They Must Be Joking
An expression of outrage is the highest compliment that politicians can bestow upon a satirist. So when spokesmen for Barack Obama and John McCain echo each other and many another stuffed shirt in complaining about the current cover of The New Yorker, the magazine’s editors and cartoonist Barry Blitt should accept such remarks in precisely that spirit.
From Mark Twain to Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, there have always been people who didn’t get it—or worried about the damage that would ensue when other people didn’t get it. Today in America, despite the rising influence of The Daily Show and The Onion, it can be hazardous to be too hip for the room.
Critics of the cover drawing—which depicts Mr. Obama in Muslim garb and his wife, Michelle, as an urban guerrilla, sharing a fist bump while the American flag burns in the Oval Office fireplace beneath a portrait of Osama bin Laden—have called it “tasteless” and “offensive,” or in the words of one media critic, “highly offensive.” Evidently many Americans, especially in politics, the news media and the blogosphere, prefer their satire to be inoffensive and tasteful. But are satirists obliged to cater to them?
Other critics have sniped that the cartoon of the Obamas “wasn’t funny.” This is a matter of opinion, of course, but satire isn’t necessarily intended to elicit guffaws like a Jay Leno monologue or a Jack Black pratfall. Sometimes satirical drawings provoke laughter, and sometimes they simply provoke. Measured as provocation and as the focus of debate, the New Yorker cover is actually a huge success.
And then there are the critics who charge that The New Yorker, a liberal publication, has damaged Mr. Obama’s candidacy. Scores of angry readers reportedly have vowed to cancel their subscriptions in protest. But is the purpose of a magazine—even a liberal weekly—to help a candidate for president, and trim its articles and drawings to fit the agenda of his or her campaign? Not unless it is a wholly owned publication of the candidate’s political party.
Those who are offended, outraged and worried over Mr. Blitt’s drawing are certain that while they get the joke, some other category of Americans won’t. While they accuse the magazine’s smarty-pants staff of “elitism,” that term seems more apt in describing those who assume that most Americans are too stupid to understand the cartoon’s meaning and context.
As editor David Remnick felt compelled to explain, he assumes the risk that cartoons and art will be misinterpreted, either willfully or obtusely, when his magazine makes fun of racists and sundry blowhards. (He also assumes the risks inherent in editing a publication that wins prizes and makes money, thus inciting a degree of envy among peers who eagerly pounced on this “mistake.”) In this instance, the national controversy that exploded on cable television and the Internet ought to ensure that everybody paying attention will realize, if their brains didn’t immediately process “joke,” that the cartoon is not to be taken literally.
The inescapable fact is that both Mr. Remnick and Mr. Blitt are all too accurate in their assumptions about the whispering campaign that the far right has conducted against the Obamas—libeling them incessantly on Web sites, on cable television and talk radio, and via anonymous e-mail chains and blasts.
There is no point in pretending that this campaign of slurs about their religious beliefs and patriotism doesn’t exist. Certainly, that isn’t the attitude adopted by the Obama campaign, which set up its own Web site to counter the slurs. When 1 of every 8 or 10 Americans wrongly believes that Mr. Obama is Muslim, that suggests the right-wing propaganda is working. At least The New Yorker has prompted many commentators to acknowledge that such claims are “lies,” as David Shuster has repeatedly noted on MSNBC.
The Obama campaign is well aware of the problem, which is why they have adopted a counteroffensive strategy, including the Web site. But blasting The New Yorker in high dudgeon was surely a mistake. Even if they didn’t think the Blitt cartoon was funny, they should have laughed.
jconason@observer.com
- Poll
- Obama (D)
- McCain(R)
- Spread
- RCP Average
- 46.6
- 44.2
- Obama +2.4
- Candidate
- Favorable
- Unfavorable
- Spread
- Obama
- 55.8
- 35.8
- +20.0
- McCain
- 54.8
- 36.6
- +18.2
It's no wonder few people "get it" .. considering Americans are soo preconditioned to view EVERYTHING political as either in lock step with the "right" or "left" before they can bring themselves to react!
And I really do blame the liberal media for this, more so than the vast number of the conserative media..when the liberal media chose to support a single canidate..rather than support the more crucial issue of how much dammage the Republicans have done to this country! It would have much easier for the Democratic nominee than having to sway other Democrats to his/her side....
We "get" it; we are angry because we know it will be used against Obama by people who "don't get it; don't want to get it."
we "get it." We are angry because we know it will be used by people who "don't get it; don't want to get it.' In short, it fuels the asses.
Joe,
Once again I find after reading your column that my mind has changed. You are one of the few writers of whom I make a point of reading every word you write (yes, including the books) because I find that while your views usually coincide with mine, your values always do. So in the instances in which our views do differ, I find that yours are actually what mine would be if I take the time to think about it and apply some reasoned analysis. Please don't stop! :)
-- Joel
The only people that fear the "informed" are the "uninformed"...Mr. Conasons' column has provided us with a great service that the "knee jerk" media on all sides is too ignorant to see!
There is really no threat that the "right" will determine the outcome of this election..it's in the hands of the ignorant that has crippled itself from the real danger of allowing this current continuation of a semi dictatorship to be passed on to McCain!
If the satire is bad for Obama, he should be outraged, because it's outrageous.
If the satire is good for Obama, he should act outraged, because it gives him more press.
Would you have written about it if Obama had hadn't been offended? No? Well, you just gave him free press in return for his saying he was offended. Seems like your price is pretty low.
Ham-handed* as the cover was, it was apparently intended to satirize the right wing's views of the Obamas.
However, if the New Yorker ran an equivalent cartoon depicting the left wing's views of McCain, almost no one would "get" that as satire, either. So, Conason, please stop whining.
*Apology for using this term, as it may be offensive to Muslims. :-P
CP..So the "new" definition for telling the truth should be..whining?..
Most of us have already "got" that one with, ENRON, Halliburton the "war",the tanking economy, failing banks and $4.00 a gallon gas!
Keep in mind at first the French only "whined" about Marie Antoinette then when things got really bad they stopped "whining" and cut her head off!!
You are right. I don't get it and I don't like it.
I was drafted in 1971. One of the more popular phrases in the army was, "Fuck'em if they can't take a joke."
This was said by drill sargeants every time we were screwed out of any potential privileges or recreational opportunity.
As though being drafted were not a sick enough joke in itself.
Wake up America! The right wing is screwing you as often as it can and in as many ways as it possibly can dream up.
Don't let them think you like.
Joe - I agree with everything you say. However, you didn't mention the real problem, that this image can be used to bolster the lies about Obama. Most of the people who believe those lies, in the face of all the evidence to the contary, are probably not the people who are going to read the New Yorker article. Someone is going to send the picture to them in an e-mail to give legitimacy to those lies, and that's the problem with the picture. The New Yorker does not in any way have to carry water for the Obama campaign. However, they should have realized the very real concern that the image that they thought would make a comment about an outrageous situation, would actually be used to make the situation worse, and I don't think that is the effect anyone doing satire would want.
You’re still my main man. Keep it up.
Rich
Talk about "getting it" - let's try "really getting" for a change...
How about the New Yorker, all it's "satirists", cartoonists, Joe Conason and all 11 people reading his column that
***** IN FACT WE ARE AT WAR WITH ISLAMO-FACISM !!!!!!!!!! ****************
(for lack of a better term)
** WE CAN PROBABLY TAKE THIS "SATIRICAL CARTOON" AS A *SNAPSHOT OF OUR FUTURE*
IF WE KEEP PUMPING 900 BILLION $ A YEAR into ISLAM - LOT'S OF WHICH ARE "ISLAMO-FACISTS" (for lack of a better term).
And for whoever was *apologizing to "unknown" Muslims* for saying "ham-bone hands" IN AMERICA - that just shows how much you DON'T "get it" - PC needs to be replaced with some facts - Muslims DON'T RUN OUR SOCIETY - BUT THEY ARE TRYING !!
What are our current crop of handwringing Liberal sissys and Repulican chameleons doing about it? BUSH GOES BEGGING TO PRINCE ABDULLAH to give us some oil... well *uck 'em - we should be drilling our own - and if one more "Muslim crazy" comes here attacking our infrastructure again - 9/11 DID HURT - we should place AT LEAST 6 NUKES in the known genators of this terror.
BTW - then we can just take their oil.
To those who have complained about the New Yorker cover, I have a couple of things to say. First of all, it's called the First Amendment boys and girls. Get used to it.
Second, does anyone happen to remember that, in 1992, the first Bush administration ransacked the State Department passport files of Bill Clinton and his mother, attempting to prove that because both had traveled to Russia, albeit at different times, this somehow made them "fellow travelers" and crypto-Communists? When asked by reporters about this incident, Bill Clinton answered (I'm paraphrasing here), "Oh yes, my mother has a shrine to Joe Stalin in her living room. All the Communists in Arkansas come to my mother for horseracing tips." By the time the laughter died down, the Bush administration looked ridiculous, and Bill Clinton looked like a guy who could not only take a hit but leave 'em laughing.
Mr. Conason is right; Obama should have done what Bill Clinton did and turned the joke on the right-wingers who attack him in the manner satirized by the cover. Instead, he reacted like a thin-skinned guy who can't take any form of criticism, deserved or not. If his primary campaign experiences with the main-stream media left him thinking he was entitled to 24/7 worshipful, starry-eyed coverage, he's got another think coming. Welcome to the majors, Senator Obama.
This is nonsense on every level. First, the cover lacked gumor and point: why is a collection of slurs against the Obamas axiomatically "satireical"? Second, why should Obama laugh it off? These slurs are debated by evenh ostensibly fiar-minded people, not onloy no-neck morons. Conason reflects the same smug snarkiness that induced The New Yorker to publish its sophomoric smear. All you people need to get out of Manhtaan every now and then.
Ann: what exactly has the First Amendment to do with this? There is no loegal way to have prevented The New Yorker from publishing its cover. That is a false issue.
The comparison with Clinton is false. Thye country did not believe Clinton was a CPer; many in this country believe all of the slurs alleged on the cover of the new Yorker. And nothing on that cover was obviously satirical. There was nothing to laugh at.
Obama has proven he belongs in the majors. Some people who condescend to him need to rove the same thing.
The author's point is that the New Yorker cover was effective satire, and the outrage it has engendered should make the magazine congratulate itself?
Fine, how about a series of such satirical covers:
* Next month should be of a lazy, shiftless black person who refuses to work.
* After that, a black person cutting in front of a white person in a "Help Wanted" employment line.
* Round it out with a black man sexually threatening a white woman.
* And what the heck, include a holiday issue with a cheering lynch mob (hey to Golfweek).
The New Yorker's readers are of course much too hip to buy into any of these stereotypes, so the magazine will be the toast of the town! No?
No. Because this author neglects something important in his analysis, something that should be clear by now.
The damage wrought by such ignorant, offensive portrayals of people or groups goes beyond the magazine itself, and makes the magazine a party to those offensive images, by legitimizing them as acceptable public discourse.
The New Yorker cover provided zero context or frame on its cover, it merely scrawled the worst racist and bigoted attacks available under the banner of its magazine.
They should be ashamed, and so should Joe Conason for applauding such tripe.
My dictionary defines satire as: the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc. I believe this usually applies to the persons depicted in cartoons such as the New Yorker cover.
To suggest that what this cover shows is the right wing attacks on Senator Obama requires a little more thought and a shift from the usual perception of such political cartoons than can be expected from a large part of the public.
Consequently, I think The New Yorker made a serious error in publishing this outrage especially on their cover. I'm sure the right wing really appreciated it.
The NY'ER knew exactly what they were doing
and had their statements all prepared.
They knew it was offensive they knew that
Charlie Rose would be interviewing Remnick
and the choreography and the usual questions
would be asked and the answers are always
the same.
It's a nervy PR campaign that shows more than
a little desperation.
Many are so angry because there is a touch of truth to the cartoon.
On the day The New Yorker cover story broke, the only person I saw defend the The New Yorker was James Carville. He seemed to make the point that the Obama campaign would be wise to learn how to laugh and shrug some things off. This hypersensitivity of the Obama campaign makes him look rather prissy.