The text is a pretty clear, if flaccid, punch line regarding Serena Williams’s poor sportsmanship. It alludes to Serena being childish and angry (I’d argue that the text relies on racist, sexist tropes, too). Mark isn’t using the medium to support his joke by, say, depicting Serena as a baby, in which case the pacifier should have been more prominently featured. Using symbols. But Mark is also drawing from a different history of symbols here.

Source: New York Times September 11, 2018 05:02 UTC