Recursive Visual Intertextuality: A Novel Conceptual Blending Analysis of Cartoons Glorifying Football Celebrities

This study contributes to ongoing research on recursive visual intertextuality (RVI) in cartoons, also known as multimodal recycling, where visual or compositional themes recur in pairs or sets of cartoons resulting in the sharing of a common source frame or abstract schemata. Drawing upon Conceptual Blending Theory (Fauconnier, 2005, 2007; Fauconnier & Turner, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003; Turner, 2006, 2007, 2020), two novel configurations of integration networks are proposed to capture meaning construction in intertextually linked cartoons. The proposed configurations, namely collective and contrastive networks, match Abdel-Raheem’s (2019a, b) two basic types of multimodal recycling: same narrative and narrative shifting, respectively. The data comprises five sets of thematically grouped web-published sports cartoons depicting two iconic footballers, namely, Lionel Messi and Mo(hammed) Salah. The study intersects with the discourse of celebrity glorification/worship while revealing creative manipulations of RVI with links to globalized themes of idealization and idolization, endowing the two footballers with supernatural powers or God-like qualities. Compression of time and identity are shown to further contribute to glorification of the two footballers, mitigation of their responsibility for controversial issues/losses, and to negative presentation of their adversaries.