So I’ve been kind of shocked lately at the vaguely anti-Obama sentiment that seems to be coming out of the New York Times.  I mean, this is Teh Most Librul Paper In Teh World, right?  They endorse, nay, rubber-stamp, every Democrat ever, right?  What’s with all the Jamacane cheerleading?

With this New Yorker cover, though, it’s just become patently obvious. 

Even Good Liberal Publications can still be racist.

Here, here. We’ve already seen that the Muslim/Marxist/Radical/Terrorist/fill-in-the-blank is the meme that will not die among the Base. The willfully ignorant will not see that cover as satire. It says more about the insular nature of the New Yorker editors and the artist—who clearly do not understand the depth of racism (because we know that this Muslim nonsense is a cover for) and fear out there driven by ignorance that is blind to what the NY folks think is satire. It all feels like the pathetic attempt to call this a “post-racial” election.

“McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.””

“...It’s the best thing to happen in weeks.  When we saw that cover, we all started screaming with excitement. We couldn’t have received a better gift from those East Coast liberal assholes.  For some reason, they must really want Obama to lose...”

I think it’s pretty funny no matter how it plays in Red States.  Obama and Michelle in the Oval Office doing a fist bump, she in camo and boots, he in Somali clothes, Osama over the fireplace, a flag in the fire--that’s really what some think and that’s pretty fucking funny!  The only quibble I’d have is that no true wingnut would dream of her having a Kalashnikov in DC, Heller decision notwithstanding.

Mocking sometimes requires imitation.  Just ask the fine folks at No Quarter about recent posts at Firedoglake to explain.  No, probably better if you don’t.  Let someone else do it, lest you become tainted with absurdity.

Pam, the willfully ignorant will always be among us.  We probably shouldn’t teach sex ed, since the willfully ignorant won’t understand and still get into trouble.  We probably shouldn’t allow guns or knives anywhere, since the willfully ignorant will misuse them.  No cars, since the willfully ignorant can’t drive well.  No subversive texts, since the willfully ignorant will always fall under their sway.  And no mixing of the races, since the willfully ignorant might get angry.  The willfully ignorant are out there, need to be mocked, and need to have their ignorance stuck in their face now and then.  This cover does a bit of that, even if it makes some uncomfortable.

Discomfort is part of living in a free society.  You make some uncomfortable because you are a lesbian, black, feminist, not thin, outspoken, and maybe even for the glasses.  I won’t tell you to stop doing what you do for fear of the reactions of the willfully ignorant, since I’m sure you know enough about them.

And calling it an attempt to declare this a post-racial election?  I see only the opposite: this is the New Yorker saying loudly and clearly that Obama is being attacked for absurd racial bullshit.

I see only the opposite: this is the New Yorker saying loudly and clearly that Obama is being attacked for absurd racial bullshit.

Put that same cover on the cover of the National Review, and is it a loud and clear statement about Obama being attacked?  Or is it just Obama being attacked?

It’s exactly like Jesse says. This is not satire, this is a statement. Satire is the excuse for the New Yorker to publish this. They said this about the muslim cartoons too, and it is a far-right magazine that published them, and then tried to call them “satire”. It was racism then, it is racism now.

If the cover had been of an identifiable right-wing person nailing a copy of the same picture of the Obamas to a wall, or in any other way signalled that the picture was supposed to be interpreted as a right-wing thing, I could agree with the people defending it. As Jesse said, if you swap the magazine title, it becomes stupid and hateful.

I agree, whatever else this is, it sure isn’t good satire.

Pretty much agree wholeheartedly. I think the reaction is a tad overblown, but this was a really ham fisted approach to addressing the Obama smears perpetuated by the far right.

Maybe the New Yorker needs to go take Satire 101 again.

Put that same cover on the cover of the National Review, and is it a loud and clear statement about Obama being attacked?  Or is it just Obama being attacked?

Ummm… the context pretty much defines satire.  If it’s on the cover of the national review the context is of a publication aimed at right wingers that regularly traffics in absurd smears.  On the cover of the New Yorker the context is of a magazine that caters to highbrow liberals, that regularly publishes very dry satire, and whose audience who knows damn well that Obama is a christian.

The lefty freak out over this is really disconcerting.  The way you kill an absurd smear is with contempt and mockery.  Freaking out over it just gives it credibility.

It needs a Fox News banner along the bottom announcing an Obama presidency.

Miss Spaulding wrote:

We’ve already seen that the Muslim/Marxist/Radical/Terrorist/fill-in-the-blank is the meme that will not die among the Base.

I have some difficulty in seeing The New Yorker as a house organ or usual read of the Republican base. 

But it is funny to see y’all squirm, when we know that you’d be laughing if something similar was done to John McCain.

Of course, my real question is: how did Hillary Clinton manage to get this done?

Is the utterance of “nigger” in Blazing Saddles the same as saying “nigger” in a rap video or a skinhead tune?  Is a vulva in a medical textbook the same as in Hustler or L’Origine du Monde?Context means a lot.  Maybe not everything, but a lot.

To paraphrase “Ghostbusters”

“The religious right! We’re ready to believe you!”

The fact that is on the front of The New Yorker, which is clearly a magazine with liberal sympathies if you’ve ever read it, confirms its satire.

However, how many people in Peoria read The New Yorker or know its political leanings? I’d say not many. Its not exactly USA Today.

This isn’t the first time they’ve gotten in hot water with their overs. Anyone else remember the cover after the 1993 WTC attacks?

Jesse, I really disagree with you about the cartoon.

Put that same cover on the cover of the National Review, and is it a loud and clear statement about Obama being attacked?  Or is it just Obama being attacked?

In a certain sense, it really doesn’t matter.  The point of the cartoon is that the candidate the GOP is running against doesn’t really exist.  They’re running against the non-existent guy in the cartoon, and his non-existent wife, not the real Michelle and Barack Obama.  Now, if you believe that this cartoon accurately depicts the Obamas, you’ll be unlikely to vote for them (unless that’s what you want from a First Couple, of course).  But if you think it’s a ridiculous, absurd depiction that has no connection to reality, then the cartoon will tend to make you discount the whisper campaign against Obama as utterly ridiculous.

We’ve already seen that the Muslim/Marxist/Radical/Terrorist/fill-in-the-blank is the meme that will not die among the Base. The willfully ignorant will not see that cover as satire.

Pam, that’s what makes them the Base—their support is inflexible and unconditioned on any change or on the nature of reality.

The point of satire isn’t to convert extremists.  It’s to marginalize them.  And if the whisper campaign folks admit that this cartoon accurately represents their true assessment of Michelle and Barack Obama, they will have gone a long way to marginalizing themselves.

“But it is funny to see y’all squirm, when we know that you’d be laughing if something similar was done to John McCain.”

Dana, you’re wrong.

If a magazine cover used a cartoon featuring plot points from The Manchurian Candidate (which starts to approach the level of shear nastiness on the New Yorker cover), implying that McCain is a secret Chinese agent who has benefited from assassinations and murders to set up his rise to power, I don’t think there are many who would fail to see how awful and unfair that would be.

Speaking for myself, I don’t want McCain in office.  But that doesn’t mean anything goes.  Trashing him in a really unfair and prejudiced way is not acceptable, any more than the whisper campaign and other looney attacks against Obama are.

If there are real issues to be used, use them.  If you have to make up a bunch of crap about how secretly evil somebody is, it just shows you don’t have real issues to argue…

The National Review couldn’t get away with using that cover precisely because they’re a conservative magazine.

But it is funny to see y’all squirm, when we know that you’d be laughing if something similar was done to John McCain.

Nope.  If you look back at my writing, you’ll notice that I’ve actually talked about ways that are inappropriate to attack McCain.

I mean, I understand that you get to claim the mantle of “Common Sense” by saying that both sides do everything, but pull your head out of your ass.

Well, it’s not very funny. But why get your knickers in a twist ? New Yorker covers are never funny. They are not supposed to be. That is the kind of inside joke about them.
I wonder if the level of sophistication around these parts isn’t rather low.
Oh I’m just SO indignant and all that.

If a magazine cover used a cartoon featuring plot points from The Manchurian Candidate (which starts to approach the level of shear nastiness on the New Yorker cover), implying that McCain is a secret Chinese agent who has benefited from assassinations and murders to set up his rise to power, I don’t think there are many who would fail to see how awful and unfair that would be.

MikeEss, that cartoon would in no way be comparable to the Obama cartoon because there hasn’t been a massive smear campaign directed at McCain accusing him of being a Manchurian candidate.  The only mini-rumor campaigns against McCain involve his temper and his cheating on his wives, and maybe some run-of-the-mill corruption stuff.  I suppose an equivalent cartoon on him would exaggerate those to the point of absurdity, if it could. 

This cartoon isn’t an endorsement of racist attacks on Obama, any more than Dr. Stragelove, was an endorsement of paranoid Bircher rants about water fluoridation.

Alright guys, honest:

If the National Review had a cover showing John McCain maniacally laughing while launching nuclear missiles from the White House, with waterboarded prisoners in the background, what would be your reaction?

There ya go, Ben D.!  That’s way better than my ideas on the hypothetical McCain cartoon.

The only way to avoid getting pinned on a reductio ad absurdum like this is to say, “No, obviously that’s not what I’m talking about.  All I’m saying is...Obama’s untested/McCain has no plan to end the war.”

If you reply to the McCain cartoon by telling people that McCain’s opposers are the ones who think Mr. Maverick is a Bond villain, then people will tend not to want to join the group of McCain opposers.  You have to assert your critique of McCain’s warmongering without making people feel it’s as absurd as the cartoon.

If the National Review had a cover showing John McCain maniacally laughing while launching nuclear missiles from the White House, with waterboarded prisoners in the background, what would be your reaction?

The thing is, Ben - my thing, anyway; as for the actual cartoon my knickers are still nicely smooth - that the National Review wouldn’t do that. Or if they did, they would run some sort of headline making it clear what they were doing.

But the real problem I have with all this is that your example is not precisely equivalent. To really make your hypothetical McCain cartoon the equal of the New Yorker’s bit, McCain would have to be hitting his wife with his free hand while pressing that red nuclear button, and above his head would be a thought bubble with a rendition of him being tortured by the Vietnamese.

Think about what would happen if someone even CONSIDERED running that as a “satire” on what “some people” are saying about McCain, and you’ll see what’s bothering me.

The New Yorker doesn’t do headlines, so they can’t explain it. They trust the reader to be smart enough to figure it out their covers.

I don’t think low information swing voters in Dullsville, Michigan are going to be influenced by this. I doubt they even know what The New Yorker is. I do think, however, there will be a lot of high information liberals offended by The New Yorker (not a smart move, considering this is their subscriber base) and a lot of hooting and hollering from political junkies in the blogosphere and cable news pundits.

The rest of the population will barely notice it, its impact on the campaign will be close to zero.

How about for a followup they do a cover of McCain getting a blowjob from the Statue of Liberty, naked but for an American flag inspired thong? Or putting it to her on the desk in the Oval Office?

Because if he’s in, we’re all fucked.

Note to the New Yorker:
Merely repeating the silliness is not satirizing the silliness.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

I am so tired of people who can’t tell a joke to save their lives telling me that my stone face is a sign of no sense of humour.  No, fool, you just suck at what you’re trying to do.

Merely repeating the silliness is not satirizing the silliness.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Well, I suppose there were some Birchers who found the character of General Jack D. Ripper a moving portrayal of a dedicated military man who was finally telling the truth about the connection between the International Communist Conspiracy and the sapping of our precious bodily fluids through the nefarious plot to fluoridate our water.

But most viewers think that the movie is making fun of those people.

“Take the New Yorker header off, and you’ve got something that could go up at any number of county Republican Parties with no alteration whatsoever.”

Right. But it DOES have the New Yorker header.  I actually laughed out loud when I saw the cover.  Particularly the flag in the fireplace.  It’s totally ridiculous and actually captures pretty well the insanity that people BELIEVE those things about Obama.  I guess the buzz on the left over the picture shows how effectively the right has moved the bar.  It’s absurd that any of the rumors captured in the cover would be taken seriously about a presidential candidate, but there you go. The right has changed the rules so much that instead of laughing about how ridiculous it is, progressives are outraged, just outraged that the New Yorker is legitimizing the absurdity coming out of the right.  Call me unconvinced. 

I think the cover is funny, but I think it’s sad our dialogue has deteriorated to the point that the Obama campaign feels it has to respond to it.

Well, I suppose there were some Birchers who found the character of General Jack D. Ripper a moving portrayal of a dedicated military man who was finally telling the truth about the connection between the International Communist Conspiracy and the sapping of our precious bodily fluids through the nefarious plot to fluoridate our water.

You mean that he wasn’t?  I may have to rethink both my sense of humour and the TURGIDSON ‘08! sign that I just painted on the side of my house.

I too, hope for an equally ‘satiric’ cover of John McCain.  I doubt it will happen.

What Pansy P said about the bullshit becoming so mainstream that one has to deal with it right away. 

Cross-references:
Internet, Al Gore and
Swiftboat, John Kerry and
Foster, Vince, Hilary Clinton and
Further cross-references, Index, pages 76 to 984.

“I too, hope for an equally ‘satiric’ cover of John McCain.  I doubt it will happen.”

It will happen on the front of The New Yorker. Trust me.

I too, hope for an equally ‘satiric’ cover of John McCain.  I doubt it will happen.

And it’s Jean for the Win.  The problem is less the cover and more the fact that nasty shit like this only goes mainstream on progressives and Democrats.  It’s easy to say, “get a sense of humour” if you’re never the one on the receiving end of this shit.

I think that the New Yorker would have been wise to ponder why Chris Rock never does his “black people and niggers” routine any more: too many white people were liking it waaaaay to much which led to him deciding that just doing the routine was doing the exact opposite of what he set out to do.

Works for me. Pretty much on target.

“The main problem with the image is that there’s absolutely no indication of satire involved.”

What world do you live in?  In my world, Michelle Obama is not a militant panther who walks around in camo with a rifle slung over her shoulder and an afro.  Barack Obama does not idolize Osama bin Laden or burn American flags in his fireplace.  He may have worn traditional dress when in Africa, but I’m not aware that he’s ever done so on the floor of the Senate.

Satire often works by depicting things as they are not.  That is why your comparison of satirizing a KKK rally by enacting an exaggerated KKK rally fails. 

Unless you believe that what the image depicts is spot on accurate, the whole thing is an indication of satire.

It’s no defense to say that right wingers might put up a similar poster in their offices.  For that matter, cannibals who like to eat babies or make gloves from their skin might keep copies of “A Modest Proposal” hanging around.

Bloggers and mainstream media alike are wasting an opportunity to discuss the dire state of our political discourse in this modern media age, which this cartoon satirizes by casting all of the right wing noise machine’s myths in graphic form to demonstrate how overwhelmingly ludicrous they are.  Stop wringing your hands about whether it’s over the line and start focusing on the media that jumps to the dramatic politics of personal attack/offense instead of substantive discussion and analysis.

For me, the problem with the cover is that it will let right-wingers play the “Even the liberal media” game.  As in, “See, even the Liberal New Yorker agrees that Obama is a secret Muslim!” Because, of course, they’re going to be telling their constituency this without mentioning the whole satire part.

I guarantee you that by the time it gets to Rush Limbaugh and out onto the talk radio waves, the story will be that the Liberal New Yorker ran a story about Obama being a secret Muslim who hates America, which therefore proves everything that the right-wingers have been saying about him.

“I guarantee you that by the time it gets to Rush Limbaugh and out onto the talk radio waves, the story will be that the Liberal New Yorker ran a story about Obama being a secret Muslim who hates America, which therefore proves everything that the right-wingers have been saying about him.”

So what?  The people who consume that swill won’t vote for Obama anyway.

It’s a pathetic attempt at satire.  But I don’t get how this cover is going to add fuel to the fire, as some have claimed.  What are the wingers going to say?  “See. see. Even the New Yorker agrees that they’re terrorists?”

The wingers would be better off (hypocritically) attacking the New Yorker for being racist, because everyone knows that liberals and anyone who criticizes racism are the real racists.

I just read Michael Shaw’s piece on this at HuffPo; he noticed something that I’d missed.

Michelle Obama’s legs are crossed.  Why?  There’s no reason in the picture for that.  Indeed, such an off-balance kinda vulnerable stance is at odds with the revolutionary garb the artist has cloaked her in.  Perhaps the artist is sending the message that “she don’t put out, them angry feminist bitches never do”?  Given that there are a million neuroses out their about women with minds of their own cutting their men off from the puss-ay (’cause the bitter, bitter bitches don’t enjoy sex, they just enjoy men not gettin’ any, right?) the pose had to be deliberate.

And no, it’s not satire, period.  Satire mocks foolishness, it does not enshrine it by a tone-perfect repetition.

sweetmachine and SKM got it over at Shakesville:

If the Obama cover is basically indistinguishable from a right-wing smear job, then it is failed satire. --sweetmachine

Exactly. This is an epic FAIL because as sweetmachine and hysperia say, the apparent “object” of the humor is the Obamas rather than the people who malign them.

You lose, New Yorker [SKM]

I do think, however, there will be a lot of high information liberals offended by The New Yorker (not a smart move, considering this is their subscriber base) and a lot of hooting and hollering from political junkies in the blogosphere and cable news pundits.

I think the bottom line is that they are aware on some level that their subscriber base, while nominally liberal, is ultimately not that clued in about racism and xenophobia and thus will find it “funny” in the same way that stupid hipsters find Vice Magazine funny.  In fact it wouldn’t entirely surprise me to know that they did this on purpose, trying to appeal to a new generation of readers who, as any focus group will tell you, want everything to be “snarky” and “ironic”.  Even when it isn’t. 

Most readers of the New Yorker are not typically any less racist than your average red state resident, they just don’t shout it out from the rooftops .  They don’t want to think of themselves as racist, and they enjoy tarring Southerners as Klan members because it makes them feel better about how “well-meaning” they are.  They enjoy patting themselves on the back for things like the civil rights movement (they were 4 years old in New Jersey during the Selma march) and hiphop (they hate all “gangsta rap”, though, and don’t allow their children to listen to it in the house). 

This is kind of like if Maxim did an explicitly and egregiously misogynist cover.  They’d defend themselves by calling it “satire”, except that the bulk of Maxim’s readers are anti-feminist and enjoying the content at face value.  Even if they don’t want to come right out and admit it.

Alright, folks, I found a pretty close equivalent cover from one of the magazines I read (a paleocon rag) satarizing a neocon (Rudy Giuliani):

http://amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_14/cover.html

Scroll down to see the large version.

Is that offensive?

Not sure I’d consider it satire, but if you want a liberal magazine publishing an offensive cartoon of McCain, here you go:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/21129038/full_metal_mccain

(rubs closed eyes with finger and thumbs ... long sigh)

Ben D: the American Conservative shot is fair game because Rudy Guiliani is an authoritarian who favoured—and used—expanded police powers, and made that “speak democratic, act command!” philosophy a key to selling himself; riffs on what he was and is and what he brings up himself are not unfair.

Calderon: the Rolling Stone shot is fair game because McCain hasn’t stopped peddling his POW time since he entered politics, and has used it to sell a story that said experience makes him more qualified than his current domestic opponents; riffs on what he was and is and what brings up himself are not unfair.

Riffs on things that have no grounding in reality except in certain people’s crazed and racist delusions are not fair, and not acceptable.  Obama isn’t running around and saying “my time in a Maddrassa will make me a better president!” nor has Michelle a past of blowing up things to advance a socialist revolution.

The best comments I read about it are two-fold -
1 - it unfortunatlye draws attention away from and trivializes the very real concerns a lot of people have with Obama as a candidate - his inexperience, thin resume, flip-flops, radio-active associations and so on

2 - The Obama camp’s objections to the cover are a smart move, designed to take attention away from Lizza’s article which is none too flattering

Apparently the NYer is now robo-responding to email with a definition of satire...too funny.

Both you guys (Ben D. at 2:04 and Calderon at 2:10) are getting the exact opposite of the point: Neither of those cartoons are satire. Both of them accompany stories that are congruent with what the cartoons suggest. In neither case are they “putting the smears out there so everyone can see how ridiculous they are.” In neither case are they pulling back and saying “hey, hey, can’t you all take a joke?”

I don’t find the New Yorker cover offensive. I find it failed satire.

And while some here are offering the (presumed) mostly liberal makeup of The New Yorker as context, I say that’s exactly the point: Anyone who thinks The New Yorker would run something like the McCain cartoon Calderon links to, or the hypothetical cartoon I described above, stand on your head. If it’s about a Democrat, go ahead and take a slap. If it’s about a conservative Republican, whoa whoa - let’s slow down and think about what kind of message we’re sending here.

Rick, The New Yorker has had some pretty unflattering covers of Republicans.

Dick Cheney as a jack-o-lantern. Larry Craig playing footsie in a bathroom stall with Ahmadenijad. Those are just two that come to mind.

Ben D.: are there really people out there who believe that Cheney is a carved pumpkin or that Craig and Ahmanenijad are going to be in a stall together?  And are those folks say, burning and the blogsphere up Fox with allegations to that effect?  No.  I wish we could say the same about the “Muslim” and “Terrorist Fist Jab” (etc.) nonsense.  In the other cartoons the humorous or parodic or satiric intent and result is clear, and may or may not be found funny, but at least it “works” on a comedy level. 

This cover is like me doing a routine in a comedy club and saying “niggers steal things”, “wives are shrews”, and “god, Jamaicans hate to work”, and that’s all.  It ain’t funny and I have no standing whatsoever to say “but I’m not really a racist or sexist, surely you know me and know that that was irony!” and even less standing to frown at the audience and say things like “jeez, it’s a joke, ya got no sense of humour!” or “I’m just like Chris Rock, why aren’t you laughing?”

The cover was repetition of the slander, not a satire thereof.

I don’t think it’s offensive. It doesn’t work, because it’s a typical New Yorker cartoon, all bloodless and self-congratulatory. “Oh, these political smears, it’s such a base world we’re forced to live in, pip pip.” An artist with guts, and I can think of fifty or so, could have really made this happen, give it some emotional heft.

Rick—as I noted in my comment, I doubt the McCain cartoon is satire.  My post was mainly a response to Jean’s post that “I too, hope for an equally ‘satiric’ cover of John McCain.  I doubt it will happen.” By the scare quotes around “satiric,” I assume Jean does not think the New Yorker cover was really satire, and I was giving an example of a non-satiric illustration regarding McCain that I thought was at least as offensive as the New Yorker cover read not as satire.

Seeker—could you give some citation where MCain himself claims that his experience as a POW makes him more qualified on foreign issues than other?  Also, I doubt you really believe what you say about “riffs on what he was and is and what brings up himself are not unfair.” Obama clearly has used his biracial heritage such as in the Rev. Wright speech; if someone riff off of that heritage by parodying it, would that riff be okay simply because it is what Obama “was and is and what brings up himself” regardless of the content of that riff?

At this point, the conversation seems to have boiled down to an “Is!” “Isn’t!” exchange, and I’m not sure where to take it from here.

But I will say this about the campaign in general.

Folks, an African-American man is running for President, and he’s the very strong favorite to win.  Let me repeat that.  AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN MAN IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, AND HE’S THE VERY STRONG FAVORITE TO WIN.

This is a country whose presidential campaigns have been defined by racism, from the Southern Strategy, to Philadelphia Mississippi and “welfare queens” to Willie Horton and Sistah Souljah—even when the only candidates were white men!

How could anyone think that electing a black man President of the United States would be groundbreaking and historic, and not expect stuff like this to pop up?  If you want to grind down some portion of American racism, you’d better expect a lot of sparks.

I personally took and take this cartoon as satire, and think it successfully targets the wingnuts’ idiocies and could help isolate their racism from the mainstream by (accurately) characterizing them as deranged.  But even if you don’t take it that way, I think you need to make sure your outrage meter is recalibrated for this election.  It’s going to be unbelievably ugly.

If this were an SNL skit doing the exact same thing as The New Yorker cover, would anyone care?

Evidently I’m a stupid hipster because I interpreted it as reductio ad absurdum.

But then again I’ve been running around like Gabby Johnson since Sen. Obama looked inevitable for the Democratic nomination yelling “The President is a n<GONG>!”

Calderon:  You’re kidding about the POW thing, right? 

I have a simple rule for responding to such queries: if I’m citing something obscure or which palpably requires backing then I provide a link or a citation; if somebody asks me to cite and prove something that is commonly known and easily found (for example, by doing “a Google” or simple search on YouTube) then I ask them to take their hoop elsewhere because I’m not jumping through it.

As for your riff question, you’re kinda missing the very big point that I’ve heard called “where a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind”.  We are not talking about a riff on Obama being biracial.  We are talking about a totally unfunny cover of a major magazine including every single right wing paranoid fear and gutter talking point.

If this were an SNL skit doing the exact same thing as The New Yorker cover, would anyone care?

Nobody watches, so no.  People do read the New Yorker.

Amalgamating all of these right wing slurs together does a wonderful job of showing how silly the right wing is in making them.  Can they continue to make the slurs in the wake of this cover?  Sure, but they marginalize themselves as raving lunatics if they do.  Unless you believe that the picture accurately depicts the Obamas--and Darwin help those who do--it’s effective satire.  Period.

ok, what if Stephen Colbert did this?

ok, what if Stephen Colbert did this?

Er, well in that case the understood context would be that a well known satarist had presented the graphic and so that would be the context. Context that was not included on the New Yorker’s cover (I know they don’t do words… so they chose not to add context)

Ben D., the presentation of it on Colbert would in and of itself scream SATIRE BY MEANS OF PARODIC EXAGGERATION!  This is just a cover of a magazine that does both parodic and “straight” pictures.

Repetition of a slur is not parody, it’s not satire, it’s repetition.  And, as noted above, it’s a game where only Dems are permitted to be targets.  Do you HONESTLY think that a cover, say, showing McCain surrounded by endless videos, ads, posters etc of his POW meme and selling them like cheap geegaws at a county fair snakeoil stand would get published?  No.  And if unicorn-land did intrude and make it happen would we not be seeing endless mainstream howls of outrage at the purported insult to the man’s service, as we were pained to see when Wesley Clark expressed his opinion on the matter?  It’s exactly that sense that if they were to do so they would be howled down that prevents this from happening. 

What the New Yorker has done here is the cover equivalent of making a really offensive joke in a bar to a really small guy you can kick the crap out of.  They wouldn’t make such a joke to the guy who has several large gentlemen behind them cracking their knuckles, and the fourteen drunken journalists standing by the bar eager to run out the door and do pieces about what a complete asshole you are for making the joke.

and apologies for using the word “context” too often there. proof-reading is your friend… le-sigh

Ben D. “ok, what if Stephen Colbert did this?”

Given that Stephen Colbert’s show is a parody of O’Reilly, this would be very suitable.  Colbert would praise the image, and thus the overall focus would be on extreme conservatives spreading/believing such ideas.  When divorced from a context of who spreads/believes these lies about the Obama’s, the picture is no longer satire; it’s just offensive.

This is where we part ways, I guess.

I think the presence of the title of the magazine is enough for most people to realize its not serious, just as if it were on Colbert. But theres room for disagreement on that point, I admit.

New Yorker covers are very, very, VERY rarely “straight” covers. They’re usually making fun of something or other.

Seeker—I’m not kidding about McCain saying PoW-equals-better-foreign-policy experience.  I Googled it and checked his website but didn’t find it.  If it’s so “commonly known and easily found,” I’m sure you or someone else can point me to where McCain actually said that (as opposed to some critic imputing it to him).

As far as the riff thing goes, my point was that your statement that “riffs on what he was and is and what brings up himself are not unfair” is wrong, since one can imagine riffs based on what a candidate said that could still be considered improper or offensive.  Parodying someone who was actually tortured with a cartoon of others torturing him seems worse (as in more offensive) to me than even a failed satire about falsehoods regarding a candidate. 

Also, on the main point of the thread, I don’t understand how your response to Ben D. about Colbert squares with the rest of your argument.  If this illustration appearing on Colbert would scream parody because of the context, then why wouldn’t the illustration on the cover of the New Yorker or another liberal magazine equally scream parody since observers knowledgeable of the magazine would know that would not publish it as a straight statement?

from shakesville:
juliemania:"WND daily crowed will be buying up the magazine just to frame the cover.”
bettyboondoggle: “Pretty much the clearest proof of how made of fail this “sartirical” cover is.”

Bingo.  If fringe lunatics think that you’re a-okay and reporting, not parodying, then you have completely failed.

Calderon, I think that you are being deliberately obtuse. 

Regarding McCain and POW it took me all of fifteen seconds to find two different ads produced by the McCain campaign.

Regarding Colbert: you can’t possibly be so obtuse as to be unable to see the difference between a pure satire show, with a self-selecting audience on the one hand and a magazine that does straight reporting on the other, a magazine whose cover is visible to millions upon millions of people who walk by newsstands, bookstores, magazine racks and the likes, people who may never buy the magazine or even know of its allegedly liberal bent or of its tendency towards satire, people looking at a magazine that also does “straight” covers.  You simply cannot be that dense.

Re-read what I said about hoops.

Well first of all, if Colbert did it it would be a full sketch of a minute or two with some explanation (sarcastic/satiric) around it, in which you can say and do a whole lot more because - well, obviously, you have words to work with; a lot of them.

Which isn’t to say that it would or wouldn’t be funny; I just don’t think that comparison can directly be made.

And of course I don’t think the illustration is or means to be accurate, but as someone on another site said, it’s an excuse for Our Media Stars to use “Obama” and “Muslim” and “terrorist” and “burning flag” in the same sentence for another week, some of which can sink in even subliminally.

Look, like I said before, my knickers are not in a twist. It ain’t satire; judged on its stated intentions it’s failed satire.

Put it this way - will it actually work? Will there actually be fewer of these smears because of this cover? Will anyone stop spreading smear e-mails because “Oh SNAP that New Yorker cover made me look stupid”?

Please.

“Put it this way - will it actually work? Will there actually be fewer of these smears because of this cover? Will anyone stop spreading smear e-mails because “Oh SNAP that New Yorker cover made me look stupid”?

Please.”

Can’t the same be said about this site and the things it fights against?

it’s an excuse for Our Media Stars to use “Obama” and “Muslim” and “terrorist” and “burning flag” in the same sentence for another week, some of which can sink in even subliminally.

Bingo. Responsible security guards don’t give house keys to burglars.  Responsible journalists don’t give validation and amplification to wingnut talking points.

I’m just going to go outside, now, and puke at my own use of the word “responsible journalists”.  Now we’re talking unicorns.

“Regarding McCain and POW it took me all of fifteen seconds to find two different ads produced by the McCain campaign.”

And the links for those would be ...?

As for Colbert, not sure why you’d think it’s audience is self-selecting any more than the New Yorker.  You can come across Colbert flipping channels the same way you’d come across the New Yorker in a magazine stand.

Can’t the same be said about this site and the things it fights against?

Well, sure, but once you go down the “what’s the point?” road you always “win,” I guess.

Besides, as much as we’ve been pooh-poohing the New Yorker on this thread, any one of us would love to reach as many people.

Why isn’t this just in the nature of unmasking the boogeyman?  Whatever happened to “naming” the evil that confronts you in order to deprive it of its mythic power?  The New Yorker offered the true “name” of the right wing slurs.  Taking the slurs on like this doesn’t increase their power.  The cartoon isn’t repeating them: it’s unmasking them.

So what?  The people who consume that swill won’t vote for Obama anyway.

Because Rush Limbaugh is considered a perfectly respectable source by journalists, and it will free AP, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, etc. to play the “some people say” game.  “Some people say Obama is a secret Muslim, but his campaign denies the allegations.”

Imagine for a minute if in 2004 the New Yorker had run a cover that had a cartoon of John Kerry in Vietnam shooting himself in the arm while fighting goes on in the distance.  Would that be “defanging” that meme, or would it be continuing it?

Roy Edroso has some good coverage of where the conservative bloggers have been going with this.

From Instapundit:  “IF OBAMA LOSES, THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WILL BE that it was because sleazy rightwingers portrayed him as a Muslim terrorist sympathizer.

“When that happens, show ‘em this New Yorker cover and remind ‘em that The New Yorker is not generally regarded as a right-wing publication.”

If this were an SNL skit doing the exact same thing as The New Yorker cover, would anyone care?

Probably not, because the context would be understood due to the simple fact that the entire point of SNL is as satire. 

I don’t know if anyone who’s contributed to the “totally satire, guys!” camp of this thread has ever read The New Yorker, but it’s not a longer and glossier version of The Onion (would that it were, though).  It’s straight journalism, features, and literary short fiction, with a few “funny” cartoons which generally aren’t satirical in the way that SNL, The Daily Show, South Park, and Steven Colbert are satirical.

I can’t get over what another commenter pointed out - that Michelle’s legs are crossed. Why??? Is there another possible meme besides “frosty ice queen”? The stance doesn’t fit with her militant garb, it’s just awkward.

I actually find it very offensive that they put Michelle in there at all. Why do they keep talking about her, and asking (on FOX) why she is ‘bitter’? I thought the right-wing talking points during the Clinton administration was that the wife doesn’t matter, so why keep harping on her? Why not harp on Cindy? I haven’t heard anything about her since the “recipegate” and the tax returns and that was (measured in election time) YEARS ago.

I really don’t think this is a ‘reclaiming’. Usually you only reclaim slurs that have a basis in truth, but with good reason. (Like reclaiming ‘bitches’ for feminism because, yeah, we’re angry - not because we aren’t men, but because we don’t like being marginalized.) You don’t really ‘reclaim’ the idea that you’re a terrorist Muslim when you’re really a patriotic American.

I read The New Yorker for years, Opoponax.  While there is some straight reporting, there are also regular satirical features.  And there is often an arch or urbane tone in articles.  I think that most readers of The New Yorker are equipped to identify satire and irony without the aid of big neon signs that say “GET ME!  I’M IRONIC!” Yeah, like rain on your wedding day.

And what of Colbert’s press club dinner roast of Pres. Bush?  Is that “failed satire” also because many people in attendance didn’t laugh or thought it crossed the line and wasn’t funny, as was widely reported at the time?  I don’t think so.

The idea, obviously, is to take the smears against Obama and show how absurd they really are.  “So, you believe Obama’s a closet Muslim, and this concerns you because… [this] might happen?”

It is really very distressing to me that anyone could look at this image and see anything but satire.  It just shows how low the smear merchants have gone, if this image is considered “failed satire” because it’s too close to the actual smears.  (Why don’t any of the “democratic strategist” numskulls the news networks stick on the teevee make THAT point, I wonder...) I don’t really see the point of going after the New Yorker for failing to see how bad the smears really are, but they probably should have known better just the same.

Thinking about it more, I’m definitely not outraged at the New Yorker.  I can’t even get it through my head why I’m supposed to be outraged at the New Yorker.  I’m outraged at the smear merchants who have made it so that stuff like this isn’t immediately recognizable as satire.  Being outraged at the New Yorker over this (Kossacks are claiming to be canceling subscriptions in droves) seems to me like being outraged at Dave Chappelle because his show was a hit among white racists (which is, as far as I understand it, why Dave Chappelle quit his own show and fled the country in despair).

“And what of Colbert’s press club dinner roast of Pres. Bush?  Is that “failed satire” also because many people in attendance didn’t laugh or thought it crossed the line and wasn’t funny, as was widely reported at the time?  I don’t think so.”

George Bush was the direct target of Colbert’s satire.

With the New Yorker picture (and article I assume), Barack Obama is not the target.  Rather, the target is the amorphous people out there who believe these things about Obama even though they are incorrect.

I think there’s enough indirection to confuse many into believing it’s a direct attack on Obama.  And not because they all do or do not subscribe to The New Yorker.  People hear and see what they want to hear and see.

I imagine if the cover had instead (a few years back) featured a cartoon of Saddam Hussein flying an airplane into the WTC, and parachuting out just before impact.  The target of the mockery would be those who (to this very day) believe the essential “truth” depicted in that picture, even though it had no basis in fact.  The believers would just see it as reinforcement of what they already believe.  And it would fail as “satire"…

George Bush was the direct target of Colbert’s satire.

Actually, the press corps themselves were the direct target, which is why so many of them declared it Not Funny—it cut a little too close to the bone for comfort.

I think you’ve correctly diagnosed the problem, though:  what target is this satire trying to hit?  If the artist can’t say that with precision, it’s failed as a satire.

IMHO this might qualify as “You’re Not Helping,” but it’s a pretty clear case of over-the-top exaggeration for satirical effect.  The burning flag in the fireplace clinches it.

I can’t get over what another commenter pointed out - that Michelle’s legs are crossed. Why???

It’s been a while since I saw the original fist-bump photo.  What’s her body position there?

The image has a title, provided inside the magazine, which makes it clear that the image is a paranoid fantasy.  Cover:  ‘The Politics of Fear,’ Barry Blitt

Pesto,

Glad, but not surprised, to see that you’re fighting the good fight on this one!

(How was the birthday bash, btw?)

It seems to me that the target of the satire is perfectly obvious.  It doesn’t require the most perspicacious eye to see that. 

What most of the blog commentary I’ve read so far amounts to is just the left wing flavor of what the right wing directed at museums that had the “audacity” to display Mapplethorpe’s photos.  Or installations showing the American flag being flushed down a toilet.  Those kinds of pressures on art, free speech, and the exploration of ideas just aren’t warranted.

“Regarding McCain and POW it took me all of fifteen seconds to find two different ads produced by the McCain campaign.”

And the links for those would be ...?

If you are too stupid to find them then you’re too stupid to engage with.  Hoops, remember?  And I do think that you’re being deliberately obtuse: the rather silly trick of pretending not to “get it” in order to drive the other person crazy, which is just a different form of hoop.  The weakness of your counterargument and the fact that you haven’t addressed many of the most telling points against your views confirms that.

You want a link, here’s one: You might also want to look here and refer specifically to 6, 20 and 21 and realize why our discussion ends now.  It might start if you learn how to use Google or have something intelligent to say.

John T. Capp @ 7:49 p.m.:

How often does the point about repetition have to be repeated?  Repeating bullshit claims is not satire: it is repeating bullshit claims.  Bob Cesca over at Huffpo gets it:

The problem with the New Yorker cover isn’t that it shows Senator Obama in a turban and all the rest of it. The problem is that the cartoon totally fails to underscore who and what’s being satirized. The people worthy of satire aren’t the Obamas, but rather the asshats who are actively passing off this crap as the truth. To that point, I can understand what the artist, Barry Blitt who is otherwise an amazing illustrator, was getting at. By publishing such a drawing, the New Yorker “becomes” the rumor spreader, even though it’s really not. But such a complex meta-joke is, firstly, tricky to accomplish, and, secondly, too abstract to adequately smack down the gargantuan size and volume of these rumors. So the point is lost without the benefit of the “it’s about scare tactics” press release, and the cartoon fails. But, unfortunately, such a failure risks the illustration ultimately becoming part of the rumor it seeks to expose.

It’s also insulating the right from being called out on their bigotry and paranoia.  How long before the rightists start writing articles about how it’s okay to say these things about Obamba because the supposedly liberal New Yorker did too?  I don’t give people a bullhorn if I know they’re going to run out into the street and slander somebody with it.

Epic.  Fail.  There is NO way around that.

Context is everything. If this cover had appeared in January of next year, at the time of the Obama inauguration, I would have found it hilarious. There, it would have unambiguously mocked the smears perpetrated against Obama in the campaign, and reveled in their failure.

Here, though? Now? Nope. Doesn’t come close to working.

Folks, exactly how anvilicious do you want satire to be?  Should the New Yorker stamp, “WARNING: if you believe that this cartoon accurately represents what Michelle and Barack Obama would do in the Oval Office, you may be a racist or an idiot,” in big red letters on the cover?

I think the vast gulf between what’s depicted in the cartoon and the reality—not the Freepereality, but the real reality—of who the Obamas are, how they present themselves, what they think, and what they do, is so clear that pointing it out with a big SATIRE sign is gilding the lily so to speak.  They’re burning a flag in the fireplace.  Under the big portrait of bin Laden.  The leftist, afro’d revolutionary is “terrorist fist-bumping” the mullah.  It’s beyond over the top.

I also think that “blaming” one bad actor—say, Fox news or FreeRepublic itself, or whoever—lets ALL of us off the hook.  Racism is everywhere in America—a cover that clearly located racist paranoia and fantasy only in one place would allow us all to say, “That’s not me!! Whoohooo!” I read this cover is a commentary about American society and its—that is, all of our—problems with racism, not a “the Freepers suck” eyepoke.

Quick quiz:  is this Monty Python skit racist, or a critique of racism?  Should it offend Belgians?  If not, why not?

BenA—the party was a lot of fun.  And thanks for the gift!

I noted elsewhere that like Obama,’HRC was treated poorly- and criticism of her went beyond the pale. Still, what we are seeing is really the evolution of political discourse.

When it is all said and done, it is the silence and tacit approval that silence implies that has helped shape and frame political discourse.

I’m much more impressed with a good argument and critique directed at a political figure than I am with the insult, outrage and hyperbole that passes as ‘informed thought.’ - and that applies to partisan hacks on both sides of the aisle.’

Lastly, when it is all said and done, it would be nice to have a single day go by without someone on a soapbox referring to the President as ‘Hitler.’ It would be even nicer if some on the left made clear that they too disapproved of vile rhetoric.

seeker, your understanding of satire is fundamentally flawed.  The cartoon does not “repeat” bullshit claims.

Also, I disagree with the person at HuffPo.  Intelligent people don’t need to have satire pre-chewed for them.  The target of the satire is obvious.  Insisting that it isn’t is clueless at best, disingenuous at worst.

In the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of attending a few talks given by Susan Sontag about tacit censorship, and the approach decrying this cartoon as somehow undermining liberal values is the mirror image of claims the right makes about a lot of art to suppress it. 

It’s a good piece.  Anyone who takes it literally or who tries to appropriate it as a justification for hatred and racism is marginalizing himself as a nut.

I think the vast gulf between what’s depicted in the cartoon and the reality—not the Freepereality, but the real reality—of who the Obamas are, how they present themselves, what they think, and what they do, is so clear that pointing it out with a big SATIRE sign is gilding the lily so to speak.  They’re burning a flag in the fireplace.  Under the big portrait of bin Laden.  The leftist, afro’d revolutionary is “terrorist fist-bumping” the mullah.  It’s beyond over the top.

This.  As I said above. 

Right on.

Those kinds of pressures on art, free speech, and the exploration of ideas just aren’t warranted.

Wow, who knew that criticizing the cover of a magazine was the same as censorship, or the advocacy of censorship?

You can think something isn’t funny, fails at what it’s trying to do, is politically counterintuitive, or even politically dangerous, without wanting it censored.

Racism is everywhere in America—a cover that clearly located racist paranoia and fantasy only in one place would allow us all to say, “That’s not me!! Whoohooo!” I read this cover is a commentary about American society and its—that is, all of our—problems with racism, not a “the Freepers suck” eyepoke.

This is actually why I’m pretty sure this cover isn’t satire but Satire™.  Because the average subscriber to the New Yorker is ultimately no more enlightened about this sort of thing than the average subscriber to Reader’s Digest or Guns N Ammo. 

Of course, I’ll also confess that I have a certain degree of glee in noting this about the target audience of the New Yorker—I’m sick and tired of seeing them indulge in the most facile stereotypes about the residents of “flyover states”, and it’s a little bit shadenfreude-ish to see the rug yanked out from under their snide superiority.

Is it possible, Opoponax, that the cartoon is subversive in that sense, then?  That both the Freepers and those who ridicule them are being baited into buying into the image, and that they’re both implicated without realizing it?  Both think that it’s aimed at the Other when in fact --

[Pesto has seizure triggered by flashback to English graduate school in the early 90s.
Pesto drinks a few gulps of batida de coco and recovers]

I’m not entirely sure I understand the distinction between satire and Satire(tm).  Even quickly trying to analogize it to nice guys vs. Nice Guys (tm) I’m not getting it.  Could you explain more?

And again I want to say that I think we as a society are in for a whole lot more moments like this in the next few months, and likely the next few years.  We’re all in uncharted territory here, and the old “gentlemen’s agreement” about what was and was not acceptable in political discourse has been tossed out by the fact that one of the major parties went and nominated a black guy for President.

Satire™ is when something isn’t actually satire, per se, but just the straight up enjoyment of a non-PC subject, justified as “satire” when someone gets offended but either the creator or the viewer doesn’t want to cop to not being politically correct.  AKA the ever popular “It’s Just A Joke, C’mon...” excuse. 

“Satire” being the polysyllabic, and thus smarter, way to say ‘joke’.  For people who have never had to study what satire actually is in a technical sense but still like to use big words in order to sound more important. 

Good examples of Satire™:  Vice Magazine.  The Man Show.  The Sopranos.  Most ethnic/sexual stereotypes as portrayed in Hollywood movies or network television. 

Virtually synonymous with Irony© and Camp®.

Wow, who knew that criticizing the cover of a magazine was the same as censorship, or the advocacy of censorship?

That’s not at all what I said.  But whatever helps you sleep at night . . . .

New Yorker articles may not be mostly satirical, but their covers are 98.5% of the time.

Seeker—so no link, eh?

What are “the most telling points against your view” that you think I should address?

Opoponax,

Oh, okay, like faux irony (e.g., watching The Hills because you really like it while pretending to do it ironically).

Yeah, I can’t rule that out categorically in this instance—racism and its attendant anxieties are pretty much universal, in one form or another, in our society.  But that again is part of why I think it would actually detract from the cartoon to foist the racism off on a convenient scapegoat in some kind of obvious way.

The New Yorker cover is the magazine/politics equivalent of Sarah Silverman. She says something horrible and people laugh—but do they laugh at the bigotry of others who might say what Silverman is saying outrageously, or do they laugh because they think bigoted jokes are funny? There are those who say Silverman is satirizing, and there are those who say she’s just plain offensive.

I like the Sarah Silverman analogy.  I don’t find her funny.  I don’t think this magazine cover is ha-ha funny, but perhaps pointed-funny. 

Think of the sequence in the “Cape Fear” parody on The Simpsons where Sideshow Bob keeps stepping on rakes.  Is it “funny” that he keeps stepping on rakes?  In itself, no.  What’s funny is that the bit keeps you waiting on a punchline that never comes.  The New Yorker cover definitely is capitalizing on that delay between seeing the image and seeing the _title_ of the image, which is what lets you off the hook and tells you that it’s satirical.  Some people will never see the title of the image, and thus will never get let off the hook… and the artist is _fine_ with that.

The notion that it’s not entirely clear why New Yorker cartoons are funny is the premise for a whole Seinfeld episode.  The magazine wears that confusion like a badge of honor.  When “Why is that funny?” is your reaction, they figure their work is done.

I agree that the reason this IS actually satire and not some kind of affirmation of right-wing smears is that the Obamas are so NOT what is in the picture, and the New Yorker IS a liberal-leaning magazine, and it really seems like everyone on the left is freaking out about this except me.  I mean, it’s the New Yorker, and having just watched the Obamas’ family interview thing yesterday, that picture is about as far from the real them as it could be.  It’s poking fun at the notion that what you see in that picture is reality, which some people, I suppose, could believe, if they tried hard enough.  I also agree with the person who made the point that for the first time in US history a black man is LEADING in a PRESIDENTIAL election.  This is a Big Deal.  These things happen.

Calderon:
Your link, sir.
Every bit the message that is geared to your mentality.

That’s not at all what I said.

Yes, actually it is.  You namedropped Susan Sontag and said that the bottom line is that this sort of critical attitude towards any artistic expression one doesn’t happen to like is tantamount (sorry, just like that word) to censorship. 

“Tacit censorship”, I think you called it ?

Seeker—so no link, eh?

Opoponax, what I said is this:

In the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of attending a few talks given by Susan Sontag about tacit censorship, and the approach decrying this cartoon as somehow undermining liberal values is the mirror image of claims the right makes about a lot of art to suppress it.

I did not say that mere criticism of an image amounts to censorship.  My point is that many of the knee-jerk reactions to the image that I’ve encountered are grounded in the belief that it somehow betrays liberal values, crosses a line that should not be crossed, gives aid and comfort to our enemies, and should not have been published.

On the right wing, there are many symbols or subjects that are off limits to “desecration” in art (e.g., the flag being flushed down a toilet, etc.).  The same goes for the left, as the knee-jerk reaction to the image at issue demonstrates; people are seeking to place certain subjects in a “sacred” realm that should be off limits and which are unfit for public consumption if they aren’t treated according to group orthodoxy. 

There is a difference between intelligent discussion of a subject and shouting it down.  Whether the mob reaction to unpopular images in art comes from the right or the left, it narrows the willingness of forums to take chances at the margins to stimulate discourse--not that I think that this image even comes close to the margins--and that is what amounts to tacit censorship.

Perspectives from a couple of political cartoonists, one for and one against:

Tom Tomorrow

Ruben Bolling

I think Bolling comes closest to my own opinion:  “A cartoon shouldn’t rely on the context of its creator and publisher in order to successfully make its point.”

The same goes for the left, as the knee-jerk reaction to the image at issue demonstrates; people are seeking to place certain subjects in a “sacred” realm that should be off limits and which are unfit for public consumption if they aren’t treated according to group orthodoxy.

There are quite a few black commentators and bloggers who feel the cover is out-and-out racist, not “satirizing” racism.  Maybe people don’t find racism funny even when it’s packaged as “satire.”

My point is that many of the knee-jerk reactions to the image that I’ve encountered are grounded in the belief that it somehow betrays liberal values, crosses a line that should not be crossed, gives aid and comfort to our enemies, and should not have been published.

Considering that I heavily doubt that any of said reactions are coming from anyone in the position to censor the cover (even, for instance, people who work in the art department of the New Yorker, who might have been able to prevent it being published in the first place), I fail to see how wishing this hadn’t been published or thinking it shouldn’t have been published is the same thing as “censorship”. 

You can only censor something by actually censoring it, and you can only express the wish for something to be censored by openly communicating same.  I have not heard a single person, even among the cartoon’s most serious detractors, say that New Yorker covers should be subject to censorship.  The most dramatic thing I’ve heard is that the editorial staff of the New Yorker should have been more careful about just tossing politically dangerous and/or offensive material into the public willnilly.  Which still isn’t “censorship” or the advocacy of “censorship” by any measure.

Ergo, I’m pretty sure there has not been a general outcry in favor of censorship.  This isn’t really that hard.  Saying that something is in bad taste, is inappropriate, gives aid and comfort to our political enemies, is politically dangerous, is offensive, could be hurtful to X group, whatever, is not “tacit censorship”, unless maybe you consider any criticism to ultimately be censure.  Which sounds kind of weird in connection to someone like Sontag who was, you know, a cultural critic who earned her livelihood weighing in on whether various cultural products were worthwhile or not.

On the right wing, there are many symbols or subjects that are off limits to “desecration” in art (e.g., the flag being flushed down a toilet, etc.).  The same goes for the left, as the knee-jerk reaction to the image at issue demonstrates

No.  Just no. 

The right wing has actually legislated (and adjudicated, in the case of the SCOTUS) to officially outlaw and/or censor things like flag burning .  Officially.  As part of federal statute.  Not “criticize” or “disapprove of”, but outlaw. 

The left simply criticizes things it doesn’t like.  In fact, by and large the left do in the USA does not have a large enough media outlet that is taken seriously at the mainstream level to even broadcast said criticisms outside the blogosphere and a few niche publications like The Nation and AdBusters.  Ooooh, Susan Sontag is just rolling in her grave at the concept of some kid with a blog, or a columnist for a magazine with a circulation of 5000 DARING to speak their honest opinion about something they saw in the mainstream media.  Scary, eh?

Notice how the two things are not actually the same?

That piece at Racialicious doesn’t really explain _why_ the image is “glib bigotry,” but, OK, not my call, I guess.  (Incidentally, I actually don’t think the cover image is supposed to _accompany_ the article within about Obama’s Chicago experiences.  The New Yorker doesn’t really work that way, oddly enough.)

Isn’t this pretty much the same joke as saying “Oh noes, the Democrats will force us all to gay-marry Mexicans and have terrorist abortions”?  I guess it depends on how much you trust The New Yorker to say or depict such a thing as a joke.

Opoponax, you’re really good at knocking down your own straw men.  Maybe I can boil it down for you: Someone doesn’t have to be curator of a museum in order to create a hostile public atmosphere that would lead a curator to pass on a potentially controversial exhibit.  That is tacit censorship.

Just as people on the right can engage in mob behavior when their principles are flouted, so people on the left also can break out the torches and pitchforks from time to time when some key point of liberal orthodoxy is contravened.  I think it’s intellectually dishonest to deny that.  It is that mob behavior on both sides that can lead to tacit self-censorship (see, I made it still more clear) and the narrowing of intelligent discourse.

And if you think the left only “criticizes” things it doesn’t like, I think you’re not getting out enough.  How about anti-hate speech legislation?  Efforts to ban display of the Confederate battle flag?  Efforts to bar display of religious items that go beyond display on public property (e.g., in private workplaces)?  While as a liberal I personally don’t place a great deal of value on hate speech or the confederate battle flag, etc., those efforts are certainly not criticisms.  They are attempts to restrain expression of opinions and beliefs that many on the left find offensive or otherwise improper.  It’s a matter of perspective.  One man’s profanity is another man’s lyric, etc.

They are attempts to restrain expression of opinions and beliefs that many on the left find offensive or otherwise improper.

I think you’ve severely misunderstood the controversy over South Carolina flying the Confederate flag at the state’s capitol building.  The problem was that the state government was endorsing that symbol, and that they’d only started endorsing that symbol when the civil rights movement came into full swing.

Are you saying that anyone, anywhere, can say whatever they want?  The Ten Commandments can be posted in federal courtrooms or it’s a restriction of free speech?

You’re arguing that anyone can say whatever they want with no consequences.  By your lights, when the KKK marched in Skokie, the people of Skokie had no right to stand on the sidelines and protest the march because to protest what the KKK was saying was to censor them.

Free speech doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want and no one is allowed to respond.

Mnemosyne, you’re really wide of the mark. 

I understand First Amendment law.  I have litigated First Amendment issues.  That’s why in my examples I was careful to exclude protests or lawsuits to have religious items banned from public property, for example.  And irrespective of why South Carolina flew the confederate flag, people on the left didn’t just criticize it--as Opoponax would have it--they sought to do away with it because they didn’t like what it represented.  While I’m aware of the different political perspectives on the values of symbols, etc., but putting that aside how is that different than trying to stop the NEA (i.e., the state) from funding Piss Jesus or whatever the provocative installation irritating the right wing is at the moment?

I am not saying that there can be no discourse and that only one side gets to speak.  To the contrary, I am saying that there’s a difference between intelligent discussion that enhances civic discourse and mob behavior/shouting down, which stifles it.  The irony here, for me at any rate, is that the cartoon at issue itself was in part satirizing the mob mentality behind the politics of fear.  And it appears to have elicited a mob reaction.

Someone doesn’t have to be curator of a museum in order to create a hostile public atmosphere that would lead a curator to pass on a potentially controversial exhibit.  That is tacit censorship.

People on the internet criticizing a piece of art is not censorship, tacit or otherwise.

To repeat myself—nobody here is calling out for the censorship of this particular image.  NOBODY.  Nobody is saying this edition of The New Yorker should be pulled from newsstands..  Nobody is saying that the editorial board of The New Yorker should be replaced, or that the art department should be fired, or that the illustrator in question should be blacklisted.  Nobody is starting riots.  Nobody is calling for the New Yorker to donate the proceeds from the sale of this image to Islamic-American community organization, the Obama campaign, or the NAACP.  I don’t even think there have been any significant calls for subscribers to refuse to re-up their subscritptions…

Here’s a real example of tacit censorship:  A friend of mine is Polish and grew up in the big Polish neighborhood in Brooklyn, which is currently undergoing gentrification via the arts community.  When she was working towards her MFA, the project she proposed was a series of paintings documenting the changes in her neighborhood which directly condemned the galleries and studios that are displacing her friends and family.  The project was unanimously turned down by her professors, some of whom have studios in the same neighborhood, and all of whom have taken the side of the artists in disputes like this.  Needless to say, she left the program in response to being censored by her professors and did not go on to complete her degree.  She still paints, but she’ll never have the backup source of income that teaching provides to a lot of struggling young artists. 

THAT is tacit censorship.  Complaining about a cartoon you don’t like is not.

Opoponax, it’s clear to me that you can’t understand--or don’t want to understand--what I’m saying.  So I’m not going to spend more candle trying to explain.

And irrespective of why South Carolina flew the confederate flag, people on the left didn’t just criticize it--as Opoponax would have it--they sought to do away with it because they didn’t like what it represented.

Yes, because it represented government support for institutional racism. Do you think that African-American and other minority citizens felt they would get a fair shake from the government of South Carolina once they saw that flag flying over the state capitol building?

It’s fascinating to me that because this cover offended large numbers of people—we were talking about it in my department’s staff meeting this morning, so it’s not just people on the intertubes—therefore that proves that any criticism of it is demonstrative of a “mob mentality.” Maybe the problem is that the cover was offensive to large numbers of people, not that all of us liberals are oh-so-mean to poor, innocent artists.

It’s fascinating to me that because this cover offended large numbers of people—we were talking about it in my department’s staff meeting this morning, so it’s not just people on the intertubes—therefore that proves that any criticism of it is demonstrative of a “mob mentality.”

See my comment for Opponox at 2:02 p.m.

See my comment for Opponox at 2:02 p.m.

I get that you’re arguing an abstract principle while we’re pointing out what’s actually going on right now.  But when you’re arguing for that abstract principle during an ongoing controversy, it comes across as you saying there should be no controversy and there’s nothing for us all to be so upset about if we would just be logical about it all.

Also, I feel this Molly Ivins quote is particularly relevant here.

Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel—it’s vulgar.

For the record, I’m not a rah-rah Obama supporter, but I feel the image crossed a line. The Afro hair on Michelle Obama, the image of Osama bin Laden reflected in their mirror, the lipsticky fat lips on Barack Obama: I mean, this was not only aimed at so-called “political” issues, but also at racial characteristics.

It’s not very funny to make fun of the way people look (in one’s racist imagination) on top of implying that they are terrorist Muslims and anti-Americans.

All cartooning (and particularly political cartooning as it has developed since the days of Nast) employs various kinds of shorthand to characterize the public figures they depict. In general, however, this shorthand is used to convey a sense of subject depicted, rather than a meta-depiction of discourses surrounding that person. This is true even with hyperbole. No believes that Bush is a cowboy, but the depiction of him with six-guns and ten-gallon hat is intended to convey that he is reckless, not that his opponents have maligned him. A picture of Bush stamping on the Constitution is not satire, even if no one believes that he is actually physically doing so. It metaphorically depicts the very real fears people have about Bush’s cavalier attitude toward democracy and civil liberties.

“The politics of fear,” like these examples, does not undermine the slurs against Obama. It merely illustrates them. No one may believe that Obama will literally burn the flag, but the image more effectively reinforces the memes regarding Obama’s patriotism and Michelle Obama’s public persona than it does any critique of those views.

how is that different than trying to stop the NEA (i.e., the state) from funding Piss Jesus or whatever the provocative installation irritating the right wing is at the moment?

Agitating against the celebration of racist memorabilia is not the same thing as agitating against free speech.

I understand First Amendment law.  I have litigated First Amendment issues.

Sometimes I wonder why so many of these guys insist they’re lawyers. Then I remember smilin’ Jack Thompson.

When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel—it’s vulgar.

Are you saying that this is an example of satire aimed at the powerless?  I _wish_ that people who believed absurd rumors about the Obamas were powerless.  They’re all too powerful.

banisteriopsis,

I am a lawyer and have been for nine years.  I’ve done pro bono work for the ACLU here in Philadelphia, I’ve represented death row inmates pro bono in PCRA actions, I’m a registered Democrat, and I volunteered and voted for Obama in the closed primary here.  It’s not an empty claim.  I just get weary of people on the left being so defensive and sanctimonious.  In my opinion, that’s not a path to responsible progressive government.

“I just get weary of people on the left being so defensive and sanctimonious.”

This from the ACLU’s pro bono lawyer? What was the trial about--some asshole’s rights to block traffic for hours every Friday night with their Critical Mass bike ride?

Actually, the bulk of the pro bono work I did for the ACLU had to do with defeating a Republican attempt in the PA legislature to glom various anti-same sex provisions (anti-marriage, anti-domestic partnerships, etc.) onto an unrelated bill.  When I lived in Maine, I worked for the Maine People’s Alliance and for Maine Won’t Discriminate.  And I won a new sentencing hearing for a death row inmate here in Philadelphia.

Yes, I do get tired of people who are overly defensive and sanctimonious, even when they’re on the left.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t have liberal values, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t get off my ass and actually work IRL to advance them.  As if there is no one on the left who is overly defensive and sanctimonious.  Please.

Well, I don’t see the majority of peoples’ reactions to the New Yorker piece as being “overly defensive and sanctimonious.”

I did think the Left wing bloggers were totally stupid about Hillary Clinton’s alleged assassination inferences. That was ridiculous! I also thought it was ridiculous that people cried about Clinton’s suggestion that she and McCain had more experience than Obama. I think that was sort of a given, rather than a “scorched earth policy,” as the fuckwad analysis claimed.

But in this case, I do think there are valid reasons for people to get up in arms. There is nothing “satirical” about this cartoon in the sense that it satirizes dominant right wing “memes” or perceptions. Rather, the “joke” is on the Obamas and more broadly on African-Americans with their crazy hair, their fat lips, their violent culture, their terrorist fist bumps and other hostile gestures, and their secret ties to far out extremist religions.

But even Obama’s blackness is called into question by this “satire,” since he passes as white and passes as Osama bin Laden’s twin at the same time. Now that is magical, pure Disney!

<blockquote>There is nothing “satirical” about this cartoon in the sense that it satirizes dominant right wing “memes” or perceptions. Rather, the “joke” is on the Obamas and more broadly on African-Americans with their crazy hair, their fat lips, their violent culture, their terrorist fist bumps and other hostile gestures, and their secret ties to far out extremist religions.</blockqoute>

This is where I disagree and think people are overreacting.  The exaggerated stereotypical traits aren’t there to make fun of the traits or the Obamas but to expose and lash the folly of those who cling to such stereotypes.  That’s fundamental satire.  It’s not an endorsement of the stereotypes.  Repetition and exaggeration of stereotypes to hold them up to the light and to expose their preposterousness is common in satire.

And I should have made the point earlier that I disagree with the assumption that informs the title of this post generally.  There is absolutely no requirement that satire be funny or that it be a joke.  It’s ultimately a mode of moral correction, as Swift observed (lash the folly, expose the vice).  All satire is not The Simpsons.

“It’s ultimately a mode of moral correction, as Swift observed (lash the folly, expose the vice).  All satire is not The Simpsons.”

So I guess the moral is that African Americans should not have the nerve to run for public office? The cartoon image does not make fun of those who think that Obama has big ears. It makes fun of Obama’s big ears. It is not satire. It’s an attempt at humiliation, disguised as upscale liberal humor. The fact that you find it satirical of right wing beliefs is bizarre to me.

This rendering does not hold stereotypes up to any light. It simply reiterates them and makes tacit connections between the most pernicious of those cliches.

Well, Foucault, you are in the decided minority among educated people who have viewed the cover.  It clearly is satire and it obviously makes fun of people who believe the right wing slurs and who presumably imaging African-Americans as the image depicts the Obamas.  It could have been ported directly from Ann Coulter’s consciousness.

All you’re demonstrating to me is that you have a pretty poor sense of irony and an even poorer understanding of satire.

What you demonstrate to me is that you’re a racist moron and idiot. What do you mean that I am in the minority of educated people who have viewed the cover? All sorts of people, including the McCain campaign, have found the cover offensive and inappropriate.

I don’t believe you’re a lawyer because you seem far too stupid to pass the bar exam. And if you are then I pity your clients. Only a jack ass would fail to see this cover for what it is, and clever “satire” was certainly only the veneer for a smear campaign.

Ah, Foucault.  Sticks and stones, bro.  Sticks and stones.  Let go of your anger.  That’s the path to the dark side.

By the way, are you calling Tom Tomorrow--who might just happen to know a thing or two about political satire, and just possibly more than you do--a racist moron and an idiot as well? 

http://thismodernworld.com/4395
http://thismodernworld.com/4402
http://thismodernworld.com/4398

p.s. And by “dark side,” I don’t intend to invoke the binary opposition of white and black as good and evil.  Because you have difficulty following basic references and allusions, let me explain that I was referring to the mythology of the Star Wars movies.  I am not endorsing those movies or that mythology by making the reference.  After all, those movies do seem to rely on the racist binary opposition of white and black as representative of good and evil.  And that’s not to mention Jar Jar.

I see you were formerly an English grad student. Too stupid to cut it as a professor, hey? So is that why you turned to pro bono law?

Save your failed efforts to justify racism for those who are more inclined to value your lame-brain musings. The rest of us are a bit smarter than that.

Whatever, guy.  Just don’t swallow your tongue while you’re tilting at windmills.

I’m not tilting at windmills. I am basically trying to help someone who *claims* to represent the interests of the politically downtrodden realize that this representation is not only politically offensive, but also racist.

Moreover, just in case you’ve forgotten from your grad school days, satire is a strictly LITERARY genre.

So get your genres straight. Then, once you’ve done that, wake up and smell the f’ing coffee.

Now you’re attacking Jesse and nearly everyone else who commented about this image for calling it satire?  You really are tilting at windmills.

And maybe you’re the one who should study up.  Try reading some scholarship about Hogarth’s etchings for starters to see why your attack based on the erroneous contention that satire is strictly “literary” demonstrates how ill-informed you are.

I don’t have any more time to waste on you and your overzealous ad hominem arguments.  Your mind clearly isn’t subtle enough to realize why you’re just wrong.

Hogarth’s etchings are caricatures, you ass. Different genre, different conventions.

If you want to say that the New Yorker created a demeaning caricature of the Obamas, then that is totally fine and I agree. But you are the buffoon who is trying to call this “satire” when it is not only a non-literary mode of [removed]and satire requires words, jackass), but it is also not satire, technically speaking.

No wonder you flunked out of grad school…

I don’t know why I’m bothering to feed a troll, but:

http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue9/hogarth.htm
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/William_Hogarth-at-Louvre.html

Or, if you’re only into books, try Mark Hallet’s The Spectacle of Difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth (Yale University Press, 1999).

Make that Mark Hallett.

Nice try, though.  You almost sound like you’ve finished freshman year, and that’s really something.

Try consulting the OED. Your source bastardizes the true meaning(s) of the word:

1. A poem, or in modern use sometimes a prose composition, in which prevailing vices or follies are held up to ridicule. Sometimes, less correctly, applied to a composition in verse or prose intended to ridicule a particular person or class of persons, a lampoon.

2. The species of literature constituted by satires; satirical composition.

3. Satirical temper, disposition to use ‘satire’.

You’re a joke. What’s worse is not your lack of familiarity with what satire is as a genre, but your lowly efforts to justify something hateful. The only vices that the New Yorker cartoon reveals are that people like you are total fuckwad idiots with no education and low morals.

Right, and the OED trumps use of a term in scholarship and common use (as evidenced by this thread, including its main entry).  Not to mention the fact that you’ve also conveniently omitted the OED entry that states that satire may be a “thing, fact, or circumstance that has the effect of making some person or thing ridiculous.” That has nothing to do with literature, and you obviously omitted it because you’re intellectually dishonest.  Or try Merriam-Webster’s second entry: “trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.” It’s plainly not limited to literary work.

Maybe try looking up Hogarthian in your beloved OED: “f. name of William Hogarth, a satirical painter and caricaturist of the 18th c.”

I love your inflexibility and totalitarian tendencies, though.  You must be great at parties, assuming you’ve ever been invited to one.

And for good measure, one from the man himself:

http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/sullivan_luke_satireonfalseperspective.htm

To paraphrase the immortal Sean Connery, suck it Foucault.

You’re still side-stepping around the basic issue that this New Yorker piece does not expose prevailing vices or follies. Most Americans don’t think that Obama and his wife are terrorist Muslims. That is a minority and wacko view, but the New Yorker has clearly decided to give it credibility by publishing the image to accompany an even more negative article.

The image does not function to correct a dominant misconception, but rather perpetuates disabling and negative stereotypes about the Obamas.

You are either too fucking stupid to admit this, or *you* are the intellectually dishonest one. I would say that you are probably too stupid, but that is just based on your quotations, which reveal the workings of a pathetic, self-congratulating, and limited mind.

That’s just powerful weak.

YHLHAND

Sorry, but I can’t decipher the gibberish you’ve acquired in the sex porn chat rooms you visit.
I’ll just use something a little clearer: go fuck yourself, you dim-witted clown. I bet you earned your law degree from a crackerjack box!

I came in here to point out the Tom Tomorrow cartoons about people’s inability to understand irony and satire.  I see that’s been done already.  I’m amused, however, by “Foucault’s” reaction to them and that line of argument.  From that reaction I guess what they say about people who are on the losing end of a substantive argument first moving the goal posts and then resorting to invective is balls on accurate.

Quick using sock puppets to disguise your pathetic loser self, John T. Capp. You’re the one on the losing end of the argument because you are trying to defend a racist caricature of African-Americans. You’re a lowly piece of garbage and I bet you have zero clients at your law practice because no one wants to be represented by a racist idiot. No wonder you work pro bono--who would pay you?

Foucault, now you’ve made me feel sorry for you.  Do you often feel that the world’s out to get you?  Such a bitter and angry person you are, lashing out in all directions.

Don’t you understand that it’s appropriate to say the word “nigger” in order to criticize malignant use of the word “nigger” without endorsing the malignant use of the word?  The image is by no means an endorsement of the exaggerated stereotypical racial characteristics it depicts.  To the contrary, it clearly is exposing to ridicule those who subscribe to those prevailing stereotypical views of African-Americans.

You’re like a chimp with its fingers stuck in a Chinese finger prison.  Amusing at first, but pathetic after watching the thrashing for a few minutes.

I’m amused by your pathetic efforts to prolong this conversation. You seem desperate to convince me (the only reader of your ridiculous statements at this point) that you are right. But you are not right.

What’s really weird, though, is how obsessed you are with Tom Tomorrow. Is that because it’s the only thing on your level that you can understand? And same with Hogarth: you just keep repeating the name as if someone will come along and say, “Oh, of course he’s right.” And then, when that doesn’t happen, you need to invent pathetic sock puppet personae to validate your idiot point of view.

Is this how you get through life: with imaginary friends who cheer you on? Are all of the people who post on your silly blog extensions of you: in short, do you create comments for yourself so it will look like people actually have an interest in your asinine life? What a LOSER…

QED.  Thanks for proving my point.

Yes: that you are a loser with a capital L. I’m sure your wife supports you, since you seem to have a lot of free time in your life as a pro bono lawyer to prove your racism and general moronic nature. Or do you rent out the kiddies?

Thrash, thrash, thrash.

You only say that because it’s true. Your life and mind, is trash.

I admit it, I’m a pathetic loser who needs the approval of random strangers. I will keep posting no matter what it takes because my ego is so frail that I just need someone to make me feel like my opinion matters. And you are right about my wife, she does support me.

Ah, Foucault, now you’re a fraud and an identity thief to boot. 

Thrash, thrash, thrash.

I would never steal the identity of John T. Capp, racist pro bono lawyer and potential Klan member. If anyone comes across John T. Capp on the Internet or in real life, I would caution you against his racist excuses, self-masturbation, and ignorance as a practitioner of law.

John T. Capp spends his days gratifying his desire for approval (which he never received elsewhere in his professional life) by littering the internet with his tragic life story. He is a sick and demented man who can only seek professional help at this point.

Oh stop it, Foucault! I, John T. Capp, am not unhinged and unbalanced. I am just going through a menopausal period in my life and have gone off my medication in recent weeks.

Let me reiterate by citing Tom Tomorrow, my hero of English Literature: I, John T. Capp, am not a moron lawyer nor I am not a racist. I just fuck my hand all day long.

And it isn’t true that I was too stupid to handle graduate level work. I just had a personality disorder that prevented people from liking me. My disorder is that I need constant feedback from others about what you might do with a million dollars, or where you are going for memorial day weekend, because my wife thinks I am a boring asshole.

My father John T. Capp is a registered pervert and dog fucker in the western suburbs of Philadelphia. I just wanted to share that thought with the community.

Very clever.  I think you’ve made it perfectly clear who is and who is not mentally imbalanced.

Keep it up and see where it gets you.

My father John T. Capp is a sex addict and a fiend. He needs professional help. He starts obsessive conversations with himself, and then threatens his alter egos. John T. Capp is a mental case. I will make this known throughout the world.

Don’t go hanging yourself in the closet, now, you whiny jerk. I’d hate to get indicted for your suicide.

Don’t worry about me.  I wouldn’t let your elementary school playground antics drive me to it.

I love sharing my inner soul online. It makes me so proud to share my memories of my chlamydia princess, Sophie Capp.

Wow, making slurs about kids.  You’re really proving your skills at substantive argument, Foucault.

I’m not a child, daddy! I’m a grown up with real needs and desires. You should know!

Brave to boot. 

A little more and I’ll have enough for the records subpoena.

Hey John T. Capp, did you give your daughter the clap?

And of course, like my name, the computer that I use is not my own!

But your daughter will be a legend.