the prisoner the rose then? He’s just holding it as if it symbolizes his country? Or if he is giving it, the prisoner is still going to die?
I am very familiar with these situations through newsletters from Voice of the Martyrs, a group that focuses on persecution of Christians. I wasn’t expecting a joke because of the blog post underneath the comic. I still got confused.
Maybe the best one of this comic.
No, it’s a fantasy. A fantasy of a world where the worst “persecution” is someone complaining about your pet.
As is said: “Oh, poor baybay – you’re so *oppressed*. And I suppose dictators give people they don’t like flowers.”
Well, that makes more sense than anything I’ve come up with. To Novil, I don’t think anyone minds that it’s about a touchy issue, I think the issue people have had with this strip is that they, like myself, were wondering “Why a rose?”. Indeed, my first thought was that it was a rose specifically as an odd way of censorship: You can say it’s a gun in the comic title but you can’t just draw it. At which point I wondered why you censored it.
I really like this strip… It’s funny, but it also makes a good point about how a lot of people (-cough- Americans…) think they have it so bad, without considering all the many injustices and cruelties happening in the rest of the world. Also, I like how the use of the picture of Aung San Suu Kyi (I’m assuming that’s who it is…) being used as a dartboard in the background links it back to Cloud and his family. I can’t say I entirely understand the rose thing, but I’d assume it’s symbolic in some way. Anyways, probably one of my favorite strips. 🙂
I thought it came across as a little too strong at first—the woman sounded so fanatical that I thought she was just -joking- about the persecution, and that made the analogy seem very unfair.
So, it’s a tricky line: if you make the person sound less filled with righteous indignation then the analogy seems too strong, but if you fill ‘er up too much it can’t be assumed that she meant for it to be taken seriously.
It’s a great idea: but it could have admittedly been done better, possibly with more panels so that we got more of a feeling for the woman’s character and could better realize that she was actually very concerned about her supposed ‘persecution,’ and not just talking about it for the moment and then shrugging it off.
Btw: I think the rose is that man’s ‘exotic pet’–he tried to grow a rose, and it was unusual, so they arrested him.
The English language is not suited to express my feelings toward this comic. The fact that it’s implication was not immediately recieved is further evidence of how far removed from the rest of the world we are here in Western culture. Please, please, keep up the excellent work.
Gosh, I thought the strip was a little heavy handed until I saw some of the comments of people that still didn’t get it after being hit between the running lights… We in the West have lost the clue as to what words like “persicution”, Tourture, and opression mean. Being called names is not persicution, being made to strip naked is not tourture, being told you can’t wear a Turban in uniform is not opression. Being shot for your religion or your beliefs, that is persicution. Being fed feet first into a wood chipper by Sadam’s goons, that is tourture. Having your entire village whiped out because you don’t belong to the same SECT of a fanatical religion, that is opression.
“For War is like a Rose, beautiful to those who see it but know very little about it, and painful to those who handle it and live through it.”
im not a political expert, but this must be some sort of reference to persecution in burma. google maps is your friend. but why that particular street corner in taunggyi?
I think we were all a little thrown off by this one, but I appreciate that someone is trying to bring attention to the problems in Burma. I’m positive that’s Aung San Suu Kyi’s picture being used as a dartboard, just to clarify.
I love the quote that Raikov posted but I couldn’t find its source anywhere. Anyone know?
tailman says: but why that particular street corner in taunggyi?
A location given without arc seconds does not qualify a specific point on the map but, roughly, a block of houses. I do not know the location of any Burmese secret prison and I can’t read a single letter of Burmese, so I can’t even look for police stations or similar things on their official websites. (And Google can’t translate them for me either.) So I had to take an arbitrary location in a larger city in Shan State.
I agree with the interpretation that the last panel is illustrating the statement, “Oh, your persecution is so horrid, and I suppose in Burma they give roses to dissidents.” And really, no, they don’t give them roses, they shoot them with bullets. “Rose” is sarcasm for “bullet”… if that makes any sense.
At first I thought it was an euphorism for “Wake up and smell the roses”.
But the more I look at it, I think I agree with the idea that the man had the rose as an “exotic pet” and he is now being “brutally persecuted” for it.
Well, that or the burmese commander is just plain nuts. XD
20°47?N, 97°02?E is in Burma, a military controlled country. I can imagine it has lots of unjust persecutions and executions, since it’s military controlled, but I don’t know that for sure.
Has anyone else mentioned the knife behind the guy whose holding the rose?
Pretty self-explanatory.
The title of the comic is “The Rose Is A Bullet”, mentally replace the rose with a bullet and it gets much easier to understand the strip and the dark humor behind it.
I disagree that being called names isn’t persecution, it is….it’s just not BRUTAL persecution.
I’d like to think that the message is, we need to understand the levels of persecution and respond accordingly.
As an American, enjoying your toons, I was at first unsure about the final panel. The military junta in Burma isn’t a major news item here. Even in my neck of the woods, Berkeley, California. A closer look and it finally dawned.
There’s a mafia euphamism here in the states, which you probably know about, that whoever crosses the gang is given a black rose just before the hit goes out on them. For them it’s literally, the rose is a bullet.
flowers on a grave.. i used to live in Cambodia, back when Pol Pot had just taken power (i worked as a photographer, and was kicked out of the country fairly early on (i was lucky enough to be Russian, so they didn’t kill me), and one of the things i remember from Cambodia was being lined up against a wall along with a bunch of teachers, doctors and such. a little boy, no older then ten, came up and started putting flowers into the hands of all the Cambodians that were lined up alongside me. they started crying. those that were given a flower were then given a bullet in the head.
I think I get the joke now 🙂
The play I’m reading in English class, A Doll’s House, reminded me of this comic.
There’s two women talking, one mentions how her husband died, leaving her to take care of her children with no money, and the other responds with a story of how her husband got sick, so they got to take a trip to Italy. Cause you know, it’s just terrible to have to take a vacation in Italy