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The Gay Agenda video blog: The "New Yorker" Obama cover
In this week's Gay Agenda video blog, Jennifer Vanasco and Jon Mallow discuss the much-debated New Yorker cover that depicted Democratic candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as terrorists fist-bumping one another in the Oval Office. People on both sides have been reacting strongly to the cover, but does it merit the fuss? Is there a difference between satire and slander? Check it all out after the break! Submitted by on Thu, 2008-07-17 14:52.  SatireSubmitted by
db (954 points) (201 posts) on Tue, 2008-07-22 18:50.Spacer, I am a major Obama supporter, but I think we tend to react in a protective way when we think Obama has been attacked and it makes people think that Obama supporters are crazy and thin-skinned--and I think Obama's reaction to the cartoon made him seem thin-skinned, if he can't deal with a cartoon that is, in reality, supportive of him and pointing out the craziness of the things people are whispering about him, what will happen when real attacks start? Others have pointed out the errors in your definition of satire so I won't harp on that point. I think that the people who continue to believe Obama is Muslim, etc... at this point, after all the coverage of this cartoon will continue to believe it no matter what the truth is and no matter what proof they are given. |
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It all comes down to whose Gore is being oxed
afhickman
"It takes a village (to make Village People)"
Or, for those of you who missed the 2000 election: whose ox is being Gored. The Obama cartoon is doing what all good satire should do: make us think. The great satirists, like Swift and Pope, or Mencken and Feiffer, have all operated in this way. And good satire continues to provoke a response: think of Swift's "A Modest Proposal" or Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove." But Americans never have appreciated satire like their European counterparts. As someone famously once said about American theatre, "Satire is what closes on opening night." Satire is always dicey. Even Shaksepare seems to have flummoxed his audiences with "Troilus and Cressida." Sometimes it goes too far. How many of you saw "Wag the Dog"? What about Barbara Garson's "MacBird"? Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One"? Sometimes satire is confused with Black Humor, which tends to sensationalize for shock value alone. For example, Terry Southern once wrote a short story whose punch line made a travesty of the Kennedy assassination ("Blood of a Wig"). Bad taste can be incredibly funny, even when you hate yourself for laughing. In the case of the Obama cartoon, Barry Blitt may have done the Obamas a favor by helping to defuse a lot of the criticism that's bound to come their way in the fall. The people who believe Obama is married to Angela Davis and keeps a portrait of Osama over his fireplace are going to continue to believe that. The people who believe otherwise will continue to believe otherwise. At least the dialogue has started.
If you want to be offended by Terry Southern, he does a reading of "Blood of a Wig" here: http://www.gadflyonline.com/7-23-01/FTR-SOUTHERN.html
If you do NOT want to be offended, please do not link to this site.
Terrific Analysis
AF - That was a great analysis of satire and its cousins. You really hit the nail on the head when you said that "satire [and by extension, black humor and the others] is dicey". Anything related to humor provokes such widely different reactions in people, even in people with the same underlying political or philosophical beliefs. What's hilarious to one person is offensive to another, and the line of where something goes over the edge is so different from person to person. (I didn't write this for this reason at all, but that dovetails with what I've said many times about how gay people shouldn't be so quick to take offense at things.)
In my previous job I worked for a very small company, and somehow became good friends with the owner, even though she was very conservative and I was very liberal. I remember reading a true story about somewhere in rural India where some men killed their wives for reasons that were so grotesque that it seemed like real life satire. In my telling now there appears no humor at all, but the way it was written, and the over-the-top nature of the reasoning brought it for me into the black humor category. (And, of course, black humor often depends on ones distance from it!) Anyway, I expressed it to the company owner as a black humor item, and she was totally aghast. It took me awhile to get my reputation restored with her.
I personally saw the New Yorker cover as quintessential satire, but I also understand the negative reaction of my fellow Obama supporters in that our society really is undeducated enough for the satire to be lost on a lot of people (though probably not on any regular New Yorker readers!). The other gay guy on my floor at work, a fellow liberal though Hillary Clinton supporter, earlier forwarded to me an e-mail he'd received expressing concern about Obama's "muslim past", his taking his oath on the Quran (and we live in the same city as Keith Ellison!), etc. He was actually buying into it.
BTW, I personally didn't like "Wag the Dog" at all. For me, the satire went so far over the top as to render it ineffective.
Obama Satire
Unfortunately, for satire to work, you have to have an educated public. The outrage over this has been absolutely ridiculous, and the media (including this vlog) has just added to it by reporting on the outrage rather than educating the viewing audience. Politicians use the outrage to raise money and rail against the New Yorker despite the fact that the publication is generally positive about Obama.
I think this is very successful satire--unfortunately the media is too dumb, distracted and quick to outrage for no good reason. The whole controversy is ridiculous--but at least the media is actually reporting that there are all these false rumours about Obama and his wife.
I think Obama supporters and Obama himself need to get back in touch with reality. They can't react with outrage and hurt feelings about everything. The good thing about this cover is that it's bringing up all these issues--and therefore I think it's successful satire.
Jennifer are you serious?
Jennifer are you serious? Because that was the clear intent of the cover: putting together the nonsensical scene that the media are depicting, to ridicule it. If anyone is believing that secret muslim story, America has a very big problem, and it's good to know.
I think Jon Stewart couldn't put it better: Obama should have said that he wasn't offended by the cartoon, because do you know who get offended by cartoons? Muslim extremists!
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=176628&title=obama-cartoon
The New Yorker cover was not satire it was a smear
For satire to be effective and for it to work is to take something true and extend it to comic proportions. The falicy of this New Yorker cover is that there is NO TRUTH anywhere on the cover to make it humorous. If indeed the "satire" is that they are poking fun of the RNC spin of Obama's image then there would have to be some sort of imagery of the RNC. For example, placing this image in a web browser of the GOP website. OK that gives the offensive image a frame of reference and alerts the reader of the absurdity of the image.
In a vaccum, which is where most people will see this having no clue what the New Yorker is, this drawing looks like a caricature and is expanding on truths for comedic effect. The problem remains that nothing in the image is TRUE!? It could also be seen as ironic if the New Yorker was typically a very pro-Obama magazine, so the image of such a negative Obama image would be seen as funny. But I am not sure this is that case, and it isn' t the excuse the New Yorker tried to cobble together after the backlash. It isn't satire if you have to explain it, which the New Yorker has done and had to be done because without any explanation the cover makes no statement except to be offensive.
It is sloppy satire at best, but most likely just an out-right smear against Obama. It is disrespectful and classless lacking any bit of humor or irony. The illustrator is incompetent and the editor should be ashamed.
OR! They could put a big
Read my books! Explore "Brent's Brain" at http://www.brenthartinger.com Average (6 votes):
Give me a break
I am not trying to argue that the imagery is true or that folks will believe this exaggerated imagery is true. Reread my post if you did not understand that.
BUT I do think that people will think this is an exaggerated caricature of the Obamas, but in reality IT IS NOT, none of that is is true even in a less hyperbolic frame. Obama is NOT and has NEVER been muslim, so having him in islamic garb is just patently false not an exaggeration so any irony is nonexistant.
You must not read polls or know much about Americans because nearly 1/4 of Americans believe Obama was sworn in on the Koran, and illustrations like this just help push that misconception. This cover only created distractions and was distasteful and sloppy. Humor can go too far and this embarassing "satire" is an example of it. It was pushed to sell more magazines and give the tired New Yorker some time in headlines. Nothing brilliant about it except for pretenious Hillary supporters to feel good about themselves for "getting the humor."
Actually I think the
Read my books! Explore "Brent's Brain" at http://www.brenthartinger.com Average (3 votes):
Satire
Spacer - I disagree with your basic premise that satire must always take something that's true and exaggerate it. The very first definition of the very first online dictionary I consulted said this about satire: "the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.". That is EXACTLY what the New Yorker is doing. The public perceptions by some of Obama do indeed represent vice and folly, and THAT'S what this cover is satirizing and "exposing, denouncing [and] deriding".
And the good news is that, far from reinforcing the goofy perceptions of Obama by the people who hold them, this cover and this controversy are helping to get rid of those perceptions, to explain them and expose them as the lunacy they represent. I see it as a huge net plus for Obama.