2009-12-31
Explanation
This comic is titled "Movie Phrases Don't Work in Real Life" and presents a single-panel scenario where a man uses the kind of heartfelt, sweeping rhetoric that typically works in movie climaxes, but applies it to a decidedly unromantic real-world situation. The man earnestly tells a woman: "Don't you see? There IS no alimony. The alimony... why... it's in your HEART." He is clearly trying to use the inspirational movie speech formula -- where a character reveals that the thing being sought was inside them all along -- to get out of paying alimony after a divorce.
The humor comes from the mismatch between the emotional movie trope and the hard legal reality. In films, this kind of speech would be accompanied by swelling music and tearful realization. In real life, telling your ex-spouse that alimony is a metaphorical concept residing in their heart would be absurd and completely ineffective in court.
The votey panel extends the joke with the same man adding "Also child support," indicating he is trying to use the same ridiculous rhetorical trick to dodge child support payments as well, doubling down on his delusional attempt to movie-logic his way out of financial obligations.