The New Yorker Cover: Are They Brain Dead Or Politically Suicidal?

This is SO incredibly stupid. I can't believe it. I am a New Yorker subscriber so I know they have been supportive of Obama all along. Their hearts are in the right place.

But where are their heads? What country are they living in?

A truly classic 1976 cover cartoon by Saul Steinberg called View of the World from 9th Avenue answers that question. The key search words might be bicoastal and flyover.

What is it with educated elites in our major urban cultural institutions? Are their heads so far up their assholes that they actually don't understand the fantastically precarious possibility that Obama represents for this country and the world? Is the scope of their experience so narrowly defined by dorm life at Harvard and Amherst and Oberlin that they have zero understanding of the challenge Obama represents to white Americans in that overlooked middle section of the nation depicted so tellingly by Steinberg?

Or is there some deep unconscious motivation to avoid real political responsibility? To make sure that us sophisticates continue to be on the losing side, to make sure we can continue to carp and condescend from the sidelines?

I don't really believe in this second possibility. But, Lordy, this New Yorker cover is so goddamn dumb that I am driven to bring it up.

In general, here's the message: we are now presented with a unique and historically unprecedented opportunity for some portion of national redemption. Any progressive who puts any consideration -- artistic, personal, political, whatever -- above winning this election deserves the name the neo-cons love to label us with: narcissist.

Comments

[RaisingAwareness]

Most African American's and Muslims are very offended by these cartoons. I think everyone should keep their viewpoint in mind when deciding if the New Yorker was right or wrong. It's pretty easy to figure out when you put yourself in someone else's shoes.

[RobtBrock]

They don't get the joke in places like Grand Island, Nebraska, or Topeka, Kansas, or Muncie, Indiana, or Lubbock, Texas.

[larstein]

The guy who drew the New Yorker cover thinks that everyone except maybe a few "extremists" will get the joke, and thus fails to realize what common sense knows, that people who should know better choose to believe absurd stereotypes, simply because they want to. You can see it as similar to road rage, irrational thought based on easy and stupid assumptions, decisions based on snap decisions and emotional reactions. This is what advertising is all about. In this case, the New Yorker cover plays into racist assumptions by trying to mock them, but the racism against the Obamas is now so deeply coded that even an absurd and obvious level of irony can produce negative affirmation.

[Jsens3]

All right, folks, let's take a deep, deep breath and give this some thought, not just knee-jerk reaction. The day job of the New Yorker staff is to sell its magazine. (It is not a political tool of progressives - at least where money is involved.) One proven way to stimulate sales is to print something that garners attention. By printing a cartoon depicting Obama as a Muslim (which many people believe is true) with his sullen wife who may or may not love the U.S. (which is the impression of many, too,) it has jump started a firestorm of interest especially among outraged progressives. Good job staff! Let's see what you can do next.

[iamjoneskeepupwithme]

i read the New Yorker religiously (pun intended) for years, but let my subscription go long ago. after this cover, i will never, ever renew. never, ever.

[iamjoneskeepupwithme]

"Are their heads so far up their assholes that they actually don't understand the fantastically precarious possibility that Obama represents for this country and the world? Is the scope of their experience so narrowly defined by dorm life at Harvard and Amherst and Oberlin that they have zero understanding of the challenge Obama represents to white Americans in that overlooked middle section of the nation depicted so tellingly by Steinberg?"

YES, YES and YES!!!!

[JamesA1102]

I work in Advertising and have dealt with The New Yorkers reps for years. They are desperate for advertising. This is a stunt by them to get noticed and hopefully attract new advertisers, nothing more.

[legalgirl]

"Or is there some deep unconscious motivation to avoid real political responsibility? To make sure that us sophisticates continue to be on the losing side, to make sure we can continue to carp and condescend from the sidelines?"

The Boomer generation is an "activist" generation. Gen-X, in reaction to all the bad things that happened to boomers, is a "watcher" generation. By not committing, one never loses their "amateur" standing and can stay on the sidelines and complain. You never get to entitled to be an in-charge-adult, either. This is the sad fact of the "watcher" culture we have generated by punishing activism (we're being watched & listened to, you know, by the government/police) and promoting passivity (American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, etc.) It's hiding out.

[saami]

Great post Thomas and dead on. Please legalgirl stop putting labels on different generations as if we were Stepford wives all equally brain dead and identical in every way. The New Yorker was stupid beyond belief and guys, I love satire but that wasn't satire it was stupid.

[bigthomas]

Dear Conde Nast: Please be merciful and just let this magazine go. Bury it and start another one with the same concept. But just don't pretend your corporate-chosen editors can ever show the substance, intellect and wit that reverberated through its pages during the regimes of Ross and Shawn.

[glorysong]

The picture just made me sick. It is a shame for what they did.

[JoelPWhitney]

Here's what's really insidious. None of the criticisms I'm seeing, when examined, are actually by people who are offended themselves. They're presuming that others will be offended. That's like not voting for the candidate you want because you presume no one else will vote for him, which is a double disadvantage to racial minorities who lose two votes, the vote of the actual racist and the paranoid, calculating nonracist who can't imagine others getting beyond their hangups. Now, is your presumption of others not getting it--is that really a reason to call for self-censorship? I like the cartoon, so I don't think you have the right to take it away from me because you imagine someone ELSE will be moved by it in the wrong way. Talk about stupid. Talk about control freaks and superstition! We got our freedom of the press curtailed during the buildup to the Iraq war by a criminal president--and now because of the election and rumors (lies) about a candidate that the other side started, the left calls for the same atmosphere of policing our thoughts.

[cunuck]

The cartoon, without the accompanying text, propagates the lie. Many here have suggested ballooning the cartoon to make it apropos to the text. Good satire should demonstrate the truth. This article fails miserably in that regard. It comes across more as sarcasm of the intellect of the voters.

The realpolitik of campaigning requires extensive self censorship. Americans cannot handle the truth about themselves.

As a Canadian, I watched in amazement and horror as the US marched lockstep to the beat of the drums of war that led up to the invasion of Iraq. Most of the world knew it was based on misconceptions and outright lying. The voices of reason were out there but very few were listening in America.

[TRex86]

OK. Stop hyperventilating. Nobody's policing your thoughts. Nobody's calling for an end to free speech, but many of us are exercising our rights in saying that cartoon was a missguided attempt at wry humor.
FYI, I'm offended by the cartoon. It isn't funny. It is vicious and stupid, in effect blaming the victim while leaving the victimizers offstage. It does nothing to change the idiots that believe all the things it attributes to the Obama's. It shows Barack as a Taliban. It shows Michelle as the second coming of Angela Davis. Ha, ha, ha. How in the f--- does that make things better? Had it been done as a thought balloon over Karl Rove's head MAYBE it would have had the intended effect. It was bad journalism.

[swift goat pet for truth]

Liberal elites don't get it.

Most Americans decide whom to vote for based on the what is put on bumper stickers. Or cartoons.

"See, the LIBERAL New Yorker thinks Obama is anti-American and wants to destroy the USA. I'm voting for the other guy."

[GetInformed]

in a way, it's not even that we're angry at the satire choices of the New Yorker -- more like we just feel forlorn and somewhat hopeless in the apparent absence of any liberal publication or media outlet that is willing to pass up exploiting controversy for the greater good. leading to the absence of any semblance of a level playing field for the democratic candidate. just sayin'...

[pizzmoe]

Yes, The New Yorker should pander so that all of the hard workin Americans can understand it.
Instead of trying to build people up in this country, we have to dumb everything down. That's sad.

[suigeneris]

You have to pave a road before you can walk it.

[Doofus]

'America would benefit greatly from having a President who was educated at Oberlin, Reed, Carleton or Columbia.'

Not to mention Whittier College, Eureka College, Southwest
Texas State Teachers College, or even Hard Knocks, arguably.

[Jsens3]

Right, George W. Bush was educated at Harvard and Yale. So much for their academic standing!

[standard]

Agreed: GWB attended Yale but wasn't educated--there or elsewhere.

However, Mr. de Zengotita slighted graduates of elite institutions--not of colleges, generally. True, our Presidents from Southeast Texas State and Whittier helped to pass the Civil Rights Act and reopen relations with China. However, nearly every name on the Vietnam Memorial belonged to a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who died partly because of those Presidents' baseless certainty and inflexibility. The President who ended that war went to Michigan.

Too many American colleges lack serious academic rigor and so, are just extensions of high school. Others demand allegiance to specific beliefs and expose their students to no unfiltered alternatives, saying, in effect, "Welcome to the marketplace of ideas, but only shop in our section." Still others are, basically, degree-granting football programs with huge rooting sections. At each, it's all too easy to obtain a diploma without being educated. (By "being educated" I mean becoming keenly aware of the magnitude of your own ignorance, and learning what to do about it.) Such schools have their place--but not alongside Berkeley.

Graduates of genuinely excellent colleges deserve better than to be scorned or dismissed as elitist. They've earned a measure of pride and respect, just as our Marines have. There is such a thing as being elite: it comes through hard work, well executed. The Marines took Iwo Jima. Two dozen Harvard and Columbia A.B.'s are Nobel laureates. Both sorts of excellence warrant respect.

[saami]

It isn't where you went to school; it's what you got out of it. My exhusband taught at Yale and everyone knew about the gentleman's C that was for the rich kids or alum's kids who were dumb as a post (insert G.W. Bush here). They got to put Harvard or Yale as their college, mom and dad put big bucks in the schools coffers and everyone was happy. We need to realize that having a Harvard MBA doesn't mean beans; it just means you jumped the hoops and had the dough or a scholarship to get the degree. There are brilliant Harvard grads and idiots like Bush. What counts is what you know and how you use it. What really counts in any situation is can you think! Do you know how to think for yourself and take the responsibility for your actions. That's the kind of president we want and I believe Barak Obama is that person.

[MB141]

Great post Thomas...this is a point that has been totally missed by most in the media. Of course, WE get that it's satire because we're educated enough to understand the art. However, the New Yorker cover is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Couldn't they have taken this into consideration? I remember watching an interview with Joe Wilson on CNN right after he and his wife shot the cover for Vanity Fair magazine. The pundits were all criticising them for presenting an image that seemed to contradict their position that Valerie Plame was the victim. Wilson wondered out loud to Wolf Blitzer "isn't that what's missing from Washington anymore? It's nuance...don't people get that?" Unfortunately, in this current political and media climate, I'm afraid most people don't get it.