New Yorker Illustration Strikes Controversy Where There is None
Blogosphere aghast! Again. The last time I used this phrase Pluto had just been demoted, this time, the situation is about as grave. This week’s New Yorker cover depicts every right wing attack imaginable and is already illiciting outcry. In Barry Blitt’s illustration, Barack Obama, a muslim, teams up with his military garb wearing wife Michelle in the Oval office to burn the American flag under a picture of Osama bin Laden. It’s the most obviously satirical image an artist could put together, and anyone with an ounce of sense can identify this. Of course, most PR people will tell you such pieces aren’t much help to the campaign since acknowledging idiocy lends legitimacy where there is none. The practice seems vaguely related to labeling the inconsequential chatter inspired by the illustration as proof of artistic merit. Nobody’s done this yet, but frankly, I can’t imagine it not coming up, since it’s one of those “arguments” that never goes away; certainly it’s easier to use that than actually thinking about the work.
Speaking of which, while Barry Blitt’s art work isn’t bad, it also isn’t the most sophisticated or visually compelling illustration I’ve seen on the front page of the New Yorker. I don’t think the illustration achieves much by way of humor, and the half rendered Barack Obama eye is completely distracting. In short, it’s a slow news week for everyone; neither the art work, nor its political message is worth much of anything.
Related:
Rachel Sklar on Barry Blitt’s New Yorker cover image
Nico Pitney on Barry Blitt’s New Yorker cover image
Kate Frettland on Barry Blitt’s New Yorker cover image
Daily Kos on Barry Blitt’s New Yorker cover image + OMFG, WTF???
UPDATE: Tom Moody thinks the cover is racist.
I think it’s worse than you’re saying. Given America’s sad history on race there is a need for extra special care by the media in the case of this historic candidacy.
I have spent half my life out in the heartland and I promise you there are still lynch mobs lurking beneath the facades of small town normality. These folks do not need any encouragement.
I thought “the pound” was very touching and hate to see it sullied like this.
See my blog on past blunders by the New Yorker’s Iraq war-supporting editor.
Really? I thought the pound was very touching too, and E.D. Hill’s description of it as a “terrorist fist jab” completely ludicrous. I mean, I think it’s a dumb idea to satirize something so stupid it doesn’t need acknowledgment, but do you really think this is fuel for the fire?
I think people need to just relax. That is not to say that the image is acceptable, but I’ve seen other politicians depicted in worse ways and there was no outcry.
Mr. Moody, with all due respect, I’m originally from a small town… a very small– and poor– town. Thus, I find your comment about “lynch mobs lurking beneath the facades of small town normality” to be rather offensive. It seems to me that you are encouraging stereotypes about people who live in small towns. Do you mean to suggest that you can’t find the lynch mob mentality in larger cities?
I think the art work deserves praise. I do not think however that either Barack Obama or his wife deserves the front page of any magazine.
Even the drawing is flattering to Michelle Obama.
I am fed up with Obama and his preachings! Does the man have a normal voice? Would he also be preaching to the world if he ever gets elected?
Someone please give Michelle Obama a make over.
The problem is that the New Yorker cover is not always a place for satire, so it places more burden on the viewer to “get” it. If the same content were covered in a Dave Chapel or SNL skit there wouldn’t be the same problem because we’d all know the context. Showing inflammatory imagery to people not prepped for satire … might get sticky. However, Tom, while I agree that latent racism is still prevalent (be it in cities large and small), are you not nervous about avoiding imagery just because of the potential for racist interpretation? I agree that in this case the cover was a really bad idea, but I’m scared that condemning it opens a Pandoras box. I’m worried about Chris Ofili-esque censorship becoming the next logical step in your argument.
Joe, if we are in agreement that the imagery is inflammatory and appeals to latent racism I am not going to worry about some hypothetical Giuliani of the left possibly down the road telling someone they can’t publish this sort of thing. That seems like a weird thing to worry about in a country run by right wing kleptocrat colonialists.
While the illustration is obviously satirical, the point of using the device is for comedic effect, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why Barry Blitt thought this was funny. The fact anything has been made of Obama’s middle name, the punch, or anything else is patently absurd - the thought that this this would further illuminate that is an error, but not one that I think came out of the artist’s latent or overt racism (it seems like this is the suggestion). I think Joe’s point about context is a good one — though the joke still would have failed.
Also, though I don’t think this should be the story it is, I’d agree that the cover was a really bad idea.
Blitt is just the “hired hands.” I’m not too concerned with whether he is racist–I’m sure is a good liberal. His editor David Remnick, however, made the call to distill and personify “right wing fantasies about the Obamas” into a graphic. This previously non-extant image now is out there in every middlebrow venue (such as my Comcast homepage, formerly occupied week after week by Miley Cyrus). Thus he is helping Karl Rove to smear Obama with images of Angela Davis and Madras-schooled radicals, scary to conservative voters but otherwise completely irrelevant.
The fact that he took the beautiful “pound moment” as the vehicle for this Rove trash is just sick.
You make a compelling point. Barry noted today over IM on this subject that we have wacko republicans who love their guns and have ties to right-wing militias but they are rarely caricatured in that way
I think it depends on where you look. Online you can find both democrats and republicans caricatured in extreme ways. Honestly, if you are going to get upset about this image you should be just as upset at some of the images that have been created involving other political figures… both democrats and republicans. With that said, I doubt this image will sway any votes… they rarely do.
History tells me that Abraham Lincoln was depicted as an ape by his rivals due to his actions against slavery. There was actually one strip that showed the stages of Lincoln as he changed from a ‘white man’ to a ‘black man’ and finally into an ‘ape’. Those rivals hoped that people would see Abe as an inferior person after observing the strip. Instead he is considered one of the greatest presidents the US has ever had. If Obama wins I’m sure he will be considered one of the greats as well… and this caricature will just be a side-note of interest.
In other words, I doubt this sort of thing will go away anytime soon… and the end result does not really make an impact on how people view the person. A month from now this won’t even be an issue.
Tom, as for the small town comment that you made and my reply which you have failed to acknowledge– unless your reply has yet to be moderated… Trust me, your average small town resident is more worried about having enough gas in order to go to work. Bullets cost money as well… so I doubt the ‘folks’ are going to rush out and load their guns over this specific image. :P
Tom, first off thanks for “kleptocrat colonialists”, that’s awesome. I agree that the “imagery is inflammatory and appeals to latent racism” but only in the context of the cover of the New Yorker. I mentioned Dave Chapel earlier because he did a skit with himself as a blind rural southern kkk racist who doesn’t know he’s black. This skit was potentially way more inflammatory than the Obama cover but it was different because it was a) the place for satire b) actually funny and c) had it’s own underlying critique because the author was African American. Still, the skit used imagery and dialog that was potentially very racists if taken out of context. I just want to be careful about what saying “this imagery is unconditionally offensive” might lead lead to. Maybe I am worried about some hypothetical Future Giuliani (Futuriani) be they from the left of right. Shouldn’t I be?
Just thought you might be interested in hearing that this made the main evening news on BOTH big television stations here in Ireland. They were treating it as a big story.
Joe, we are talking about the cover of the New Yorker. That’s where the image appeared. Then every other mainstream and middlebrow organ in the world picked it up so others “could see what all the fuss was about.” If Karl Rove, author of the “McCain has a black baby” campaign who is now unaccountably advising McCain, wanted to inject potent but irrelevant racist stereotypes into the campaign (and he does) he couldn’t have planned it better.
The New Yorker should have put a big bright orange sticker on the cover that said:
“This is a satire of the absurd things said about Obama. It is a joke about Obama-haters. Liberals and Obama-supporters do not need to get their panties in an outraged, hand-wringing wad.”
If it had a big sticker like that, everyone would be able to “get the joke”, whether they are actually too stupid to really get it or not, and the joke would be so much funnier that way, too!
Don’t you think so? I always find it a lot funner when every joke is totally explained out for me - it’s even better when the joke is explained BEFORE it gets told! - That’s just like my big sticker idea!
For example, the next time Sasha Baron Cohen pulls a prank when he is disguised as “Borat”, “Ali G”, or “Bruno”, he should come out first without his disguise, and explain to his targeted interviewee or audience that what they are about to see and hear is all really just a prank full of satire and parody and irony.
That way no one will ever misunderstand him, get offended, or not “get” the joke, since it will all be explained for them beforehand.
Won’t that be freakin’ hilarious??!!??!!!???!
All meanings and intents of any form of literature, jokes, cartoons, movies, tv shows, and comedies should be so immediately obvious that they hit you over the head like a blunt object!
We guilty-white-liberal-progressive people like our humor obvious, safe, and bland, unless it’s something that makes fun of Bush and makes him look like a monkey or Hitler or Satan or a 9/11-conspirator or something like that. Those are acceptable forms of satire for us.
this is a slippery slope. someone just sent me a link recently to the barack obama sock monkey doll website which isn’t actually made from socks and is really just a monkey doll. the creator is claiming ignorance that this could be perceived as racist and suggests that the item was simple meant to riff on a popular kitschy children’s toy. yeah.
having also come from a small town (midwest) i would concur that i’ve never necessarily felt a seething undercurrent of lynch mob mentality, however, there is a lot of ignorance. i don’t mean that as the insult that it sounds like but the region i come from is not your most intellectual. my extended family just experienced it’s first ever interracial marriage and many of my relatives back there were thrilled to vote for huckabee because he was a good religious man. my perception is that coming from either of the two coasts east or west, one forgets what a different culture we live in compared to parts of middle america.
while i see the cover as satire i could see how the imagery could complicate or reinforce stereotypes in parts of the u.s.
my husband and i were discussing this issue yesterday morning and we were debating what effect it would have if obama had taken the piece in stride as satire as opposed to condemning it.
Not sure if this counts as “liberals not having a sense of humor” but the Islamic civil liberties group CAIR feels the image was racist:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20080715/pl_usnw/cair_calls_new_yorker_obama_cartoon__inflammatory
“Unfortunately, the New Yorkers front cover cartoon failed to achieve its stated goal of exposing and lampooning right-wing caricatures of the Obamas. These inflammatory images and spurious associations will only serve to reinforce the racism and anti-Muslim stereotypes that the magazine says it is out to challenge.”
It sure is heartwarming to see people get all worked up about what is actually a pro-Obama cartoon.
It makes ignoring Obama’s vote for warrantless wiretapping that much easier.
Well, clearly the cover is a distraction from other much larger issues.
For all you people who object to the cartoon on the grounds that stupid republican rednecks won’t “get it”, using your same logic, why is it OK for this website to call itself “Art Fag City”?
Paddy is not running for office against John McCain.
“Paddy is not running for office against John McCain.”
- So did I miss out reading about some contract the New Yorker had with Obama obligating them to do whatever they can to help him get elected, and that now this cover cartoon constitutes breach of contract?
Some people are acting like it is the New Yorker’s job to get Obama elected.
Joshua: Tom thinks the cover is racist so there are a number of reasons he would find the image unacceptable, particularly during an election campaign.
If you think that the image is obviously pro-Obama - so much so that that’s biased and unfair then make your argument. There’s no need to condescend to other commentors in the process though just because they don’t share your opinions.
I’ve said it before, but heck, I’ll say it here too…
I’m thinking next month the New Yorker should print “A Modest Proposal” in response to the current world food crises. See how people react to that.
Also, to the person up above who said something about context and that the new yorker cover is not a place for this, but SNL might be (or something to that effect), I have to disagree. I think the New Yorker is exactly where I’d expect this kind of thing. Irony of this kind is often seen as pretty high-brow humour, the New Yorker (I think) sees itself as pretty high-brow. So, it seems like a good fit to me.
Sorry, I didn’t realize I had condescended to anyone. I was just using examples and analogies and metaphors - maybe even satire!
“then make your argument”
- I made it already - but here it is again:
The cartoon is obviously a work that gathers together the paranoid and absurd rumors about Obama in an over-the-top way that illustrates how ridiculous they are. If people can’t understand it, oh well. If people believes it depicts reality, then they were not going to vote for Obama anyway.
Well, I did a google image search for New Yorker covers. My very unscientific hasty search revealed about 10% were political and of those about half were satirical. So no, it’s not a place I typically go to search out political satire like I would SNL or mad magazine. Certainly those familiar with the New yorker know that political satire is a possibility. But I imagine there is a vast audience who would never look twice at magazine with an image of a business man emerging from a subway in the forest being quite shocked at seeing the same magazine featuring a racist portrayal of a prominent African American couple.
Publishing “A Modest Proposal” in the magazine makes no sense what so ever. Most people who read the New Yorker have already read the article like I did in High School. The point is that it was the cover (the only part of the magazine non-New Yorker readers are going to look at), and the imagery was really offensive. Also, publishing “A Modest Proposal” would only be the same if the far right was already claiming that we should eat Catholics, which I don’t believe they are. That why the satire doesn’t really work - the image is not an outrageous over the top portrayal of how the right views Obama, it’s (as Tom has be saying) an illustration of their views.
Since Mr. Blahyi likes to practice satire (I would have called it “sarcasm” but I defer to his characterization), here are his own words about a previous political campaign:
“The Swift Boat campaign gathered together the paranoid and absurd rumors about Kerry in an over-the-top way that illustrated how ridiculous they were. If people couldn’t understand it, oh well. If people believed it depicted reality, then they were not going to vote for Kerry anyway.”
And Kerry lost.
Where does Mr. Blahyi think the rumors came from that Obama trained in a madras school and/or endorsed black separatism? Right wing oppo research and disinformation. Before those stories started circulating with help from a willing US media, Obama was a centrist pol in a suit who opposed the Iraq war and had a “message of hope.” Poking the racist nerve is what the Republicans are going with and will keep pounding right up until the election. With the media’s full support and complicity. The New Yorker cover is the “hey, it’s just humor” expression of these tactics.
my point about publishing “A Modest Proposal” is just that it is something everyone has read in highschool, and yet, something that was horrifying to people when it was published.
Everyone in theory knows it’s satire(although, I’m willing to bet there are an awful lot of people out there who have never read it or seen it, I certainly have met a few, probably just depends what high school or university you went to), but didn’t at the time. Which would be the exact point of publishing it. “look, this thing that horrified people through it’s satire is now an iconic part of culture used to teach students…”
“I have spent half my life out in the heartland and I promise you there are still lynch mobs lurking beneath the facades of small town normality. These folks do not need any encouragement.” Tom Moody
Prejudice much? Did you get beat up in a small town? Or are you just the typical Democrat? You probably call Republicans war mongers even though US involvement in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam happened with a Democrat president and Democrat controlled congresses in office. Billary Clinton mentioned fighting in Iraq in the late 90s.
Megan, oh I get you (concerning The Modest Proposal). That makes more sense.
To address some of Tom’s points in his most recent post:
1. The Swift Boat campaign was not trying to illustrate in an over-the-top way how absurd the rumors about Kerry were. They were trying to make people think the rumors were the truth - the opposite intention of the New Yorker cover.
2. The Swift Boat campaign was not a cover of a monthly magazine known for its satire and wry cartoons. The Swift Boat campaign was mostly a bunch of advertisements that ran repeatedly in many print outlets and on TV.
——————–
Not trying to pick a fight, I like Tom, I like Obama, I thought the cartoon was funny!
I wonder if “homegrown” notices that he/she criticized a generalization with another generalization.
Being in power in the White House and congress and having US forces involved in war is not a generalization. He mentioned the history of racial problems in the US so why is it so difficult to accept a few facts about the Democrats? It is a generalization to call all small town folks hicks and gun firing bible thumpers but it is not a generalization to point out facts that are supported. Democrats are not the peace lovers they have been made out to be. They get more positive media coverage than the Republicans.
Wow Paddy…once you used to never get comments…I looove how things have changed!
See… interest has moved on to something else. :P
Regarding small town America, here is my belated reply:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wroj0FLvzs