I like the *Seinfeld *episode where Elaine challenged the guy at The New Yorker to explain a cartoon, and he finally admitted that it had no explanation and didn’t make sense.
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I mentioned Poe’s Law in the Pit thread. I think this evokes a comparison. Without a winking smiley, it’s difficult to distinguish a parody of political wingnuttery from the real thing.
I’ve decided that I think I actually appreciate the cartoon (and the image of Michelle as a black militant is kind of hot) and see the humor in it. I understand why the Obama campaign doesn’t like it, just because of their weariness with all those memes, but I think it does more to help them than to hurt them. It’s forcing the media (even Fox) to say over and over that those smears are false.
The cover is obviously satire and, no, not tasteless. We all need to stop catering to the lowest common denominator and simplifying every single aspect of life for the dullards.
Oh, and-- Saints Be Praised-- I agree with Shodan. We all need to grow skin exactly like mine: black AND thick.
But it seems to me, Biggirl, that the New Yorker did exactly that: cater to the LCD. It confirmed their suspicions for them. Perhaps a few of the dullards who might not have voted will be moved to do so for that reason. Racists actually do use the strangest sources for their cause, including old cartoons showing Negroes as a sort of Darwinian stepping stone between apes and men. They may be funny caricatures, but they serve the purposes of ignorant people.
No, it made a joke at the expense of the lowest common denominator. It’s a joke on how retarded it is to believe the Obamas are terrorists. If magazines (or movies or TV shows or books or. . . whatever) have to take into account what stupid people will make of a joke then we have all lost. We really are a nation of idiots.
Exactly. Surely, the terrorists [I}will* have won.
The most interesting comment that I’ve seen about the cover is that it fails as satire. It’s pretty clear that they’re satirizing the various anti-Obama memes that have been flying around, but as usual reality is running too fast for satire to keep up. Everything on that cover is an area where various right-wing smear merchants have already comfortably gone. At the end of the day it’s not satirizing, it’s just repeating.
Not really. Satire usually requires some exaggeration, doesn’t it?
But it’s got electrolytes!
As a piece of satire, the cover doesn’t really make fun of anyone and thus the parody’s humor falls short. All it does is show, via drawings, all the negative ways that Obama and his wife have been portrayed in the rumor mills. And that’s not all that funny. Might as well just print up a bulleted list of Obama’s “crimes” and put it on the cover with some parsley on the side. Har har har!..not. Yes, all of those things in aggregate seem over the top to most people who have sense…but sadly, that can’t be said about to a lot of other people.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the New Yorker to consider whether the satire in cartoons like this is sufficiently obvious before publication. It doesn’t seem like they did, at least to me. Is anyone who believes that Obama is a flag-hating Muslim going to have their beliefs challenged by looking at that thing? They should feel as if they are being made fun of, because they are, but the drawing fails to show that clearly. The believer in the “Obama is an evil Muslim” meme is absent from the picture, which means that the identity of the true butt of the joke has to be infered by the reader. And believers in “Obama is an evil Muslim”, generally speaking, are incapable of such inferences.
I guess one could argue that the New Yorker isn’t trying to reach the anti-Obama believers, but what’s the point of printing a provocative political statement if it’s supposed to only preach to the choir?
To me, the cover falls apart as satire because of its depiction of Michelle Obama’s hair. All the other distortions were from various other sources, but not her hair. She doesn’t wear her hair that way, and I have not seen her being depicted that way in any other imagery. It’s not like Michelle Obama’s hair isn’t easy enough to draw, and to exaggerate, so why draw it that way?
From the reports I read, the artist’s intent is satire of baseless fears concerning the Obamas and the way the media has made much out of nothing, as with the fist jab. So, is there a fear out there that I am not familiar with that Michelle Obama has naturally very curly hair and will wear it that way once her husband is in office? Unless there is, then showing her like that is just beyond the pale.
If you remember the talk of an alleged video of her saying “whitey” then that reference to a 60s/70s radical-type, black nationalist hairstyle will make sense.
As has been mentioned, see Angela Davis.
I have to say they got most, if not all, of the false memes in there.
Because the “butt of the joke”, i.e. the people who would actually believe all those things about the Obamas, cannot and will not be turned away from their delusion. Therefore, the only thing left is to expose them for the fools that they are at every opportunity. On that level, the cover serves its purpose.
Satire, by nature, *is * “preaching to the choir.” It’s like all the anti-Bush political cartoons–do you really think they’re going to convert the Bushies? Probably not–but it makes the anti-Bush side feel better, maybe even a little superior.
Then again, most amoebas are superior to any moron who would believe all that crap about the Obamas.
Just wanted to make sure we are on the same page here (and also wanted to underline something for anyone following along who may not know):
The ‘purported video’ was completely false, right? Complete hoax/bullshit.
I figured that’s what you were getting at, but wanted to make sure.
-XT
If you’re saying it exists, don’t pussyfoot around – say so.
I never saw it. If you have a link, I’d love to see it and change my wording (which was edited to alleged).
Um…huh? 
I’m pretty clearly saying it DOESN’T exist…it was a hoax.
-XT
My mistake. And my apology. Your seeming rhetorical question in your second paragraph threw me. It sounded to me, mistakenly, as if something had shown up after I stopped waiting for it happen, despite your clear second sentence there.
Nope…and no worries. Just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page there. 
-XT
I disagree. The choir may be the only ones who find any given satirical joke funny, but they aren’t–and shouldn’t be–the only ones who get that a joke is being made.
In the case of the New Yorker cover, I think the choir sees this as clearly satire because A) they assume/believe that all those rumor are ridiculous on their face and B) perhaps most importantly, they know the New Yorker’s political stance and factor that into their appraisal. But if one doesn’t recognize that those rumors are ridiculous and they don’t have any prior knowledge of the New Yorker’s slant, then not only is the joke missed on them but it actually can reenforce the beliefs the cartoon is lampooning.
I think that’s the crux of the issue. If you’re going to make fun of these silly ideas about the Obamas, that’s great, more power to you. But do it right or it could cause unintended consequences. That’s not catering to the LCD. That’s just being realistic.