Check this out too. (Hat tip to Chuck) http://www.sitemason.com/newspub/fQKJvW?id=57932When a publication like The New Yorker makes an error in good sense like its current cover, its impact on this presidential campaign can be devastating. If you haven't seen it, you can find it almost everywhere and that is precisely the problem. With 24 hour a day news coverage, with the Internet, with all of the media we now have fixating on issues like this, this offensive cover will be available and talked about until something else comes along--and the worry is that something else will come along, also harming Obama's campaign.
When supposedly like-thinking, friendly sources like The New Yorker make such a catastrophic error in judgment, what chance is there? It's hard to believe that someone on the staff didn't see it and say "Hey, wait a minute!" Can the powers that be at the magazine live in such a bubble that they don't know how the rest of the country looks at things? Can they believe that everyone understands satire and gets the joke. I often don't get The New Yorker jokes.
I have subscribed to The New Yorker since I was a teenager, but feel I need to cancel it now unless they find someway to address this. How should The New Yorker make amends to the Obama campaign, which has said...
"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," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
"But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree," he said in a statement.And not just tasteless and offensive. It could also be seen as frightening, racist, or humorous without being satirical at all. It also reflects the feelings some Americans have about Obama.
McCain has said he would find it offensive too. So we all agree on this. Except The New Yorker.
26 comments:
Have they done other such satires that are this... inflammatory?
Yikes.
And talk about perpetuating the stereotypes and misinformation! Sigh.
They probably have had other covers that satirized political figures and they certainly have cartoons inside, but this one goes over the line because of how people will read it, I think. Exactly-perpetuating stereotypes is the real outcome. Sigh here, too.
Patti,
As a librarian, I'm the first one to support free speech. However, I agree with you. They went way over the line. This shows the poor taste and judgment that I would expect on something like MAD Magazine, but nothing I would expect on The New Yorker.
I heard one man say he was cancelling his subscription, and sending the refund to the Obama campaign. It might be too late. Yes, it shows such bad judgment in an election year. It is inflammatory. In a time when so many people are scared about terrorism, and, don't pay attention to the campaigns, issues and candidates, it's almost as if they hollered "fire" in a crowded theater.
What should they do? I think it's too late. I think someone showed remarkably bad taste and judgment, though.
I think that this may turn out to be very good for Obama and his campaign.
My wife's family is from Tennessee where many of her relatives have been looking for some excuse not to vote for Obama other than the fact that he is half black (but looks all black). I think that this cover rips the scab off of all of the false rumors and exposes them for the lies that they are.
Of course the cable news channels have been very busy with this "outrage," however, everyone one of them, even Fox News, has repudiated the lies that the cover portrays.
Now if only my wife's relatives in Tennessee read the New Yorker or watched cable news. Obama needs to make an appearance on the Grand Old Opera and skip Europe.
I sure hope you're right, Chuck. You do wonder what will come next. If his friends can make this much trouble.
MAD magazine, you got it right on the nose, Lesa.
Very bad judgment indeed.
I remember when ALL IN THE FAMILY first aired(yes, I'm that old). To many people didn't get what Norman Lear was showing. Archie Bunker was a hero to them. My stepfather said these very words, "He makes things so clear," with a laugh.
Those same types will take that New Yorker cover as the gospel, never reading the accompanying article.
I remember it too, Randy. And it was with great trepidation. But in that case, it didn't impact an election so I was more willing to take a chance.
http://www.sitemason.com/newspub/fQKJvW?id=57932
Enjoy
Well, Patti, "All in the Family" made its debut in 1971 (we're not old, people, we're EXPERIENCED) and there was an election in '72 that was pretty wild - are you sure the show had no impact?
(well, I guess there were SOME other issues at the time ;)
Chuck may be right, though, in the same way "All in the Family," made things "clear" it also put out in the open views that were impossible to defend - but hadn't needed to be defended as long as no one was talking about them.
We keep telling people it's good to talk about stuff, but we never seem to mention how freakin' HARD it is to talk about stuff.
Maybe this will actually help...
Wow, Chuck. How have these cartoons gotten by me? Now I am starting to doubt their intentions.
John-AiTF may well have had an impact in retrospect. Difficult to balance free speech with crying fire in a crowded country as Lesa said.
The problem with crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater is that too many people will act like terrified rats under such circumstances. Nothing demands that people trample each other. I've always found that metaphor wanting.
Likewise, I hope, Patti, you were in on the joke that the supposed NEW YORKER cartoons in RED STATE UPDATE were doctored. Or, at least, they sure look doctored!
Finally, Chuck and I have found common ground--I suspect this, like Jesse Jackson, Sr.'s outburst, will help Obama a lot more than it will hurt him.
Among the other "Buzzworthy" NEW YORKER covers since the Conde Nast takeover--the horribly, horribly scadalous cover showing a Hasidic man and a woman with dreadlocks kissing, and George W. Bush as a monkey (not too much of a stretch).
Actual NEW YORKER Obama cartoons, such as they are:
http://www.cartoonbank.com/directory/Obama-cartoons.html
You mean I've been had. Well, it isn't the first time. Too bad I am naively cynical.
Well, if it's any consolation, my memory's playing tricks...I can't find evidence of the Bush Monkey cover, so it might've been on some other magazine.
RED STATE UPDATE is, after all, satire.
I say, commercialism. Maybe The New Yorker did cross the line but they're only thinking of their bottom line, to sell magazines. It's easy for them to publish something negative and then apologize for it later. They probably aren't considering how many readers they might lose as a result of something this controversial.
You all seem to have more belief in the intelligence of the American people than I do. Who do you think reads The New Yorker? Not the people who would misunderstand this cover. I think those of you who are offended aren't offended for yourselves but rather for those dopes out there who won't get the joke. And they wouldn't be voting for Obama anyway.
In my Oxford Thesaurus:
SATIRE - "a satire on American politics" - parody, burlesque, caricature, lampoon, skit, pasquinade; and "he has become the subject of satire" - mockery, ridicule, derision, scorn, cariacature; irony, sarcasm.
Satires have always been like this, and The New Yorker has written many satirical articles over the years it has been in publication. Since political incorrectness has come into our lives it seems anything that can be taken out of context is.
Steven Parrish writes about controversial issues that often are quite funny. Some have a very dark side; yet I have not been aware of anyone telling him or his readers that they found his posts inappropriate or offensive.
This morning I read the front page of Toronto's National Post with the photograph of The New Yorker on it. I also read the accompanying article explaining what the fuss was all about. The caricature paralleled the article to the cartoon in true satirical form.
The United States of America has prided itself on its "Freedom of Speech". The New Yorker has exercised its right.
Maybe before we had wall-to-wall media coverage, the cover would only be seen by TNYer subscribers but I bet most people are aware of it now. And it points out again, what they have to be afraid of. They don't get the joke but they do get that Obama's someone different and thus someone to fear.
Am I the only one who found the cover funny? Shocking I know, funny cartoons and the New Yorker rarely go hand and hand. I'm still going to vote for him, but the Obama campaign just doesn't have a sense of humor. Hell, he personally admonished Bernie Mac for his off-color humor. Really, Bernie Mac working blue? I'm utterly speechless.
http://www.borowitzreport.com/default.asp
I am vaguely concerned that he's another Jimmy Carter-pious and without a sense of humor. Good men like him can be hard to live with. Even as a citizen.
I am vaguely concerned that he's another Jimmy Carter-pious and without a sense of humor. Good men like him can be hard to live with. Even as a citizen.
Moreso than Carter, he strikes me as someone who's Awfully proud of how Cool he is, so anything that ruffles that Cool bothers him more than it should. Callowness, basically.
As a friend of mine who overlapped with him at our pretentious, privileged high school (I didn't only because I moved to Hawaii and transferred in as a sophomore), he seems to have maintained a Punahou mindset in his later life.
With nobobdy else actually better, even among the small parties (the Greens and the Libertarians both have put up, shall we say, problematic ex-Housemembers) and independents (Nader coming closest, though I have serious problems with Nader which have Nothing to do with his altogether well-deserved insults to Democrats), I'm trying to be as enthusiastic as I can be about probably voting for him, too.
As my friend has noted, I should say. He embodies that entitled mindset so well (even if he was, like my friend and I, among the middle-class students there, in classes heavily sprinkled with heirs and fewer scholarship students).
Patti, you may be right about who will see the cover, but I still think that those who find it frightening aren't going to vote for this man anyway. I also think the whole uproar is really about race but no one is saying that in so many words.
Steve, I find the cover funny, too.
OK, Patti. Now this is real humor. In case you didn't see it on the Today Show, check out JibJab's video on my personal blog.
http://lesa-mymomentintime.blogspot.com/2008/07/its-time-to-start-campaigning.html
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