Rhetorical Strategy and Visual Art

I was recently at the hospital (for my little brother who broke his thumb snowboarding), where I noticed a sign that said "ANTIBIOTICS... kills bacteria NOT viruses." But it wasn't the caption that caught my attention, it was the visual animation it was displayed upon. The visual image was a cartoon. It had pictures of cartoon bacteria getting killed by antibiotics and cartoon viruses with a shield, showing that they are immune to the effects of the antibiotics. So below, I have some pictures similar to the cartoon I saw in the doctor's office, and then I also have pictures of what bacteria and viruses actually look like under a microscope.

Here's what viruses look like in the doctor's office:

Here's what viruses really look like:

Here's what bacteria looks like in the doctor's office:

Here's what bacteria really looks like:

Here’s what N1H1 looks like at the doctor's office:

Here’s what N1H1 really looks like:

So the way I see it, is that by reducing the immediacy of the images presented to patients, you essentially "euphemize" an image, or make what is really scary and essentially deadly, appear almost silly and controllable; that is a rhetorical strategy employed in visual art.