New Yorker Unveils Next Week's Cover: Baruch Obama!

Art by Rick Meyerowitz

Turns out New Yorker Editor Supremo David Remnick was just kidding with last week's apparently racist-classist-sexist- ethnically-and-religiously-biased cover. It was all just a set-up, said the legendary political satirist, to what we at the New Yorker really think of the great Senator from Illinois.

Say hello to...Mr and Mrs. Baruch Obama!

Comments

[IRepTheKing]

..and a respected newspaper become a cheesy tabloid. Such a shame.

[rasthedestroyer]

I thought the Obama's only had (2) children?

[PAposter]

So, now he's an Hasidic Jew? What part of this is satire?

I find this cover just as disrespectful as the last one.

[LeftLeanWing]

Since BARACK is a Semitic name already like Ehud BARAK's last name; I found the use of Baruch unnecessary.

[Carnacamarna]

Yeah but then most wouldn't get it.

[Playinjured]

The New Yorker seems to care more about controversy than quality. Satire does make fun of true events, not make adaptations of rumor and apply them to their target for display. I was listening to NPR (National Public Radio) and I heard them interviewing the artist and editor of the New Yorker who endlessly defended the previous front cover and then proceeded to condemn those who found the piece controversial or racy. I wish he would have explained how this illustration was satire under the definition of satire as opposed to just bullying. If nothing in the image about Michelle and Barack is true, how can we call that depiction satire with any accuracy?

[Sina]

"the artist and editor of the New Yorker who endlessly defended the previous front cover and then proceeded to condemn those who found the piece controversial or racy. I wish he would have explained how this illustration was satire under the definition of satire as opposed to just bullying. If nothing in the image about Michelle and Barack is true, how can we call that depiction satire with any accuracy?"

Exactly. TNY's defense is less than persuasive. Blaming the critics of the cover is neither explanation nor defense. It's stonewalling. The reason they're avoiding explanation is that they blew it. This is what happens when you bungle the job of satire. Its double-edged sword swings right around and goes after you. If TNY had any real class—never mind common sense, they would admit the mistake, or at least acknowledge *some* responsibility if not complicity, however unwitting, in the stereotype trade. But alas, they seem to be gobsmacked with denial and hubris, and we all know where that leads.

[susane07]

Actually, while I thought the cartoons were drawn well, I don't think either cartoon was funny. The Sunday NY Times reprints editorial cartoons (from other newspapers throughout the country) and they are much funnier than these cartoons.

[Worldchangeguy]

How much time and energy do we spend reacting to daily events like the cover art of The New Yorker and how much time and energy do we invest in trying to figure out how to adapt ourselves to the needs of a living and changing world? If we want to survive as a species we need to ask ourselves, what's going to work best for ALL of us; in personal terms and in terms of business, education, the environment and peace?
We need to stop wasting time casting stones at each and get serious about taking on the challenge of our own survival? We've created the reality we're experiencing today from the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world around us. If we change what we think , we can change what we create.
We can change ourselves for the better and we ought to, just because we're creative and we can!
Pete, http://diaryofaghost.net
The 21st Century serves as a natural timeframe for building a dream, a vehicle for life in the New Millennium that will help transport mankind through the next 1,000 years in peace and safety.
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

[PAposter]

Great post, but respect has to start with those who have the greatest audience, don't you think? These covers are disrespectful to many of the members of our society, and when others are offended, I will not turn a blind eye.

[gladys46]

Amen. NYer has made their "matter" even worst!

[Faith101]

I guess I just don't get it. These things are suppose to be funny right? That JibJab song/kit was funny. I don't get this.

[lexnekst]

It's joke.

See, the rumors are Obama is a muslim.

This is him depicted as Jewish, which is much better satire for obvious lies about Obama.

Since no one even remotely believe's he's Jewish, the comic is taking a jab at the muslim falsities.

I get it. but it's not really meant to be funny.

[gladys46]

How about anti-semitism, anti-muslim, anti-AA ... is America's cancer!

[rasthedestroyer]

Kinda like Monkey see, Monkey do?? Lex.. (IT'S RACISM STUPID!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!)

[Playinjured]

You are 100% absolutely, indisputably, unequivocally correct! If we haven't figured out why they started doing this by now, we never will.

[gladys46]

Great artist!! The editor missed the fact that there are no racist "codes" anymore!!

Perhaps "they" just haven't figure out the drums!

[youknowwhat]

Not again!

[jupitor]

So where are the Mccains cover?

[PJay1]

I'm wondering the same thing.

[Nommo]

They look more Satmar than say, Lubavitcher. The Zabar's bag is the over the top piece that ruins the satire. They don't exactly fit the Zabar (tourist trap) demographic. If you are going to satirize a satire, the details are likely even more important.

[wesinohio]

Those magazine drawings are just fantasies about lies. They are real, yes, just not true. Whole constructions of unreality. They're like other statements about Obama that are false - some people say them; some people write them; some people wish them - often they are provocations - often deliberate misrepresentations.
Are they satire? Real satire charicatures the truth instead of propagating lies. Are they irony? The irony is that people who claim to love the truth also love to employ and propagate lies. These are the wishing and thinking of people who think war, and dying for lying, comprise the highest and best vehicle for problem resolution and patriotism.

[wesinohio]

Those magazine drawings are just fantasies about lies. They are real, yes, just not true. Whole constructions of unreality. They're like other statements about Obama that are false - some people say them; some people write them; some people wish them - often they are provocations - often deliberate misrepresentations.
Are they satire? Real satire charicatures the truth instead of propagating lies. Are they irony? The irony is that people who claim to love the truth employ and propagate such lies. These are the wishing and thinking of people who think war, and dying for lying, comprise the highest and best vehicle for problem resolution and patriotism.

[Lex10]

Tony- It's like a parade of morons, no? No wonder why we keep losing.

[Coronadoman]

seriously!

I thought it might have been an isolated or weirdly worm-hole derived group brain freeze, but now I'm more inclined to actually, for reals, believe that there is a cognitive deficit.

It's now clear some otherwise reasonable people actually DO NOT get it. Who do we turn to for a quick analysis? WHY don't they? I'm not speaking of the disingenuous, I'm speaking of those, even right here, right now, who admit to actually not understanding satire, WHEN THEY SEE IT.

There's good work here for someone in the medical field. Let's check back and see if anyone can help...

[katysax]

This cover is funny. It would have been funnier if the first cover had not appeared before it. Humor should not have to be explained, but to me what is particularly funny about this is that Barack, in his earnest way, and Michelle in her trying so hard to be a middle of the road soccer mom kind of way, do sort of emanate a kind of naive otherworldliness similar to chasidic jews. I also think the Abe Lincoln resemblance is intentional and clever.

[MsBrina]

What?

[RedWhiteandBrooklyn]

I guess that America has no idea what a Hasidic family looks like.

[eden4barack08]

Well, you can't blame them, and I hope you don't start calling everybody unsophisticated because they don't know. The largest Hasidic population is concentrated in NYC, and it's not like they're on the news everyday. Very hard for someone who's never left the state of say...Kentucky, to have Hasidic friends or know what they look like.