This:
… is satire. It’s a joke, and it’s very funny. Kevin Drum is a fine blogger and surely a wonderful person in many ways, but one is advised to file his comedy advice alongside Dom Deluise’s miracle 6-week washboard abs diet. The problem with putting a big Surgeon General’s warning label on this satire reading NO!! NOT REALLY!!! BUT JOHN MCCAIN THINKS SO!!!! is that doing so would make it not a satire; or, if it were a satire, a satire of humorless liberals. (And would presumably fail for the same reason that this satire allegedly fails – many liberals appear to sincerely believe this is a good and necessary correction.) I further suggest that “A Modest Proposal” would not actually be improved by putting the whole thing in the blood-drenched mouth of a Tory industrialist named “Dasterdly McBabyeater von Evil” and/or renaming it “An Absurdly Broad Caricature of Aspects of Contemporary Society which The Author, In Truth, Deplores”. True, the idiots being satirized won’t “get” the joke – that’s the joke’s value to those who do. I may be a horrible elitist, but I don’t think jokes are improved by pitching them to people with no sense of humor.
Now please go play in the sunshine.
July 14, 2008 at 11:21 am
Well, I think you’re missing the point of why people are upset. It’s not that they don’t get the joke — of course they do. Obviously the point of the New Yorker cover is to satirize the wingnut characterization of the Obamas. Rather, it’s obvious to you and me, but that’s not the problem. I used to have a habit of trying to create sardonic humor by saying outrageous things on the presumption that the people listening knew me well enough to know that I was mocking people who would say such things. Alas, I learned to my sorrow that people didn’t necessarily get that right away, and even if they did, they often didn’t like it anyway.
The “controversy” over the cover is going to be a perfect excuse for Fox News and CNN to display it 24 hours a day for two weeks, not to New Yorker subscribers and sophisticates like you, but to tens of millions of people who will not get the double layer of irony, accompanied by a panel stacked heavily with wingnuts who will — surprise! — fail to correctly construe that it is a devastating satire of them and who will make endless remarks to the effect that, regrettably, the American people still feel that they don’t really know Obama and they aren’t convinced of his loyalty or his resoluteness in confronting America’s dangerous enemies, and here we have an illustration of how these doubts and concerns are out there, oh tut tut it’s certainly offensive but yadda yadda yadda.
Profound, inexcusable error in judgment.
July 14, 2008 at 11:25 am
Thank you! I saw it and laughed a lot, and then went and read the lefty blogs. Yikes. I figured if The Editors hated it I was off my rocker, but now I’m just out on the fringe. Whew.
And hey, I typed the editors in google, *without* quotes, and Poor Man was on the first page. Cool, eh?
July 14, 2008 at 11:27 am
I may be a horrible elitist, but I don’t think jokes are improved by pitching them to people with no sense of humor.
You realize the New Yorker is sold at newsstands all across the country (which generally display the magazine quite prominently in their window displays), not merely passed out at the back of Patton Oswalt concerts, right?
July 14, 2008 at 11:34 am
cervantes, scythia – a constant of satire is that idiots can’t understand it, particularly when they are the target. Many people consider this a feature rather than a bug.
July 14, 2008 at 11:46 am
Thank you, the Editors, for this post.
Perfectly said.
July 14, 2008 at 11:50 am
Editors –
Yes, idiots can’t understand it. That’s the point which seems to be going right by you. Idiots vote. (Ever hear of George W. Bush?)There’s an election campaign going on, remember? The outcome of which matters, at least to some people if not to you.
Is that worth noting in this regard? Or are you just too, too very much smarter than the average yokel to care who is president?
July 14, 2008 at 11:59 am
Cervantes – I do get your worry; I really do. But don’t you think that people who see this, and then see the Obamas (say at the convention) are going to see that it was over the top? Those who don’t already think it is over the top, which is most people.
I see that the wingnuts are plastering it all around. They obviously think this is to their advantage. But trusting them on matters of humor, satire, incongruity – not always wise right? Will people who see this on a wingnuts site (who isn’t herself a wingnut) think, “how true?” Or will she think “what a wanker for not even getting the satire because they are so deluded and racist? And for thinking I’m that stupid too?”
Not that I think that the cartoonist has to be working for the Obama campaign. But I don’t think this will hurt Obama if he handles it right. Could help. What if he said “it certainly is a hilarious mishmash of all the weird stereotypes the rightwingers have been putting about in their blogs and email chains.” Wouldn’t that inoculate him, rather than branding him as touchy and humorless?
July 14, 2008 at 12:09 pm
cervantes, what you said. Word.
July 14, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Hard to say for sure, but the fact is, elections are swayed very much by the subliminal. As we ought to realize by now. So this is dangerous at best.
Regardless of how that plays out, again, the point is not that the portside blogospherists who are worried about this don’t get the joke, which seems to be the editors’ position. I’m just trying to straighten out the conversation. Whether I’m right to be so concerned is a legitimate question, but not one which has any convincing answer at this point, it seems to me.
July 14, 2008 at 12:12 pm
No, cervantes, I get it. The problem is that the New Yorker – like me – is not an organ of the Obama campaign, and so is under no obligation to justify what it says on the basis of whether it may be misconstrued by idiots to the detriment of that campaign. That’s why some people read the New Yorker and blogs rather than horrible anodyne focus group-tested campaign statements – because reading PR is boring and turns you stupid. We are adults in a free country, and we are allowed – I would say almost obligated – to have, to the best of our abilities, free, adult discussions, even into the very teeth of unfalsifiable theories about how these discussions will bring about armaggedon. Similiar concern troll theories have explained to me that using bad words, employing a mocking tone, lacking respect for media elders, and generally behaving in a way which might upset someone’s pilled-up granny will bring about terrible calamity, and I’ve ignored them, too, because A) they are all silly, and B) this is fucking America, so fuck you and your stupid fucking wingnut grandma. That the leading lights of the liberal blogosphere have decided to run with this one is more a source of embarrassment for them than a selling point for the theory.
Also, I am an evil trust-fund elitist with a cigarette holder who cares not a drop of cheap Chardonnay about this country or, indeed, anything except me and my faggoty millionaire Hollywood latte-sipping art-fag friends. The previous sentence is literally true.
July 14, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’m sorry, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth by liberals that the rubes are just to dense to get it have propelled something that would have sat on at best one tenth of one percent of the population’s coffee tables for a few months into a story of national prominance that the media and republican operatives can now point at and get the double whammy of broadcasting it to the rubes who won’t get it but would otherwise have not seen it and cluck-cluck about the humourless Chardonnay sipping liberal elites who think the rubes are too stupid to get a joke.
Way to own goal, liberals.
July 14, 2008 at 12:38 pm
It’s not the wailing and gnashing of teeth by liberals that did this – it was ABC news that first picked up the story and made an issue out of it.
Dear Editors:
So the only thing that matters about putting transgressive satire on a magazine cover — not inside, mind you — is whether you, personally, enjoy it? The impact on public discourse, the outcome of an election, and potentially the future of humanity, is completely irrelevant and the New Yorker has no responsibility whatsoever for any consequences other than whether you get a chuckle out of it?
Your self-assessment seems essentially correct.
July 14, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I had a convoluted reply all typed up, but Hamsher nails it.
Satire should undermine its object, but this cartoon will reinforce the narrative it attempts to discredit. FAIL.
July 14, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Your self-assessment seems essentially correct.
Hilarious. The prosecution rests.
July 14, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I thought satire was to afflict the comfortable, or something like that?
Anyhow, has no one put forward a pithy detailed, insightful, dare I say Pagliaesque commentary yet about Michelle’s stance in the cartoon? It seems uncomfortable. Or is it demure? Is she using some kind of jungle-fever lesbian hothouse coded body language there? We need to know.
July 14, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Cervantes,
The notion that discourse, in general, has to be tailored (read- dumbed down) so that the least common denominator (read- Republicans, apparently many liberals, and the cable news desk jockeys) understand it is a dangerous idea and more damaging to the country than a piece of cover art you and others are apparently too dim or too easily offended to appreciate.
The cover was pretty funny, I thought, the joke was evident and on them, and I really do not understand the response from the crowd that is supposed to understand nuance and humor. Fuck me, Carlin has only been dead a few weeks and the humorless prigs are taking over.
July 14, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Oops, looks like Barack is using similar footing. Not exactly, but similar. Like a dance or something. NO ONE HAS MENTIONED THIS TERRIBLY IMPORTANT POINT!!!
I am sure it is of huge significance to the interpretation of the piece.
{OK, that was hyperbole, folks}
July 14, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Anyhow, has no one put forward a pithy detailed, insightful, dare I say Pagliaesque commentary yet about Michelle’s stance in the cartoon?It seems uncomfortable. Or is it demure? Is she using some kind of jungle-fever lesbian hothouse coded body language there? We need to know.
Paging Ann Althouse!
July 14, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Wow, The Editors, you have “faggoty millionaire Hollywood latte-sipping art-fag friends”? I’m picturing a life of ease, discoursing and sipping fine beverages in the leafy courtyards of their verdant villas. And I’m jealous!
July 14, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Hamsher nails it.
Heh. Heh.
Well she’d know about graphic choices that drown out the message.
July 14, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Could it be that Blitt just can’t draw feet? Not an uncommon problem among artists.
July 14, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Wow, The Editors, you have “faggoty millionaire Hollywood latte-sipping art-fag friends”?
I barely have “friends”.
July 14, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I recommend non-stop listening to Phil Ochs, “Love Me, I’m a Liberal” to remember what great, satirical, offensive, tasteless political progress sounds like. Obama has told us we are the change we have been waiting for. Is that compatible with assuming that half the country is idiotic enough to think the New Yorker is a racist rag? The cover title is The Politics of Fear. David Remnick gave an intelligent interview in the Huffington Post today, and I am too exhausted trying to inculcate a sense of humor into progressive blogs to figure out how to link to it in these comments. Sorry.
I pray every teen in the country demands a New Yorker subscription. No Child Left Behind.
July 14, 2008 at 2:08 pm
The best part of this is people simultaneously complaining that:
1. The cartoon is so over-the-top racist/sexist as to be outRAGEous.
2. The cartoon is not nearly over-the-top for the stupid ‘low information’ rubes to get it.
This raises the question of just how offensive the picture would have to be doing for (2) to no longer be true. One imagines a picture of Barack piloting the Enola Gay over Manhattan. Hitler and/or Jane Fonda in the co-pilot’s seat and Michelle ratcheting open the bomb bay doors.
July 14, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Why don’t we just kill all art and artists now so that we never run the risk of this ever happening again?
July 14, 2008 at 2:12 pm
That said, Editors, I sort of like your alternative title for A Modest Proposal. It seems to enhance the irony, somehow.
July 14, 2008 at 2:14 pm
How ’bout this for a breakdown:
1) it’s not, like, straightforwardly funny in the way that, say, Keyboard Kommandos is. Just assembling all the Obama smears into a picture isn’t especially funny, because it’s obvious–to me–that the smears are silly. I don’t need Barry Blitt to tell me that.
2) but it has gotten a lot of people who deserve to be exposed as idiots acting as such. The journalists at the Trib are throwing themselves on their fainting couches, getting up, and then throwing themselves on them again. This is arguably a more important role for satire than the people who aren’t its targets finding it funny.
3) ideally a humorous thing does both, like Stephen Colbert’s WHPC monologue or so much of the Daily Show. But what the cover sacrifices in humor it makes up in tempting idiots to act like idiots.
4) so, 7.5 out of 10?
July 14, 2008 at 2:16 pm
One can only hope “cervantes” will write a strongly-worded letter to The New Yorker expressing his point of view. That will really help the Obama campaign!
July 14, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I think the risk is that it will be seen/portrayed as a “liberal magazine gaffe”, ie, that the New Yorker depicts what liberals secretly want, evidence for the wingnut theories.
It would have helped if there were some text on the cover to give a hint to the viewer. As it is, you have to be familiar with the New Yorker to be able to intuit what was intended.
July 14, 2008 at 2:24 pm
The difference between this and “A Modest Proposal” is that nobody in Swift’s time was seriously arguing that eating Irish children was a good idea.
July 14, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Many people consider this a feature rather than a bug.
The Editors, Cevantes has called you our for what you are: the Steve Ballmer of the blogosphere.
July 14, 2008 at 2:27 pm
our = out
July 14, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Oops, looks like Barack is using similar footing. Not exactly, but similar. Like a dance or something.
That’s the way it looked to me at first, but if you look closely, Obama’s footing is pretty straightforward, and not contorted like hers.
The coloring on the rug plays tricks on the eye.
July 14, 2008 at 2:41 pm
The difference between this and “A Modest Proposal” is that nobody in Swift’s time was seriously arguing that eating Irish children was a good idea.
A Modest Proposal – Reactions
The satirical intent of A Modest Proposal was misunderstood by many of Swift’s peers, and he was harshly criticized for writing prose in such exceptionally “bad taste”. He came close to losing his patronage because of this essay. The misunderstanding of the intent of the satirical attack came about largely because of the disparity between the satirical intent of the cannibalistic proposal and the sincere tone of the narrative voice.
July 14, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I totally agree that the New Yorker is not and shouldn’t be about getting Obama elected. And that a massive liberal blogosphere freakout is weird really, and not funny.
I just don’t think the cover is that funny. But I’m not a professional.
Maybe I need to know what Richarad Cohen thinks.
July 14, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I am completely mystified by this discussion. The cover was asinine, not even rising to the level of satire, and a complete aesthetic failure. The difference between “A Modest Proposal” and this cover has nothing to do with whether or not people would eat Irish children or whether or not idiots today think that Obama is a terrorist. The cover is merely incompetent hackwork (Pat Oliphant might be ashamed of the bluntness of its wit): dull, predictable, boring–it doesn’t even bother to exaggerate. Swift is, you know, strange and funny. The real tragedy here is that so many people seem to think that this is in fact satire. I guess Mad TV has finally won the day.
July 14, 2008 at 2:48 pm
…the Steve Ballmer of the blogosphere
You mean Mrs Teh Editorz gave $$ to Obama?
July 14, 2008 at 3:31 pm
An Absurdly Broad Caricature of Aspects of Contemporary Society which The Author, In Truth, Deplores
More concise HM King George of England:
Not to mention the English gentleman’s refined sense of taste. For myself, I take my roast with a mustard pot. The Papist, I do not doubt, prefers most vile Garlicke.
Posted 12 Dec, 1730 by John Gay in politics, satire
July 14, 2008 at 3:31 pm
fish wrote: “Why don’t we just kill all art and artists now so that we never run the risk of this ever happening again?”
It’s not about the art, it’s about the editorial decisionmaking that chose the image for the cover. Magazines are a business, editors decide what to use and what not to use. The artist isn’t entitled to have his or her work published on thousands of magazine covers (though he or she should be due a kill fee if a piece isn’t used after being bought.)
Nobody would care if the image were on an inside page. Nobody would care if the artist blew the image up to ten feet tall and hung it in a gallery on canvas.
Hell, nobody would care if Tom Tomorrow drew virtually the same image in a This Modern World strip.
July 14, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Dearest me! I never knew Barack Obama ate babies!
July 14, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Trying to find humor in watching otherwise intelligent people make asses of themselves denouncing, rejecting and throwing the New Yorker under teh bus, I’ve been particularly amused by the attempts to propound a general theory of humor that requires, I say REQUIRES you to denounce, reject, and bus throw this cover.
So far the winner was the person over on The Field who suggested that if a satirist has to defend himself from attacks, that means the satire didn’t work.
July 14, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Why don’t we just kill all art and artists now so that we never run the risk of this ever happening again?
No need to go so far, as of yet. But I demand the New Yorker immediately add a Art Apposite to the Current Political Moment and Concomitant Partisan Concerns editor to its editorial staff so that such an unfortunate lapse not be repeated.
July 14, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Thank you, Editors, for joining Roy Edroso and Sadly, No in having a sense of humor. My bookmarks are going to need a bit of pruning in the coming days, I fear. Daily Kos is currently unbearable (some will argue this is far from a recent development), and some of the others mentioned in this thread are disappointments as well.
July 14, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Why don’t we just kill all art and artists now so that we never run the risk of this ever happening again?
First they came for the magazine covers…then the billboards…then the bumper stickers and radio jingles. Before long, no artist was safe.
July 14, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Haha, Liberal ISLAMoFascism! I think a layer of subtlety has been missed..
July 14, 2008 at 4:53 pm
There are two objections here, both stupid:
A) “That’s not a joke.” But of course it is. It’s the same as frame 9 here, or this entire comic, or any number of attempted exaggerations of wingnuttery over the years. That many wingnuts will descend so eagerly into self-parody does not make parody impossible, though it can blur the line with “found comedy.” A joke nonetheless. Wingnuts don’t get it, but they’re self-parodying idiots, and that’s half the fun.
B) “That’s not a funny joke.” Humor is subjective, and nothing’s as humorless as lists of rules about humor, except this one which is a fucking nitrous tank of monkeys. Like I said, I’ve made essentially the same joke 100 times, and if I could have thought of a funnier joke I would have made that one instead, so I’m obviously partial to it. YMMV. Maybe you’d prefer the joke be less dry. That’s your prerogative. But if the objection is “I hate jokes I don’t find funny,” I suggest you fight the real enemy and get Dat Phan, Larry the Cable Guy, and Carlos Mencia the fuck off my TV set.
July 14, 2008 at 5:11 pm
You left out another oft repeated objection: “the cable networks will cover this to death!”
To which I respond, so? Just now on MSNBC I heard the panelists doing the usual circle-jerking, but all of it within the context of “Will people see it as satire of stupid beliefs, or will it merely reinforce those beliefs?”.
See? You simply cannot discuss this issue without mentioning at some point that this cover is a satire of extremist rightwing beliefs. Satire accomplished.
July 14, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Did you mean to link to something about said nitrous tank of monkeys?
July 14, 2008 at 5:15 pm
No, editors, you’re missing a point. There’s one more objection:
C) “That’s an offensive joke.” If I were caricatured as a terrorist on a major magazine cover, I would be offended by that. If there were rumors swirling around the internet of my secret terrorist proclivities [most of which were based on my name/ethnicity] I’d be really offended.
It’s an offensive image. Adding a “J/k!” does not make that go away.
Combine B + C, and you have to wonder about the wisdom of this editorial decision.
Humor is subjective
Not really, dude. Comedians don’t just walk onstage and randomly start talking. There are elements that make jokes funny, and while people’s tastes vary, we can examine humor objectively.
I admit, when I first saw this cartoon, I thought it was kind of funny. After thinking about it all day? It’s lame. Not ’cause it made people angry, but because it’s not clever.
There’s no irony, no juxtaposition, no subversion of expectation, nothing to make me laugh again the second time I see it. It’s a basic “Dude!” joke:
“Duuuuude! Remember when that one chick said Obama did a ‘terrorist fist-jab’? Dude–what if they WERE terrorists!”
That’s it. One level. No thinking required. LCD–and definitely not “very funny.”
On the internet, not so bad, cause I’m looking at about 300 posts a day and my funny’s disposable. But this cartoon is going to sit for a week, on the cover of what is ostensibly the nation’s leading cultural mag.
I’m not outraged, b/c I do have something resembling a life, but I have to ask: is it worth it?
July 14, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I propose that the next New Yorker cover feature Hillary Clinton dressed in a Nazi uniform, wearing a garland of aborted fetuses, and clutching a DVD entitled “Lesbian Spank Inferno” being sworn into the Oval Office, while outside on the lawn the beturbaned Barack Obama and his militant wife are being burned at the stake, the bonfire consisting of copies of this New Yorker.
Too subtle?
July 14, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Some unfunny people said:
Cry about it on the internet.
July 14, 2008 at 6:30 pm
My hubby and I were trying to come up with a “satirical” follow-up cover about McCain. His idea was that the next cover should show McCain in the act of fathering his illegitimate black child. Cuz it’s edgy and it’s based on a rumor that’s “out there” and it’s completely untrue and it’s Rove’s brain-child. Plus, it’s kinda racist. Win-win-win-win-win! Ooo-eee, what a thigh-slapper!
Of course, for symmetry, it would be better if the McCain Big Lie came from a democrat. Could someone please get on that?
July 14, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Barry Blitt, speaking with the New York Times’ Steven Heller on drawing McCain (among other candidates):
I for one look forward to a John McCainNew Yorker cover done by Blitt.
July 14, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Yeah, I get the cover but it’s boring. Ralph Steadman should have done it.
Kathy Griffin is boring too, which is why ghod invented the remote.
July 14, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Get ready I’m going to fire this joke at you. Get ready to laugh.
July 14, 2008 at 7:00 pm
You realize the New Yorker is sold at newsstands all across the country (which generally display the magazine quite prominently in their window displays),
What are these “newstands” you speak of? I live in South Caroina. We ain’t got no newstands.
There are only two book stores I know of in the county that sell The New Yorker. And it always has that big flap over the cover, so you can’t really see it anyway. And they never put in the window. They always have the one or two copies they get of it hidden in different places in the store every week, so the liberal elitists like myself have to hunt all over for it.
July 14, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Mel Says:
July 14, 2008 at 6:30 pm
My hubby and I were trying to come up with a “satirical” follow-up cover about McCain.
This is all you need.
Don’t let him in!
~
July 14, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Which is to say: B) “it’s not funny because …” Funny or not funny, because or because not, is all personal taste. I find the subject offensive, and can’t figure out how (or why) one would make an anodyne joke about it, but your grandmotherly tastes and sensibilities are yours and yours alone. I don’t particularly give a fuck what you think; neither does the New Yorker, apparently; the Obama campaign seems more sympathetic. But the day I take comedy tips from a political campaign is the day I take pointers on eyebrow grooming from Mickey Kaus.
Today is the day I learned that humor is objective.
July 14, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I think Kevin Drum and Atrios are right: If you are going to use satire (and I don’t recommend it) you really should make sure people know it is satire so they won’t get confused. What is the point of trying to fool people by convincing them you mean the opposite of what you really believe? How is that funny? I don’t get it.
July 14, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Beats the hell outta me too, Jon.
~
July 14, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Cervantes,
Why buy the definitions and paradigms of the GOP with regard to how to win an election or the reality of anything? Maybe Columbus, OH LV’s aren’t aware that Mommy drinks? Maybe they don’t even know about silly juice?
July 14, 2008 at 7:32 pm
It would be funnier if he was deflowering an ecstatic white woman with his stout erumpent member.
July 14, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Wow, a Mohammad cartoon controversy of your very own. Congratulations, Left.
July 14, 2008 at 7:45 pm
The modern libs and Dems are an embarrassment.
This is funny. Period.
Now all you Kossacs and TNR wannabees, shut-up, head back to the basement, watch your re-runs of Murphy Brown and giggle all night at the knee-slapping ad-libs of Candice Bergman and the goofy little guy with the glasses.
Leave the real funnies to the “pros”.
July 14, 2008 at 7:46 pm
[...] as the controversial New Yorker cover is concerned, I tend to think that while it is an attempt at satire, it’s a rather poor attempt, for reasons that have already been spelled out by people who are [...]
July 14, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Not that I take it as a huge deal (except for now giving a great excuse for righties to use all the bilge imagery on Obama they want now that liberals have done it first), but, no, this simply isn’t funny.
I mean humor-wise. It’s just not funny. Now, it might have formed a base for some sort of a joke.
I grant that certainly some people think that to do something ‘shocking’ is in itself humorous, but just the act of drawing right wing allegations isn’t actually adding anything.
But as it is, it’s just lazy regurgitation.
And that’s the thing about calling something “satire”.
It isn’t “satire” if you don’t do anything different than the supposed target of your satire.
I have to fault the artist. He was just lazy. Surprisingly so. After all, I imagine he’s paid pretty well.
July 14, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Not the guy’s most soaring work, but can we clarify something? New Yorker covers are a different kind of cartoon than the cartoons the magazine’s known for. The lack of a punchline is to be expected.
>>I imagine he’s paid pretty well.
Yep. Them freelance graphic artists got it PRET-ty good.
July 14, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Reading the comments on this and many other sites, I can see what it boils down to for many Obama supporters: “Where’s the McCain cover??!! Huh? Let’s have a little BALANCE here!”.
If you can’t get beyond the most basic political tit-for-tatism, it’s not too surprising that you also can’t get a joke.
July 14, 2008 at 9:01 pm
This reminds me of something…
http://www.sloshspot.com/blog/07-14-2008/The-10-Drunk-People-You-Dont-Want-To-Meet-At-The-Bar-29
Oh, that’s right.
July 14, 2008 at 9:11 pm
It’s kind of depressing to see otherwise smart people who you generally agree with miss the point entirely.
Then you see Kevin Drum, Brad DeLong, and Matt Yglesias start explaining how to make things funny, and it gets kind of amusing.
July 14, 2008 at 9:21 pm
“I suggest you fight the real enemy and get Dat Phan, Larry the Cable Guy, and Carlos Mencia the fuck off my TV set.”
would that be the objective or subjective “real enemy?”
July 14, 2008 at 9:39 pm
If given a choice, though, between staring exclusively at this cover cartoon and watching an entire season of Carlos Mencia, I’d choose the cover cartoon instantly.
July 14, 2008 at 9:46 pm
would that be the objective or subjective “real enemy?”
You tell me, hoss.
July 14, 2008 at 9:50 pm
@PiatR:
…clutching a DVD entitled “Lesbian Spank Inferno”…
[...]
Too subtle?
I’ll say. How many Yanks are gonna catch that reference?
July 14, 2008 at 9:52 pm
generally behaving in a way which might upset someone’s pilled-up granny will bring about terrible calamity…
Hey, I’m no granny! And I like your mocking tone, young’un.
This whole thing reminds me of a big controversy way back when over an “ad” in the early National Lampoon. The ad was for Volkswagons, which were reportedly airtight. The caption was something like, “If only Teddy had been driving a Volkswagon.” In poor taste? Yes. Many questioned its redeeming value. To me, the redeeming value of humor is to be funny, and the ad passed the test. So does the cover. Now, what do those little red pills do?
July 14, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Can any one of you name one conservative of prominence who has made the argument: Hey people, Obama’s a secret Muslin. Or: Don’t vote for Obama, because he’s black.
Answer: No.
That’s why libs have to make this stuff up, and draw pictures of it, to support your false narrative.
(Libs next argumentative steps: 1) You’re using “code words”!
2) There’s an e-mail going around!)
Obama is a arrogant twerp who knows little and has done little, and that’s why he shouldn’t be President. The preceding true proposition is the gist of most conservative criticism of Obama, and it’s an entirely legit line of attack.
What progressives are trying to do is blend legitimate criticism, with (imaginary) illegitimate racist or otherwise irrational criticism of Obama, so as to de-legitimize all criticism of your little jerk secular Messiah.
July 14, 2008 at 9:58 pm
It’s obviously a joke, but the only reason I get the joke is because I already know the New Yorker’s politics, which seems a bit like a cheat & a disclaimer on its own. But liberal blog death spiral is right. We’ve adopted one of the very worst aspects of the media: more and more, we cover things not because they’re important, interesting, funny, original, or otherwise worth covering, but because everyone else in the liberal blogosphere is talking about them. And everyone else in the liberal blogosphere is usually talking about them because it’s the controversy-du-jour on the cable networks. We’re being assimilated into the village.
July 14, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I so want Obama to show up for his inauguration in a dark wool thobe. What this millennium really needs right now is a Nehru jacket to call its own.
July 14, 2008 at 11:07 pm
…Dom Deluise’s miracle 6-week washboard abs diet.
By implication, Sifu Tweety is the Kirstie Alley of comedy.
July 14, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Brian Says:
July 14, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Can any one of you name one conservative of prominence who has made the argument: Hey people, Obama’s a secret Muslin. Or: Don’t vote for Obama, because he’s black.
Answer: No.
Uh, fuck face: Sadly, Yes!
http://mediamatters.org/items/200807140009
And that took me a nanosecond to find, shit for brains.
July 14, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Obama is a arrogant twerp who knows little and has done little, and that’s why he shouldn’t be President.
That’s pretty funny shit when the apparent unspoken continuation is “so vote for the dangerously unstable, bellicose, half-dead guy instead!” I suppose there’s a REASON that part so often goes unsaid. Although having an “arrogant twerp” in the White House might sound kind of scary if I hadn’t gotten used to it over the past eight years, I think I’ll stick with the guy who’s not gonna one day out of the blue decide to nuke Sweden, thanksverymuch.
July 14, 2008 at 11:22 pm
The Editors, sometimes you make me really want a Latte.
July 15, 2008 at 12:20 am
Given that the future of humanity may be at stake in this election, I propose we designate Obama-McCain “World War Five.” This should serve as a reminder that the time for joking is over, that Americans need to watch what they say, watch what they do, watch what they write, watch what they draw, watch what they sell, watch what they buy and watch what they watch.
July 15, 2008 at 12:56 am
“nothing’s as humorless as lists of rules about humor, except this one which is a fucking nitrous tank of monkeys.”
The Editors: 1
Humorless Liberals: 0
July 15, 2008 at 1:17 am
I thought the New Yorker cover was pretty funny, but not as funny as Spy’s classic Hillary as dominatrix cover.
But that’s just me.
July 15, 2008 at 2:20 am
The New Yorker is not, and has never been, a publication for the masses. Afterall, it has a readership that reads and comprehends ideas above a fifth-grade level. However, since someone pointed out that this magazine will be in news stands all over the country, the idea that this cover will harm Obama’s campaign is only valid if you are of the view that the majority of Americans are really that stupid. Otherwise, if you hold a more (dare I say it) optimistic view of the American masses, there is no reason to think that The People, midwest hick and northeastern elitist alike, won’t give a chuckle and shed a little tear over this cover.
One of the things that is refreshing and surprising about Obama is that he has gotten this far by NOT pandering to the lowest-common denominator. His speeches challenge the American public to consider difficult issues and he doesn’t speak to any audience like they are a bunch of idiots. While this quality has been misconstrued by Conservatives as “elitist,” I think Obama’s success is largely attibutable to the fact that the vast majority of Americans appreciate not being treated like an idiot (FINALLY!) by a politician.
In that sense, I think to assume that most people in America won’t “get it” when it comes to this cover, which is not really all that sophisticated, is to play into those humorless conservative talking heads and pandering politicians who for personal gain would rather perpetuate a culture of mediocrity. This cover is funny. But it also shows something very scary and shameful. The New Yorker editors are holding a mirror up to American society and daring us to look in to it.
Journalism used to be brave like this. Unfortunately the press no longer respects its audience. It’s clear that the New Yorker is still committed to getting the truth out to its readers. The New Yorker editors would be remiss if they didn’t satirize the ludicrous characterization of the Obamas by the Right wing. If the press today published more stuff like this, we wouldn’t be in the fix we are in today.
The people who “get it,” (and from Obama’s numbers it seems that there are a lot of those who do) already support Obama, and covers like this can only encourage more people to lend their support. The idea that the New Yorker went too far and that this cover will cause supporters to rescind their backing for the candidate is silly. It’s just this kind of baseless fear that has kept the establishment in power.
July 15, 2008 at 5:11 am
All I want to know is who is actually going to the New Yorker to bring on the funny? They are responsible for all those fucking stupid cartoons my grandmother is always sending me. Of course their jokes are going to suck.
July 15, 2008 at 6:15 am
fish, that’s what I mean, indeed it’s central to my point. People were outraged because they couldn’t understand that Swift was writing satire. I’m not talking about those people. People do believe that Obama is a terrorist Muslim Black nationalist abortionist. The people who don’t understand this is satire won’t be outraged, they’ll say “see? Even the evil liberal elitist arugula eating New Yorker calls Obama a Muslim.” Personally I don’t have a problem with the cover. I find it mildly amusing, but I get the satire. My wingnut brother? Probably not so much.
July 15, 2008 at 6:33 am
I see The Editors’ point, I really do, but in this particular case I think it’s trumped by the Cervantes/Hamsher real-world practical-effect consideration.
There is a form of satire in which the satired point of view is simply stated unadorned, without exaggeration*, but understanding that it’s satire then depends on knowing something about the frame / source. The worry is that in this case a lot of people will miss that factor. Ordinarily who’d give a fuck, but here we’re talking about something that could conceivably sway some votes.
Tangentially, New Yorker cartoons are actually sometimes funny. The one with Che wearing the Bart Simpson T-shirt, for example.
* (which is what makes this cover different from “A Modest Proposal”)
July 15, 2008 at 6:34 am
It’s true that New Yorker cartoons aren’t always “haha” funny, but they certainly have a funny way of getting at the crux of a matter with a some squiggly lines and very few words. Like this very topical one: http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/product_details.asp?mscssid=UHNA123CKBB48KWEUXHB2E8BB4JNDRT7&sitetype=1&did=4&sid=28639&pid=&advanced=1&keyword=undefined&artist=Ed+Fisher§ion=prints&caption=&artID=&topic=&pubDateFrom=&pubDateTo=&pubDateMon=&pubDateDay=&pubNY=&color=0&title=Ed+Fisher&whichpage=4&sortBy=popular
July 15, 2008 at 6:45 am
I think that’s a four (cf correntewire Obamagolf):
0) Obama is a “Muslin”
1) ‘Muslin’ is a kind of cotton cloth
2) ‘Cotton’ refers to ‘cotton pickers’
3) Cotton pickers were black
4) You are a racist!
July 15, 2008 at 6:49 am
Gus and fish are correct however, that New Yorker covers are mildly amusing. To New Yorkers. The rest of the fucking world, not so much.
Let us all recall that cover, probably most widely reproduced of all time, which shows a map of America as perceived by New Yorkers: The Western boundary was roughly the Hudson river, LA was a tiny speck on the far horizon. YOU KNOW THE ONE I MEAN.
Funny, huh?
July 15, 2008 at 7:07 am
The little old lady librarian did not have to explain McCain=Bush for the McCain campaign to understand exactly what the message was. This cartoon is difficult?
July 15, 2008 at 7:14 am
I love that somebody in this thread implied that I’m not funny.
This thread is where funny comes to — well, not to die, it’s long-since dead in the blogosphere — to stink up the joint with its putrefaction.
July 15, 2008 at 7:17 am
Well, actually, that cover was pretty funny in a self-disparaging way. New Yorkers were making fun of themselves…get it? ha ha. And for those who hate New York, they saw the cover and it reaffirmed their hate for the island. But no one who once liked New York, looked at the cover, and decided to hate it as a result. Similar with the Obama cover. He’s not going to loose any votes as a result of the cover. Those who like him will continue to do so, those how hate him will also remain steadfast in their hate, and for those on the fence (which means they are not polarized automatons and are in fact expending some brain capacity to sort through the candidates and the issues), they WILL get it and this type of coverage is likely be a tick mark in Obama’s favor….
July 15, 2008 at 7:35 am
one place we can all witness the cover’s effects unfolding in full bloom is in the yahoo answers politics section. i wholeheartedly recommend anyone to dip a toe into that den of wretched filth armed with a couple flaskets of stiff drink. in case anyone’s not convinced that it’s worthwhile reading, one question yesterday was “liberals say islam is a faith of peace, so why are they ashamed to see their nominee in muslim garb?”
July 15, 2008 at 7:38 am
You’re very funny, Sifu. VERY FUNNY LOOKING!!!!!
… And so began the Great Blog War of aught-eight.
July 15, 2008 at 7:44 am
Oh that does it.
You smell funny.
Right now. You do.
July 15, 2008 at 7:45 am
Right now, I do … YOUR MOM!!!!
July 15, 2008 at 7:55 am
That’s what she said!
Wait.
Fuck.
July 15, 2008 at 7:56 am
Klaatu: indeed that is central to my point.
Mildy amusing….
July 15, 2008 at 7:57 am
ahhh…sunshine…
July 15, 2008 at 7:59 am
Your mutual-assessments seem essentially correct.
July 15, 2008 at 8:14 am
Wow. Comment City.
The arguments anti- focus on the cover’s possible negative effects, convincing or reinforcing voters suspicious of Obama that he really is a Muslim and his wife is a dangerous revolutionary.
(Because whether or not it’s “really funny” is not worth arguing over. THAT is what makes comedy subjective, as Teh Editorz said.)
To me it’s obvious that (as others have said, above):
a) People who get the joke and are already disposed to vote for Obama will continue to be so disposed.
b) People who don’t get the joke, and see the cover as “proving” (or merely illustrating) the idiocy they already believe, will continue to believe it, and would have continued to believe it whether the cover had been printed or not.
c) People in the middle, who don’t know yet if they “trust” Obama, will end up being in either group a or b.
This cover is not going to *sway* anyone. It will confirm the stoopids and have no effect on everyone else.
All other considerations–is it “funny,” is it “tasteless,” is it “appropriate,” etc.–are academic.
July 15, 2008 at 8:21 am
I’ll tell you what smells. The hand of Hillary.
July 15, 2008 at 8:25 am
CDS alive and well.
Any how no one has answered why Michelle seems to need to pee in the cartoon. What is that all about?
July 15, 2008 at 8:51 am
Greg Kamiya at salon.com seems to agree with The Editors. Which is just as well.
Since the essence of satire is exaggerating negative stereotypes, this means that satire itself is off limits. Or, at least, all satire except that which the cowering — but oh so semiotically sophisticated — left-wing commentariat deems to be sufficiently broad-brush and polemical to pass its funny test. There’s no arguing taste in humor, of course, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that those who find Barry Blitt’s drawing completely unfunny have traded their appreciation of subtlety and nuance for an instrumental, ends-obsessed, political-unto-death worldview. The prominent blogger Atrios, for example, writes of the cartoon, “It obviously was an attempt at satire, but it fails. It represents the basic stuff that you get from the Right about Obama, but it neither mocks nor exaggerates them.” Atrios may be reading secret e-mails from Fox News containing Protocols of the Elders of Obama that I haven’t seen — oops, I shouldn’t have made a joking reference to that noxious forgery, because by so doing I have played into the hands of anti-Semites — but I haven’t come across any right-wing hits on Obama that feature an American flag burning in the White House fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden on the wall.
The more brain-dead among the posters on left-wing blogs angrily denounce the New Yorker cover as itself racist. Merely to acknowledge racism, for them, is to be racist. This view, which in its Manichaean purity oddly recalls the hysterical reaction of some Muslims to the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, represents the reductio ad absurdum of political correctness: Not a single work of satire could ever pass this paranoid test. With some exceptions (notably the conservative commentator Michelle Bernard on “Hardball”), few of the pundits who criticized the New Yorker went this far: They merely expressed outrage, or concern, that by running the cartoon, the New Yorker was unwittingly carrying the right’s water for it.
July 15, 2008 at 8:57 am
(Note: By the time I finished writing this comment, others were on the way to making similar points, so my entry might be redundant by the time it’s posted.)
In comment #90, Klaatu says: “It’s true that New Yorker cartoons aren’t always ‘haha’ funny…”
Exactly.
It seems that some other readers (of this page, other blogs and of the New Yorker) would be more comfortable with this cover drawing if there was something laugh-out-loud funny about it, and that it’s not good satire because it isn’t so — at least to them, that is; humor IS subjective (I used to think.). I realize that some others find it not good because they think it’s not OBVIOUSLY satire, funny or not. (Forgive me for leaving out those who are merely offended, or whose panties are in a bunch because they think others will be offended, and the New Yorker is hurting our cause.)
But who says satire has to be funny?
sat·ire
1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn
2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly
(source: merriam-webster.com)
ridicule, scorn, wit, irony, sarcasm
Wit CAN be funny ha-ha, but wit is not the only characteristic of satire – nor even one necessarily present; any one of those five characteristics listed in the two definitions might exist in a piece of satire without the accompaniment of any of the others.
Myself, I prefer funny. But that’s just me.
July 15, 2008 at 9:09 am
I thought it was sharp, absurd, and kinda funny. I get it that lots of other people don’t.
I also spent some time trying to imagine the corresponding McCain cover. I kept coming up with not much. The underlying premise is, as it was with the Obama cover, “Hey, let’s take every scary, worst-case, bat-shit insane fear about the candidate and distill it into one outrageous cover illustration.”
But which of my apprehensions about McCain could actually qualify as “bat-shit insane”? Some of his history would make for icky but amusing cartoons, like his presto-chango divorce and remarriage. But that’s not a concern I have about his presidency. I don’t care about that shit.
So how do you engraphicize his (a) willful ignorance and disinterest in vital economic and geographic details; (b) his hair-trigger temper and inclination to grudge-holding; (c) his close, personal relationship with all kinds of lobbyists (not just the photogenic ones); (d) his demonstrable, repeated willingness to flip-flop on anything if it suits his ambition; and (e) you add on the rest, I’m tired and annoyed.
He’s old. That’s easy, but cheap. Lots of people that old are perfectly competent. He has an incredibly wealthy, strange-looking trophy wife. Cheap and irrelevant, except in terms of chipping away at his “just-folks” persona.
I got part-way through coming up with some images. One of them involved him and Cindy in the Oval Office. He’s so angry he’s spitting nails (but no actual nails will be drawn). There are out-of-date world maps tacked haphazardly on the wall. The flag is unscorched and properly displayed, but it only has 48 stars. The furniture all has engraved medallions saying stuff like “Desk Courtesy of the Freedom-Loving Folks at [insert name of sub-contractor of Bechtel or Halliburton or Lockheed, etc.]“.
Meanwhile, the apoplectic McCain is screaming, “Where’s the Button? Who’s got the Button?” We see the Button of Horrible Global Nuclear Disaster, sitting on a top shelf, partially obscured by a six-pack of Budweiser. It’s too high for his poor,damaged arms to reach. (Ooh, extra-tasteless.)
Nearby, on a comfy chair, all polished and made-up and looking impassive except for the tiniest twist to the corner of her mouth, Cindy continues to read her book, The Way We Live Now, by (wait for it) Trollope, Anthony.
I think it’s kind of mean and mildly amusing. But as they say on teh tubes, YMMV. But YM always does.
Bottom line, though, is we really need to get back to the McCain portion of this year’s festivities.
July 15, 2008 at 9:31 am
So according to some wanker at Salon, Atrios should not write that he doesn’t think it’s funny ?
I didn’t find it funny either; no chuckle, no smile.
It’s not like I’m calling the New Yorker or starting a subscription just to cancel it, but I JUST don’t find it funny – like a lot of missed humor in cartoons or comic strips.
Now, if it had been in Calvin and Hobbes or Futurama …
July 15, 2008 at 9:50 am
Sifu Tweety said,
March 7, 2006 at 0:01
For “Most Deserving of Less Recognition” I nominate Sifu Tweety at the poor man.
Talk about bringing a good thing down!
G00d +imes!1
~
July 15, 2008 at 9:51 am
I laughed out loud at the cover.
I find the shitstorm amusing and enlightening.
Sadly, I was raised in a household where the magazine was left lying around for children to read. I “learned” humor from my attempts to decipher the cartoons. (oh, and to understand the little comments that appeared at the blank spaces after articles)
July 15, 2008 at 10:12 am
[...] Now please go play in the sunshine.. [...]
July 15, 2008 at 10:13 am
Oh, those were happier times, were they not, thunder?
July 15, 2008 at 10:15 am
The McCain version has John seeing the Queen of Diamonds and raising the Vietnamese Communist flag over the White House. B’duhrr.
Glad to see I’ve been talking to myself for the past year.
July 15, 2008 at 10:20 am
Fuck ‘em, T. Ed’s. Let’s ban everybody.
July 15, 2008 at 10:34 am
Yes indeedy, J—.
(Typing quickly to beat the ban(d)
~
July 15, 2008 at 10:43 am
Of course, for symmetry, it would be better if the McCain Big Lie came from a democrat. Could someone please get on that?
This actually got me thinking? What is the equivalent McCain Big Lie originating from the left? This is not a rhetorical question suggesting that there isn’t one — I’m sure this is just a cultural blind-spot on my part, but now I’m curious. What is it?
July 15, 2008 at 10:49 am
The McCain version has John seeing the Queen of Diamonds and raising the Vietnamese Communist flag over the White House. B’duhrr.
Oops missed that while typin’. Did that one originate on the left though, or is that another one from the Rove2000 black-baby, push-poll, whispering campaign? And does it really have any nontrivial currency comparable to the Muslim Obama thing (e.g., cable news talkers debating the “issue”; double-digit poll results of people believing it; tell-two-friends e-mail chains, etc.)?
July 15, 2008 at 10:51 am
Margarita Says:
July 15, 2008 at 10:43 am
What is it?
John McCain IS Reverend Henry Kane!one1!
Don’t let ‘em in!
~
July 15, 2008 at 10:57 am
No, no, that’s all Bob Dornan. Liberals are horrible at this sort of thing, so we have to borrow. If we want one of our very own, it could be a triptych (sp?) with a bitter and angry McCain divorcing his crippled wife in frame one, marrying his millionaire heiress Barbie doll wife in frame 2, and then calling her a “painted cunt” for the finale. Except it wouldn’t be “satire” so much as “reportage”. Maybe dressing him up like The Mummy for a fake Brendan Frasier movie poster? He isn’t actually that old.
July 15, 2008 at 10:59 am
Sometimes I wonder how you keep going.
I loved that even when Michelle was on the show, Colbert kept saying Obama was a secret Muslim. If he can call W. an idiot at 10 paces, I guess Michelle’s stink eye is no biggie.
July 15, 2008 at 11:16 am
Timing is everything. If this were the cover one day after the election, it’s fucking genius. Today, it’s still hilarious but it’s also uncomfortable. And it’s uncomfortable not because the NYer has a duty to elect Obama or make Obama supporters feel good. It’s uncomfortable because of the last eight years this country has been through. It’s uncomfortable because of “mission accomplished” and freedom fries and “clear skies” and “shock and awe” and everything about Iraq and a whole host of irony killing things this administration has rammed up the collective ass of America.
In the context of now I wish this cover had been saved until the day after the election. I think then, no matter who was elected, it would be a powerful and important cover as well as brilliant satire.
Just sayin’.
July 15, 2008 at 11:22 am
I think the better anti- argument is that the cover fails as satire. A Modest Proposal is successful satire because it exposed the underlying brutality of early industrial capitalism by exaggerating it; this cover only repeats the themes being drummed on Fox, and fails to add the level of absurdity or hyperbole necessary to make it an effective commentary.
Basically, the right-wing itself has become so absurd, that any satire requires a heretofore undiscovered level of absurdity to successfully skewer it.
July 15, 2008 at 11:40 am
The image I get isn’t so much of ramming as a voluntary greasing and strenuous insertion of head. Humor is a coping mechanism in a country where 40% are OK with torture as policy.
July 15, 2008 at 11:43 am
“That’s an offensive joke.”…Which is to say “it’s not funny because …”
Really? Offensive = not funny? How do you live?
Many offensive jokes are funny. But when deciding to tell a joke, you weigh the humor potential (B) with the amount of offense (C) it’s likely to cause. If B < C, I would argue you don’t tell the joke.
Of course, sometimes offending people is the joke. That can be funny too. But if your sense of humor trends that way, I would argue marketing a magazine targeted at elderly rich liberals probably isn’t your calling.
Today is the day I learned that humor is objective.
We should have talked sooner. I could have saved you a lot of trouble with this blog. ;)
July 15, 2008 at 11:48 am
Yes. If there’s one thing the The Funny obeys, it’s the Utilitarian Algebra of Hurted Feelings.
For the love of God, please stop.
July 15, 2008 at 11:53 am
I think we’re overthinking it a bit. I don’t think Americans on the whole are so dumb as to treat this cover as some sort of factual confirmation.
But I do think a huge number of Americans are simply not political junkies; call them low-information voters. They glance at this cover and can recognize Obama in some weird getup. And as some earlier commenter noted, no conscious thinking is involved; it just goes straight into the subconscious: Obama, turban, gun, terrorist, other. And the corresponding reflexive view of McCain will be, old, white, male, presidential. Bad timing for this cover.
July 15, 2008 at 12:14 pm
This actually reminds me of the Charlotte Allen “Women are Dumb” WashPost fiasco. The editors tried to save Allen from herself by claiming the piece was satire, but even before she contradicted them, it was apparent that the piece itself was unfunny and would’ve failed in that respect. Even if they had known Allen was trying to be funny, as people with an outsized impact on the national discourse, were obligated to use their influence responsibly.
As a New Yorker cartoon, the best this cover could’ve hoped for was to elicit some internal laughs, and been forgotten a couple minutes into reading an overwrought book review. But now it’s in getting national media play, and the editors of the magazine, who knew that this was a possibility, do have to take responsibility for the impact of their work. This isn’t Obamadroids v. The First Amendment, as cute as a strawman that may be.
July 15, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I can slightly understand the resentment, but in a culture of anti-intellectualism, you might stop and consider whether you’re carrying water for the AM-radio crowd who love to pretend there’s no such thing as journalism, just varieties political opinion.
And I’m offended by your being offended.
July 15, 2008 at 12:26 pm
You know, I knew one day that liberals would become the ones pushing censorship. They need to get new hobbies, like sex or something equally distracting.
July 15, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Well….Obama did dress up in Muslin garb on one of his trips and Michelle does remind me of an angry 70′s Angela.
But is he a Muslin. No, he’s a Chicago Christian. Is she a revolutionary? No. She’s feisty and sometimes has foot in mouth reactions.
What’s the big deal?
July 15, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I have been informed by very reliable sources that the Gert Jonnys are deeply offended…by what, I don’t know…but deeply offended nevertheless…is Walnuts McSame married to Angela Landsbury? How ’bout a nice game of solitaire? Carry on The Editors, I support your War against teh stupid…onward to Ultimate and Final Victory.
July 15, 2008 at 1:48 pm
The fact is, this will result in a landslide for McCain because it shows Obama as he is, and liberals are so stupid to think its satire, it’s just reality. Hear in the heartland, we know secret muslim terrorists when we see them.
July 15, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Seattle cartoonist David Horsey’s version McCain-baiting version of a magazine cover.
I think most people here will agree Horsey is not exaggerating for satirical purposes; he’s finally telling the Truth about McCain!
July 15, 2008 at 3:12 pm
May I just say that I want to be part of an PM thread that goes past 100 comments?
And Barry Blitt couldn’t draw the Keyboard Kommandos if he tried.
And I don’t think much of Roz Chast either.
July 15, 2008 at 3:48 pm
It’s always sad to see white people earnestly discussing when it’s appropriate to laugh at racist jokes. “It’s satire, don’t you see? D’ya get it?”
July 15, 2008 at 5:43 pm
But is he a Muslin. No, he’s a Chicago Christian.
I am not a fabric. I….AM….A….HUMAN….BEING!!!!!
AndI thought Chicago had the Cubs, Bears and Blackhawks. What’s next? The New York Jews?!?
July 15, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Greg Kamiya at salon.com:
The prominent blogger Atrios, for example, writes of the cartoon, “It obviously was an attempt at satire, but it fails. It represents the basic stuff that you get from the Right about Obama, but it neither mocks nor exaggerates them.” Atrios may be reading secret e-mails from Fox News containing Protocols of the Elders of Obama that I haven’t seen — oops, I shouldn’t have made a joking reference to that noxious forgery, because by so doing I have played into the hands of anti-Semites — but I haven’t come across any right-wing hits on Obama that feature an American flag burning in the White House fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden on the wall.
Jesus Christ on a Cracker, are these media people totally clueless?
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/12/barack_hussein.html
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/04/22/osama-and-obama-church-fuels-obama-muslim-rumors/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112802757_pf.html
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/10/romney-just-loo.html
http://www.jihadchat.com/index.php?showtopic=11074
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover012207.htm
It’s really not that hard to find this shit, Mr. Kamiya.
July 15, 2008 at 6:48 pm
This comments area is objectively racist (cf secondharmonic’s muslin syllogism).
I’m saddened! I’m offended! My sister! My daughter!
July 15, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Geddy, Alex and I think the cover is objectively funny.
July 15, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Oh, and <a href = “http://thepoorman.net/about/#comment-7855″Sifu Tweety Says So.
July 15, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Every time you go 99% of the way towards making a Rush + Objectivism joke and then leave everyone with blue balls like this, baby Ayn Rand is forced to share her blankie with her stupid half-sister.
July 15, 2008 at 8:17 pm
that’s objectively funny too. keep it up. or don’t. whatever. it’s all good in Canada.
July 15, 2008 at 8:42 pm
“You know, I knew one day that liberals would become the ones pushing censorship.”
I’ve apparently missed some new proposal- I thought we were countering speech with more speech for the most part.
Towards that end- 1. If you attempt to satirize a bunch of beliefs based in latent racism, but 2. Epic Fail, then you 3. actually have millions of racist caricatures printed and mailed across the world, which, in light of the fact that you are 4. trying to make an anti-racist point, results in 5. IRONY, not satire.
July 15, 2008 at 9:14 pm
uh, irony is dead.
July 15, 2008 at 9:51 pm
It’s probably a little late to point out that the drawing is about swiftboating, not race. The fact that the subjects happen to be black and that some here therefore decide it’s racist/meta-racist, seems to me racist, and I’m saddened and offended.
July 15, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I’m just sad. Can I please be just sad?
July 15, 2008 at 11:48 pm
[...] Drum, whose expertise in comedy is rivaled only by his knowledge of politics, helpfully suggested that the illustration [...]
July 16, 2008 at 12:53 am
Yes, Sandman, you can be sad. There, there, sweet Sandman. Now help me get to sleep, then you go to sleep. We can’t be forever blessed; still, tomorrow’s gonna be another working day, and we all should get some rest.
July 16, 2008 at 1:41 am
I thought it was funny too. I think it would have been just as funny on the cover of the American Spectator, or the National Revue.
I suspect that the inbreeds running the New Yorker are virtually the same as the people at those other two magazines.
I think I really need to get a life if I’m still talking about this.
July 16, 2008 at 7:08 am
Bravo. Or as the kids say, Word.
July 16, 2008 at 8:06 am
I thought the feds banned Dat Phan as a dietary supplement…?
July 16, 2008 at 8:30 am
What is that avatar supposed to me?
My attorney will be in touch.
July 16, 2008 at 9:11 am
July 16, 2008 at 11:17 am
Let me see… Most Americans are stupid… after all, look at the stupid man they elected president… and because they are stupid, every level of discourse should be dumbed down, even to that marginal group of intelligent people who read the New Yorker and understand most of it.
There used to be a website called FuckedCompany.com… I think we need one called FuckedCountry.com … all about the world’s most self-righteous and self-important country, of course.
July 16, 2008 at 12:28 pm
[...] also The Poor Man. The NYer Cover that Wasn’tJoel PettBushymandiasClinton’s speechThe voters, not the [...]
July 16, 2008 at 2:14 pm
The inimitable Tom Toles weighs in on the New Yorker cover controversy.
July 16, 2008 at 2:23 pm
McCain the Rising Gun
July 16, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I find the drawing accurate in terms of the nonsense used to smear the Obamas, but worry about the memes planted with those who do not deconstruct the image any further.
“I don’t care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don’t know how to read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures.” ~ Boss Tweed
July 16, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Wow. Toles bats .999 with me, but this reminds me of his tin ear with this one.
“Maybe we’re not so much a humorless or overly sensitive people as we are a trivial one.”
July 16, 2008 at 3:12 pm
“It’s funny because it’s true.”
July 16, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Election season insanity is in full swing. Unless you’re a psychiatrist, stay away until it’s time to enter the voting booth.
There is no more intelligent commentary to be made.
Funny, yes.
Intelligent, no, that is, if one equates intelligence with meaningfulness.
The fact that this event inspired 160-odd comments is itself a sad, you know, commentary, on commentary.
This meat is human. Do not eat unless you have no fear of mad cow disease.
July 17, 2008 at 1:20 pm
What this whole deal reminds me of the most is John Kerry’s windsurfing picture.
At the time, I recall thinking “WTF?” about all the hub-bub over it, but in retrospect, it certainly appears to have done considerable harm to his candidacy. I suspect the New Yorker cover will yield much the same results for Obama.
Guess we’ll find out in November, huh?
July 17, 2008 at 3:22 pm
It certainly appears you are speculating considerably.
“Some on the left, however, are so terrified that Americans, in their cosmic stupidity, cannot distinguish between satire and smear that they reject satire.”
July 17, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Also: relax. It’s just a stupid New Yorker pitcher. An entirely unimportant magazine in terms of Boss Tweed’s constituents. It don’t even have no nekkid wimminz on the cover.
Now, if it was You Tube, that might be something.
July 17, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I’m not sure: would it be more ironic or less so if the words This Is Satire were stenciled in broad red letters over the New Yorker cover?
With, underneath, in smaller but still largish print:
Not For Rubes and Literalist Simpletons?
With, underneath that, in smaller letters:
That Means Stupidheads?
With the whole thing trimmed in 1/2″ x 1/2″ images of Warhol soup cans?
July 18, 2008 at 4:46 am
It certainly appears you are speculating considerably.
Uh, yeah. Isn’t that the whole point of these comments? What you guys are doing isn’t speculating?
Like I said, we’ll find out in November, won’t we?
July 18, 2008 at 4:50 am
As for this:
so terrified that Americans, in their cosmic stupidity, cannot distinguish between satire and smear
There’s no “terrified” involved. I KNOW Americans are too stupid to distinguish between satire and smear.
July 20, 2008 at 11:33 pm
…New Yorker covers are mildly amusing. To New Yorkers. The rest of the fucking world, not so much.
That’s the best joke of all – to New Yorkers, there is no rest of the world.
Last!
July 21, 2008 at 2:20 am
[...] also link Mike Gerber, Bob Somerby, Digby, Sadly, No, Roy Edroso, John Cole, The Editors, Jon Swift and The Daily Show on this, although there’s plenty [...]
July 21, 2008 at 9:24 am
That’s the best joke of all – to New Yorkers, there is no rest of the world.
Indeed, that is central to my point.
July 21, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Commenting in an epic thread!
The cartoon itself, I find somewhat funny.
The yelps of existential horror about its affect on a bunch of folks who wouldn’t vote for a Black POTUS at gunpoint, however, are just plain friggin’ HILARIOUS!
Best part? The more seriously they take themselves, the more boffo they get – EXACTLY like wingnuts. Oh, sweet sweet irony.
One thing’s for damn sure – thanks to the lazy TeeVee Pundit-Brigade needing a new Obama “controversy” – & a slew of emo PC-Police-types taking a ride on their Waaaaahmbulance, The New Yorker just got itself at least $5 million worth of free publicity, for the price of one freelance cartoon.
BOOYAH!
July 22, 2008 at 4:07 pm
The image needs Hillary Clinton throwing a pie. Maybe also some Three Stooges shenanigans with Al Gore, Howard Dean, and Bill Richardson in the background. And definitely a leftie blogger standing in the distance, clutching its laptop to its chest, weeping furiously over a keyboard already moist with bitter tears.
For anyone who thinks they might fit into that last role, remember the first rule of comedy: don’t get mad; get even. If you don’t like what the NYer did, satirize it. Give as good as you get, and for Christ’s sake stop your impotent blubbering.