The New Yorker Helps To Fuel The Rumors With Bad Satire

Among our ever growing roster of things to hate and fear, Islamic terrorists are probably the most hated and certainly the most feared. For the better part of this decade, the stated goal of America has been to hunt down and bring terrorists to justice (torture and kill them). Toby Keith wrote songs about it. Entire industries have emerged with business models that include killing terrorists and protecting Americans from the ones that get away.

And for the last year or so, there exists an unstoppable whisper campaign implying that Senator Obama is a terrorist whose goal it is to seize our government in the name of al-Qaeda. It's not just the e-mails and the peawits who believe them, either. Everyone from Ann Coulter to Mitt Romney to TIME Magazine's very serious Mark Halperin are helping to spread this dangerous filth.

The rumor doesn't merely repeat what Republicans have said about everyone from Senator Kerry to Max Cleland -- that the Democrats want the terrorists to win, or that they're "with the terrorists." This new thing with Senator Obama is much more insidious as it literally paints Senator Obama as an actual terrorist. Not an enabler or appeaser -- but literally as a member of our nation's mortal enemy. And so if it's our goal to bring terrorists to justice (kill, torture, etc...), this ridiculous and so-far-fetched-it's-insane-how-many-stupid-people-believe-it rumor puts Senator Obama and his family at risk of being targeted by an unhinged far-right zealot who has "kill 'em all, and let God sort them out" tattooed across his forehead.

The challenge, then, is to somehow combat the insanity of the whisper campaign without making matters worse and putting the Obamas in further danger. Without the correct tone, we run the risk of feeding the rumor rather than killing it. As such, the only way to kill a flesh-eating virus of these proportions is to employ some artful semantic construction and, in the case of this New Yorker cover, much much much better satire. So yes, it's satire. But it's really bad satire.

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

In other words, without reading the article, any given yokel will see the cover (as it's aired around the clock on cable news) and think, "Hey Jessup! Lookie yonder! This here drawing shows Hoo-Sane is a Muslim terrrrst. I knew it!"

In order to preserve the integrity of the drawing, while emphasizing the point, Blitt could've used the same illustration but drawn it within a large comic book speech bubble emanating from the mouth of an exaggerated, fat, inbred, toothless hillbilly sitting at his toothless hillbilly computer. Or the illustration could've been on the computer screen itself with the hillbilly looking bug-eyed and outraged. Either way.

This would've succeeded in illustrating just who believes these rumors and where they're coming from. And isn't that the point? That certain Americans are so scared and paranoid that they'll believe anything?

I want a major magazine to satirize and shame the culprits behind this thing. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Chris Matthews and other broadcast professionals "accidentally" calling the senator "Osama." Or Ann Coulter suggesting that pundits shouldn't say the senator's name and "hijack" in the same sentence. Or the Tennessee Republican Party spreading the e-mail rumors as fact -- complete with the turban photograph. Or the thick portfolio of photographs and screen-grabs of Republicans without lapel pins whining about how Senator Obama doesn't always wear one. I want the New Yorker to illustrate the shallow kindergarten-throwbacks who won't vote for the senator because of his middle name.

Being someone who has engaged in his fair share of outrageous and sometimes tasteless cartoon satire (here and here) I recognize this cover as satire. I once produced a cartoon in which President Bush choked on a pretzel and died, and then Cheney decides to haul him around Weekend At Bernie's style. The obvious point being that the president is a puppet of Cheney. We weren't suggesting that the president was dead in real life. Just a puppet. It would've been an entirely different cartoon if we had simply shown the president as corpse -- Hey look, the president choked on a pretzel -- the end. Or in the case of the New Yorker, Hey look, the Obamas are Islamic militants who hate America... (chirp, chirp... chirp, chirp).

The New Yorker cover, regardless of how many people are blowing it off as a joke, fails to be funny, fails to accomplish its satirical goal and only succeeds in being a part of that which it had hoped to condemn.

Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! Go!

Comments

[trance]

In the Obama Administration - ALL Political satire will need to be approved by the Department of Humor Security - and examined closely to see if it presents the appropriate and correct worldview.
Anything seen as even vaguely critical of Our Fearless Leader will be subject to prosecution under the soon to be enacted HumorCrime Statutes. Offenders will be trundled off to Gitmo for re-education.
Remember Obama loves you all - and knows what is good for you. That is all.

[joanndarc]

Fist Bump did not fit in the whole picture, it's illogical to mix something False and Truth in the picture, the Fist Bump is Truth unlike the rest.

"Satire" or whatever you might call it has it's flaws...

[JamesRiddle]

Hogwash! The cover is great. It speaks volumes regarding the stunning ignorance in this country. Am I to understand that telling wit is no longer allowed becuase the stupid people don't get it? How pathetic. And this is only a blip on the radar screen anyway. It's Orwellian that any liberal would be against this cover.

[plainsman]

I agree. Unfortunately, It seems many liberals have succumbed to the 'politics of fear." The sad thing is that they probably don't realize that they have been manipulated.

[bstill]

Let's face it--we're a nation of "glancers". We mostly just look at the pictures. Some of us may read the captions, but the ones who will take the time to read the whole article are few and far between. That's the reason I won't put my bumper sticker "McCain--the third Bush term" (or something like that) on my car--I'm afraid people will think I'm FOR McCain, and I just can't stomach that. Nuances are lost, for the most part, on most people.

As a segue, is there a discussion board on HuffPo about PUMA Pac? I'm getting a lot of emails about and from them, and, frankly, they scare the crap out of me. I'd like to read some more commentary about them to see if my fear is justified.

[Meah]

The New Yorker blew it big time. Those who defend it LACK COMMON SENSE! When the decision was made, the one who OKd it should have looked at it and said: What is our point? Not, "Will this sell magazines?" They might fly off of the newstands, but NOT NEXT MONTH. Were I a suscriber, this would be the end between me and the magazine. Very little thought was given to the wisdom of this, and the one who made the decision should have his arse fired! The Obamas do not deserve this! They have been swiftboated by the left! No matter how brilliant the person, if he or she lacks common sense, they are not as brilliant as they might think.

[flatus]

The problem is that many New Yorkers are just a bit too damned sophisticated for this country's good.
The heartland will not understand this satire. Morons.

[LongBeachDave]

Please, give "the heartland" a little more credit for sophistication. And stop holding Obama's hand, he will be just fine. He is running for President of the United States, for crying out loud. The right wing would have, and probably will try, doing much worse. This cover just took away all their ammunition, and exposed the bigots for who they are.

[krocklin]

If this is effective "satire", why not present more magazine covers "exposing" other bigots, like Anti-semites and racists by portraying their lies and fantasies? Those would be some nasty covers on the newstand.

[saibotchilizm]

The satirical cartoon is delivering its message perfectly. When has a simple cartoon ever engendered such an open discussion as this one? The frank, honest, open dialogue it has begun is the best way to discredit the ludicrous rumors about Senator Obama.

When Cesca mentions "any given yokel", however, we're getting into the real domain of perversion and prejudice. That type of language is what Rush Limbaugh lambasts when he mentions "liberal elites"-- and there's a kernel of truth to that, when whole groups of people are described as "fat, inbred, toothless hillbillies".

Rush Limbaugh is an %&#*@%, and his listeners are misinformed, not inhuman. We don't need any more prejudiced over-gener­alizations­, thank you very much, Bob.

http://www.saibotchilizm.org

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

Who are the bigger fools--those who miscontrue the cartoon as fact, or those who are outraged by the cartoon and giving it more attention than it would have normally gotten, by focusing on it ad nauseum to the exclusion of real news that actually impacts people's daily lives?
"hillbillies" come in many forms. Some live in NYC and write blogs.

[Paris68]

Just hold on tight. We're now 24 hours through a 48-hour news cycle. It'll all be over tomorrow. Unfortunately, it will be replaced by something equally as trivial.

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

What's sad is i find myself tuning into the news periodically in the vain hope that I'll see Rove being dragged off to prison for contempt. And all I get are Obama cartoons.

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

True, true. my depiction of the 2008 presidential election goes something like this:
The "like Jesse jackson' scandal.
The "typical white woman" scandal.
The "as far as I know" scandal.
The "madrassah" scandal.
The "for the first time (I'm proud to be an American) scandal"
The "bitter, cliinging to religion and guns" scandal.
The "typical politician" scandal
The "being a pow doesn't qualify you to be president" scandal.
The "bomb, bomb Iran" scandal
The "kill 'em with cigarettes" scandal
The "cut his n***ts off" scandal
At least this is a slight variation.­..instead of dissecting words, we're dissecting a cartoon. Now that's progress!

[Roses]

There is some argument that the cartoon actually did some good for Obama. It got the talking heads on the MSM and cable news shows talking about it ad nauseum and debunking the unfairness of the myths and lies that too many believe. The furor around it helped to alleviate and explode the misinformation and whisper campaign that is spreading lies about Obama.

This could only happen if Obama's supporters were enraged and spoke out. The Obama camp and supporters were not "fools". As my mother used to say, 'they were foolish like foxes'.

Look deeper.

Obama '08

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

And what I'm trying to say is I think those enraged Obama supporters are missing the point. There are much bigger issues going on in this country that are being ignored in the quest to get one guy or the other elected President. Focusing all this ire on a cartoon on the cover of a liberal magazine seems like a waste of energy and dumb priorities from where I'm sitting. Don't we have bigger fish to fry?

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

Do you have any comments about the actual article? or maybe about Obama's op-ed piece in the times on sunday? Or maybe about Rove being in contempt of court? Or the FISA vote? Or the collapse of the mortgage industries. Or offshore drilling?
Or do you just react to pictures? Because that is, after all, what's tearing this country apart.

[mimsnpips]

You need to look around this site before you go off like this. You replied to yourself more than anyone else on here far as I've seen. Chill out! Or you could be a troll..

[jayburd]

I don't buy the idea that the editors of The New Yorker made an error in judgement. I don't buy that it's simply "bad satire." They have smart people working there. They knew that cover would stir up controversy and they were counting on it. They were also counting on their liberal track record providing them the benefit of the doubt. They'll probably sell more of this month's issue than they have of any other issue in many years. So, despite the backlash, they get to keep their reputation and yet boost their readership by selling out their principles. That's a pretty sweet deal for them. Plausible deniability - it's the American way, baby.

[Dots]

The only way this cover could possible be construed as "satire" would be post election. Even then I would personally consider it revolting.
Ever heard of Operation Mockingbird?

[AmeriGus]

The legendary Underground cartoonist Robert Crumb found out a few years ago that the KKK was reproducing and distributing comics he'd made portraying over-the-top caricatures of blacks somewhat reminiscent of the "Sambo" imagery of years past.

Anyone with cursory knowledge of R. Crumb knew his "funnies", including characters like "Angelfood McSpade" were commenting on racism he'd witnessed growing up in a country with a racist streak, when even Mickey Mouse cartoons showed blacks as big-lipped natives. Crumb, one of the most thorough collectors of early African American music, regretted to an extent that his satire of racism was being celebrated by racists who clearly couldn't see below the surface.

I'd posted comments on Huffington Post earlier suggesting that the New Yorker cover should have identified the author of the Obama drawing somehow as a right wing tactician, but former New Yorker editor Art Spiegelman, appearing on WNYC this morning, commented on the idea of the image appearing in a thought balloon as "stupid", saying that kind of clarity would kill the concept.

So I'd suggest instead, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, that the image might have shown a hand drawing it. This, without showing who, at least suggests to viewers that these radical misportrayals are being manufactured by "someone".

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

If people need help differentiating between a freaking cartoon and a photograph, I seriously doubt making that distinction for them will make them smarter in their political choices. So lets just censor everything so nothing can be misconstrued. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Roses]

What Bob showed so brilliantly here was that satire (to make sense and be funny) needs both a kernel of truth and a frame or POV. This cartoon had none, so ergo, it was not funny for it's stated purpose. However, for the people it was meant to lampoon and who will probably only give it a cursory glance, it was funny because they actually believe some of this stuff.

Look at National Lampoon or Mad Magazine for examples of what I am talking about. This cartoon succeeded in only being offensive and adding to the informal smear campaign.


Obama '08

[Roshi98]

Taking an image both out of it's context AND historical roots is to willfully ignore it's true power. No doubt those drawn to purchase the magazine because of the cover will get the message immediately upon reading the first paragraph of the article to which it's connected. Satire is not the same as humor or comedy; it is meant to ridicule the absurdities and abuses of those in power (re Fox News). That doesn't mean that it's either immediately palpable or digested upon cursory review, but requires more patience to understand.

Voltaire didn't write satire that everyone immediately "got", nor did Mark Twain, or even Stephen Colbert. The "joke" unfolds through experience, not assumption or presumption - in other words, context. Read the article and you "get" the joke. Satire has more to say than mere comedy.

[Roses]

Unfortunately Voltaire and Twain did not live and write in today's rush-rush world where many people's literary life is all about waiting in line at the supermarket or waiting in the doctor's office. Stephen Colbert is hysterically funny but his audience is a phenomenon of cable and those who can pay for the Comedy Channel.

Unfortunately, the vast audience of this cover will never read the article inside the magazine. I agree that if people got that information it would explain and defuse the drawing. The article is pretty self-explanatory. As it is presented, without context visually, it is not satire....­..it is just a depiction and caricature of smears, lies, and misinformation that exist about both Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. For people who believe it (and there are many, many, many), this cover drawing will just help to reinforce their mistaken ideas and prejudices.

Obama '08

[nitestik]

If The New Yorker really wanted to satirize this issue, they would've shown George Bush wearing a turban while holding hands with "Bandar Bush" from Saudi Arabia, while both laugh about how they're able to portray Obama as the Muslim.

Oh, wait a minute, that's not called satire. It's called the truth.