July 14, 2008
New Yorker Obama Cover: Ironic or Offensive?
Barack Obama’s campaign spokesman Bill Burton is calling this week’s New Yorker cover art “tasteless and offensive.” The illustration by Barry Blitt depicts the Illinois senator in the Oval Office wearing traditional Muslim garb while doing a “terrorist fist jab” with his wife Michelle, who is dressed in fatigues, with an Afro and an AK-47 slung over her shoulder. To complete the scene, there’s a portrait of Bin Laden over the fireplace, in which an American flag is ablaze.
The Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney asked Blitt if “in retrospect, given the outcry, is he glad he made the art?” Blitt’s reply: “Retrospect? Outcry? The magazine just came out ten minutes ago, at least give me a few days to decide whether to regret it or not... 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.”
New Yorker editor David Remnick is defending the cover, which is accompanied by a long 18 page article about Obama’s sharp-elbowed rise through the Chicago Democratic political machine. Remnick tells the Daily News the cover “satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign… It is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover."
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Holy crap! How misconstrued is that going to be!
I mean, my God.
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Some people are too smart for their own good.
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The least they could have done was put the article's title "The Politics of Fear" on the cover as well. It's simply a tasteless way to self-promote.
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I like him, he looks me right in the eye.
Nine.......Eleven.
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I totally get the cover for what it is trying to convey. Unfortunately, most people are too dumb to recognize it as satire.
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Are people really going to look at this cover and say "Oh, the New Yorker is being ironic, and poking fun at unfounded fears about Barack Obama"? This is not going to be taken well.
I can't to see what Fox News has to say about this. Oh, brother...
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I can't believe people complain about the "liberal media."
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The New Yorker often does subtle satire on its covers. But this one is little out of the box for them. Its more like The Onion or the old National Lampoon.
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This is the worst example of satire I've ever seen. (I would've put the image in a thought bubble of a right-wing conservative. But leaving it open for anyone to misconstrue is asking for trouble.) How many people did he run this by before going to publication? Unbelievable.
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It looks more like an attempt by the New Yorker to get people to realize they still even exist.
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It's satire.
Duh.
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Yes but in mass media you can not assume the public will catch on to the satire
In fact one needs to assume they they won't
Many bands fall prey to this especially, such as system of a down write ironic anti-war lyrics that are blasted by troops just because its loud rock
People don't get irony on a mass scale - they take it literally
The only fool is the cynical elitist that believes otherwise
This is completely inappropriate regardless
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It's funny how the only two choices in your poll are whether it was tasteless or reflects the right wing view especially when nearly all of the attacks on Obama have been from Hillary and other Democrats - not GOPers.
Take the blinders off.
The cover was tasteless and offensive, but Obama's policies are so much worse that there's no reason to put up that cover.
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Yes but in mass media you can not assume the public will catch on to the satire
In fact one needs to assume they they won't
So, you should conform to the MSM and let them run your ideas, thoughts, writing, and art?
No thanks.
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Goodnight, New Yorker.
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seriously, idiots.
this will only hurt obama majorly.
the people that we want to convince obama is good who can't see that in the first place will only look at this and have it reinforce their warped thoughts already.
and if they weren't thinking of some of these ideas in the first place, or forgot about them, it is just going to remind them that "maybe" some of this stuff IS true.
IDIOT NEW YORKER. LOSERS stuck in their NY shell, go back to Ohio.
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This is completely inappropriate regardless
To the New Yorker's readership, it's not. It's actually quite funny.
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the people that we want to convince obama is good who can't see that in the first place will only look at this and have it reinforce their warped thoughts already.
Whoever said he was good?
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i get it. it's very funny.
however, and sadly, 99.99999% of america will not.
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I thought it was funny. And how many of the people who are stupid enough to be swayed by something like this are actually paying attention to The New Yorker?
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Whew, that was close, the cable news stations were just about to talk about something that matters.
I'm sick of crap like this being labeled as controversial the second it comes out. Give it some time, I bet most people are smarter than you think.
The real issue here:
An 18 page article? Damn I hate the New Yorker.
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I enjoy political satire as much anyone but this is in awful taste. Yes, I'm an Obama supporter, but I would be also disgusted if the publication's cover had a sketch of John McCain dozing off in a rocking chair with a clock in the background displaying 6:00 pm.
As #2 said, the magazine is too smart for its own good. Sure, it'll get attention - but how does this really help solve our problems? Can we talk about the real issues that Americans face on a daily basis please?
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Now if this were the cover of the National Review, that would be satire...
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Satire or not, it has no place on the cover of a so called respected news magazine.
The editor must have been drunk to let this slide.
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neither funny or ironic. liberal self-hatred has no bounds; and i'll bet good money hillary paid for it the fuel the 'i told you so' agenda.
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I think the New Yorker may have done Obama a service. Last week everyone was calling for his head because of his reversal on FISA. Now he's a victim again, poor guy, and was a candidate ever more mistreated? Never mind Rev. Wright, or Donnie McClurkin, or Wm. Ayers...
The artwork is outstanding though possibly the judgment exercised to use it on the cover was not.
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Bottomless
Cynicism is the adult refuge of the naive and ignorant
"Dude are you being ironic?"
"I don't even know anymore."
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Doesnt the New Yorker know that the Fist Pump is dated? The Face Slap is what all the kids are doing nowadays!
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If you watch some of the focus groups that have been run to see how "ordinary" people feel about Obama, you will see exactly this kind of fear-mongering at work.
His name sounds rhymes with Osama. His middle name is Hussein. He's not white.
I think that , sadly, most "voters" are too dumb to get this joke and will just see it as more of the same fear that they have already swallowed whole.
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http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/33dTexts/maus/93FebNewYorkerCover.gif
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Oh an one more thing...
#17 Bottomless Said:
This is completely inappropriate regardless
To the New Yorker's readership, it's not. It's actually quite funny.
My response:
You goddamn Bourgeois Bohemians need get get some perspective the world doesn't revolve around you
also you can make whatever you want in your art just don't push your propaganda on me you scum sucking bobo
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i bet you are all about deconstructionism too
in this neo-contemporary-post-modern age we live in
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the cover is brilliant. i need a double sized print immediately.
think of how many people are going to see this cover and open up the magazine to take a look at the article. only good can come out of this. people feed on this kind of racey material. it's a classic bait-and-switch.
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Haha. I'm not liberal or elite whatsoever. My comments here and salary reflect that.
I just assumed that the satire which plays on the GOP slams on him were funny to Dems.
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It is an amusing point, that a more thorough poll would be
a) ironic
b) offensive
c) accurate
Sadly, a significant number of Americans would pick C.
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And now they're selling it online:
http://www.newyorkerstore.com/product_details.asp?sid=125383
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The only other time I've seen such a vehement dislike to a cartoon was the radical Islam reaction to Mohommed cartoons in the Netherlands.
Makes you think, if you can.
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That irreverence! That wit! I'd recognize it anywhere. Some charlatan has stolen a Ziggy and passed it off as his own.
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I think it's pretty funny. It's not Obama who's being sent up, but the mentally deficient dregs who actually believe in the absurdities depicted. I grant that the dregs are a fearsome menace, but we can't live in fear of them forever. This gives them too much power. Let us rather laugh them to scorn.
In other words, Obama fans, wise up and buck up.
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If the New Yorker's defense of it is that is about the "Politics of Fear", a headline to that effect on the cover of the magazine would go a long way to firmly rooting this in "satire" and not "offensive".
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I'm going to continue reading the New Yorker, obviously, but "cringe."
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GM is right on the money. Maybe one of those morons who think Obama is a radical Islamic Manchurian Candidate will absorb some accurate information from the article. I'm not holding my breath though.
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spiritross, is right: "People don't get irony on a mass scale - they take it literally. The only fool is the cynical elitist that believes otherwise"
GM: "think of how many people are going to see this cover and open up the magazine to take a look at the article."
let me guess, not many.
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I've worked in publishing for nearly 20 years, and I can tell you--people are dumb. You have to design things for the lowest common denominator.
Sure, the New Yorker's readership is generally smart and will get the joke. But the idiots of the world (90% of America) will just get the IMAGERY and nothing else. They are not "smarter than you think". They are dumber than you think. (Keep in mind, these are the same fucking people who voted for GWBush not once, but TWICE, and generally make their political decisions based on the color of a candidate's tie)
It just seems insensitive for the New Yorker to do this. We've got the first serious black candidate for president and he is facing all kinds of unfair comparisons already... sheesh, you'd think they could show a little sensitivity to that fact.
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I think it's pretty funny. It's not Obama who's being sent up, but the mentally deficient dregs who actually believe in the absurdities depicted.
Exactly. I bet Obama himself had a chuckle. But I can just imagine the Obama campaign discussing where to come down on the issue:
"If this was in any publication other than the New Yorker we wouldn't even be debating this, we'd be jumping down their throats."
"In that case we had better have a strong response or else we'll be painted as elitists giving the New Yorker a pass."
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I'm sure that this will be passed around so many conservative emails and blogs for the rest of the election.
The New Yorker fails.
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is bill burton too dim to understand this?
so, the "outrage" is going to be at the new yorker, rather than at fox news who debuted "terrorist fist jab" as something that is possibly applicable to the bump the obamas did in celebration?
this cover is funny to those who get it, as it is sheer mockery of the shittiest institutions and inaccurate beliefs that this shitty excuse for a country has. and there's nothing wrong with humor as a response to the stupidity, but conservatives wouldn't fucking get that.
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This reminds me of the time I thought OBL was in New York because The New Yorker showed Osama looking at a map on a subway car.
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Can the state of New York sue this elitist outdated & dead magazine no one reads into bankruptcy for defaming the name of the city of New York? Its scumbag magazines like this why everyone hates New Yorkers.
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I'm sure that this will be passed around so many conservative emails and blogs for the rest of the election.
The New Yorker fails.
Were those people going to vote for him, in the first place?