The New Yorker Magazine/Obama Cover Controversy

[YoungRemy]

have you guys seen this?
the July 21st cover of the New Yorker Magazine depicts a turban wearing Obama burning an American flag, with his afro-headed wife giving him a fist-bump, while rocking the AK-47 Black panther style...

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0708/Obama_camp_criticizes_New_Yorker_cover.html

Mike Allen reports that Obama took a question (from NBC's Athena Jones) on the cover of the New Yorker:

“The upcoming issue of the New Yorker, the July 21st issue, has a picture of you, depicting you and your wife on the cover. Have you seen it? If not, I can show it to you on my computer. It shows your wife Michelle with an Afro and an AK 47 and the two of you doing the fist bump with you in a sort of turban-type thing on top. I wondered if you’ve seen it or if you want to see it or if you have a response to it?”

Obama (shrugs incredulously): “I have no response to that.”
The magazine explains at the start of its news release previewing the issue: “On the cover of the July 21, 2008, issue of the The New Yorker, in ‘The Politics of Fear,’ artist Barry Blitt satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.”

Responds Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton: "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

I'm a little on the fence here. It's obviously satire, made clearer by the fact that the New Yorker is a deeply friendly publication to Obama and the Democrats these days. So is the outrage -- encouraged here by the campaign -- an appropriate reaction? Or the new, pro-Obama PC? (If the latter, alls fair on the campaign trail in any case... but it could prove a worryingly powerful tool used from the White House.)

UPDATE: The cartoonist's defense:

I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.

[Bob]

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."


er...no, i see it as a satirical lampoon of the caricature senator obama's right-wing critics have tried to create, actually

i would lose a decent amount of respect for the obama campaign if they tried to crack down on this

[yeahwho]

All of this controversy, it's sort of an reaffirming kind of thing. I mean here's Jesse Jackson just last week uttering he wants to cut Obama's balls off into a live mike... all of a sudden the lefty's are jilted back to Jesse's divisive brand of politics.

Now this cover which is the sort of elitist humor New Yorkers elitists thrive on and it is interpretation is another abstract kind of picking on Obama.

So being as it is, many of the left winged minded democrats now feel as if they must come to Obama's defense against these remarks and portrayals.

Jackson and the New Yorker have done Obama an awesome favor, whether accidentally or intentionally.

I'm enjoying this, I compromised and I'm voting for Obama because I know he is brilliant. That in itself will be a very delightful change from the present.

I'm not blinded though, the democratic party has become the "sissy wing" of the republican party. Obama has his work cut out for him.

[ms.peachy]

The problem with this is, The New Yorker wants to treat people as though they were intelligent. Which is great, in theory. Not unlike communism. The problem is, of course, as always, all the stupid people.

[DroppinScience]

I like how Michelle Obama looks like Angela Davis in that cartoon.

I know very well what The New Yorker is trying to do, but like ms. peachy says, the unintelligent people won't pick up on it so easily.

[Schmeltz]

Making a caricature of a caricature is not a very good method of pursuing satire; it's like a double negative - it cancels itself out and obfuscates the intended point.

[Echewta]

The problem with this is, The New Yorker wants to treat people as though they were intelligent. Which is great, in theory. Not unlike communism. The problem is, of course, as always, all the stupid people.

Perfectly said.

[Bob]

Making a caricature of a caricature is not a very good method of pursuing satire; it's like a double negative - it cancels itself out and obfuscates the intended point.

i don't know if it's necessarily a caricature of a caricature, it's just a drawing of the caricature itself. by combining all of the silly criticisms that obama has attracted and putting them all together in one drawing, the viewing audience says "hey hold on, that's a caricature, that's ridiculous", at least that's how i see it.

in other words, it's not satirizing the caricature, it's drawing attention to the fact that it actually is a caricature rather than valid complaints (robmoney, take notes)

either that or the new yorker thinks obama is a flagburning terrorist, that's the other interpretation

[NoFenders]

^ which I doubt they do.

It's just a friggin cartoon. When did people get all crazy about cartoons???
It wont push people one way or another. If it does, I feel very sorry for our population. We'd be considered the dumbest nation in the world if a cartoon can change the voters mind. Besides, most people would bend over backwards for their candidate, or forwards in yeahwho's case. It wont be a factor in any person's mindset that hasn't made a choice yet either. They have seen it before. Nothing new.

:cool:

[Schmeltz]

by combining all of the silly criticisms that obama has attracted and putting them all together in one drawing, the viewing audience says "hey hold on, that's a caricature, that's ridiculous", at least that's how i see it.

in other words, it's not satirizing the caricature, it's drawing attention to the fact that it actually is a caricature rather than valid complaints

Yeah, I can see what you're saying and it does make sense. On the other hand I think there's too many assumptions at work there - how familiar are ordinary people with the specific sort of attacks that the right-wing noise machine has levelled at Barack Obama? Familiar enough to recognize them if they're all brought together under one roof? Artwork that mocks a delusion only really works if the audience knows about the delusion.

With apologies to Ms.Peachy, I don't think the problem is that the New Yorker assumes that people are intelligent when they're not. I think the problem is that the New Yorker assumes that the only intelligent people out there are the people who read the New Yorker. That's how this comes across to me anyway.

[Documad]

My issue hasn't come yet.

Peachy's right. Americans who don't read the New Yorker are dumbasses.

[yeahwho]

^ which I doubt they do.

It's just a friggin cartoon. When did people get all crazy about cartoons???
It wont push people one way or another. If it does, I feel very sorry for our population. We'd be considered the dumbest nation in the world if a cartoon can change the voters mind. Besides, most people would bend over backwards for their candidate, or forwards in yeahwho's case. It wont be a factor in any person's mindset that hasn't made a choice yet either. They have seen it before. Nothing new.

:cool:

you just hurt my feeling

[ms.peachy]

Yeah, I can see what you're saying and it does make sense. On the other hand I think there's too many assumptions at work there - how familiar are ordinary people with the specific sort of attacks that the right-wing noise machine has levelled at Barack Obama? Familiar enough to recognize them if they're all brought together under one roof? Artwork that mocks a delusion only really works if the audience knows about the delusion.
Erm, I rather think most ordinary people are, actually, and the point of the caricature is to spotlight them all at once.

With apologies to Ms.Peachy, I don't think the problem is that the New Yorker assumes that people are intelligent when they're not. I think the problem is that the New Yorker assumes that the only intelligent people out there are the people who read the New Yorker. That's how this comes across to me anyway.
Well I'm really not sure how you get that at all. It seems pretty clear to me that the editors at the New Yorker knowingly put forth a challenging idea, weighed up the risks and benefits, and then rather than bury it, took the chance that a majority of people would see it for what it is and that it would spur some debate. I'm sure they knew it would stir some controversy, and wanted it to.

[freetibet]

Face it: the day USA chooses Barrack (??) Obama (??) will be the beginning of sucking balls by this proud country. Apart from being a muslim loving commie he sounds really inappropriate on the same list next to such great names G. Washington, Th. Jefferson, Th. Roosevelt and other 30-40 guys.

Who is that guy?!

Have You also noticed that he's populist and has no political plan? Vote for me 'cause I'm me! Stand for change something bla bla. Maybe give peace a chance? Or give islam a chance?

And yes, the 'New Yorker's' cover is funny, sad and true.

[saz]

george w. bush has already driven the country into the ground. but oh yes, obama has a funny name, so therefore we can already judge how his performance as president is going to be.

"muslim loving commie"? obama is a conservative or centrist democrat, he isn't a populist nor a communist. you have no clue whatsoever what you're talking about, and are only making yourself look like a xenophobic biggot.

[Whatitis]

Americans who don't read the New Yorker are dumbasses.

Than what's the problem if the dumbasses aren't going to read it?

I've seen worse political charactures, it's just a hot button topic.

[yeahwho]

Here is the Republican version (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Billboard_uses_burning_WTC_to_say_0715.html) of the New Yorker cover, equal but different.

dipshit's having their day.

[na§tee]

from the guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/16/pressandpublishing.barackobama):

Can cartoonists go too far? Yes. Should we go too far? Yes.

Irony is a difficult beast to control. Your intention as a cartoonist may be perfectly clear to you, but how some psycho in Toadsuck, Nebraska, is going to read your cartoon is anyone's guess, and the psycho's privilege, and you can never second guess a psycho, as was demonstrated in the Coen brothers' film No Country for Old Men. Psychos tend to take things very literally and often carry around captive bolts powered by large canisters of compressed air, especially in the US.

So should we tread warily, lest we are misunderstood? Of course we should. Cartoonists are some of the most painstaking, careful, shy and sensitive people on earth, yet we do play with fire, toying with other people's (and of course our own) most deeply held beliefs and most cherished illusions. Is it possible to go too far? Of course it is? Should we go too far? Of course we should. That's what makes our job so interesting. There's no better feeling than, having taken a risk in a drawing, seeing the thing in print and knowing it works. The converse is also true, which is why I work in a bunker on the south coast.

When I first saw a tiny thumbnail of the offending Barry Blitt New Yorker cover I thought, for a fleeting moment, that I could understand why Obama supporters would be so pissed off. After all, here was a drawing depicting the worst possible caricature of their man: a smug Muslim and his gun-toting black-power wife who would burn the flag in the Oval Office beneath a portrait of Osama bin Laden. But then, surely that's the point? If you take it that literally you literally turn yourself into an idiot (though not quite a psycho). I didn't think it looked a particularly good drawing, but I couldn't judge from a thumbnail.

Now, having seen the full image (along with unimaginable numbers of idiots and psycho-paths worldwide), I can say that I rather warm to it. I look at it, and it works, for me anyway.

I particularly like the expression on Michelle's face. Cartoons don't work as shopping lists of points to be made with labels tacked on to clarify things for the culturally deprived. Too much cartooning operates on that level, especially in the US. Cartoons need to be disturbing, and they should also dare to ask questions. People in the US aren't generally fools (even though the fools have been over-represented of late, particularly in the current administration), though some may be a little over-literal, and these are not always the psychos. Not so long ago I drew a cartoon of Obama as rifle-range target, and received a torrent (OK, a very heavy trickle) of emails, mostly from concerned liberal supporters asking me if I really wanted him dead.

I was simply pointing out that Obama definitely ticks all the boxes for the heavily armed rightwing psychopath, and of course it happened before in the US 40 years ago, so the cartoon was not really meant to amuse. But whether a cartoon is funny or not is one judgment that is always going to remain subjective.

[NoFenders]

Here is the Republican version (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Billboard_uses_burning_WTC_to_say_0715.html) of the New Yorker cover, equal but different.

dipshit's having their day.


That's actually a bit in bad taste for even myself. I don't like 9/11 to sell anything but awareness.


:cool:

[yeahwho]

The New Yorker cartoon is just a "slow news day" story really, it does bring back memories of Elaine Bennis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cartoon) and her own confusion over the New Yorkers cartoons.

[DroppinScience]

Face it: the day USA chooses Barrack (??) Obama (??) will be the beginning of sucking balls by this proud country. Apart from being a muslim loving commie he sounds really inappropriate on the same list next to such great names G. Washington, Th. Jefferson, Th. Roosevelt and other 30-40 guys.

Who is that guy?!

Have You also noticed that he's populist and has no political plan? Vote for me 'cause I'm me! Stand for change something bla bla. Maybe give peace a chance? Or give islam a chance?

And yes, the 'New Yorker's' cover is funny, sad and true.

Ladies and gentleman, I'd like to introduce you to the Polish version of Glenn Beck!

[yeahwho]

How to make fun of Obama from the LATimes (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein18-2008jul18,0,3819643.column)

He's a nerd. Yes, he seems cool because he plays basketball and fist-bumps and knows about pop music. But that's because we're comparing him with other politicians, all of whom are older than our grandparents. Compare Obama with other 46-year-olds and he's Urkel. He's the kid at the Model United Nations conference who says, "Guys, guys, c'mon. Let's not make fun of Eastern Europe." And the brutal truth is, even if women faint at your rallies, you'll never feel cool inside when you have Alfred E. Neuman's ears.