July 15, 2008
New Yorker Obama Cover Controversy Enters Day 2
The political news cycle yesterday was dominated by the controversy surrounding this week’s New Yorker cover; called “The Politics of Fear,” it depicts Senator Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as America-hating radical terrorists gloating in the Oval Office. New Yorker editor David Remnick, who celebrates his tenth anniversary helming the magazine with this issue, spent the day making the interview rounds and getting some great publicity for the magazine; speaking to Wolf Blizter on CNN, he defended the cover as “Colbert in print.”
The main gripe is that while big city sophisticates will get that the cover is a satire of right wing fearmongering, those hayseeds in the sticks will mistake cartoon for fact – just like when Garfield was syndicated and everyone in flyover country started feeding their cats lasagna. Of course, those dense enough to miss the point of this rather broad cartoon probably aren’t spotting it on line at the Winn-Dixie. But that’s where the media steps in to make sure everyone knows about this important story. Watch!
Anyone with an internet connection has been mandated to give their two cents; New Yorker-phile Emdashes is unfazed, liberal blogger John Aravosis argues that the cover “reinforces” the lies about Obama cirulated online, and 59% of those who answered an online poll at World Net Daily agreed that “the image isn't too far from the dangerous truth about the Obama family.” But blogger, actor and friend of Gothamist James Urbaniak poses a perceptive question in his “obligitory post on the New Yorker cover” : “Are cartoonists allowed to represent the debasement of our political culture without bordering the image in 'irony tags'? I vote yes.”
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this won't go quietly. After all, the media's favorite subject is: itself.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........
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Got to fill the 24h news cycle, and real content won't keep the hayseeds in flyover country glued to their sets.
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what a dumb drawing.
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If this were:
A. Drawn well
B. Funny
C. Clever
It would be a good New Yorker cover. Too bad it is none of those. 2008, thank you for exposing all of the modern frauds. NY'er has the WORST cartoonists.
Period.
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"keep the hayseeds in flyover country glued to their sets."
You know not one east coast state except for Connecticut, Vermont and Maine voted for Obama?
Why is it only "flyover country" that will misinterpret this?
If it wasn't for the "flyover states" Obama wouldn't have been nominated or in the position he is for the New Yorker to lampoon him.
This "us" vs. "them" attitutude of new yorkers - particularly transplants - needs to end.
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"flyover states" that voted for Obama
Iowa, South Carolina, Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Utah, Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Vermont, U.S. Virgin Islands, Democrats Abroad, Wyoming and Mississippi.
I don't see New York on there.
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"...just like when Garfield was syndicated and everyone in flyover country started feeding their cats lasagna."
Nice one, John.
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The Baby Boomer vs the Baby Bomber..I am trying to get that to stick.
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matty just nailed it.
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Thank you, Matty...but you robbed me the satisfaction of saying those things myself. Viva "flyover country." If I still lived there, I could afford my damn rent.
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Yeah, like Urbaniak, I vote "yes" as well to his question. However, I don't think that the cover was successful in its representation, satire or whatever. It just doesn't work.
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"You know not one east coast state except for Connecticut, Vermont and Maine voted for Obama?"
You have odd definitions for "east coast" and "flyover". DC, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, NC, SC and Virginia are all on the East Coast, and were won by Obama .
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Even as an ardent anti-Obama PUMA I found the cover to be dumb. I am what Obamabots fear the most -- an educated voter who has chosen not to vote for Obama, not because I think he's a muslim or because I think he associates with terrorists (save for Bill Ayers), but because I think his lack of experience, coupled with his premature ascent through Democratic politics on the wings of incompetents such as Howard Dean, has set the Democratic party up for disaster come November.
Had the Democrats waited until Obama was more experienced and fully vetted before offering him up as the minister of change, perhaps the Republican 527s wouldn't be salivating over the material that Obama gives to them with every flip in position or step to the right.
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The cover nails it, especially Michelle.
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colbert is funny, this cover is not.
the new yorker fails.
"Had the Democrats waited until Obama was more experienced and fully vetted..."
hillary, you lost, get over it.
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The intended satire was spectacularly incompetent. The **only** people who find it funny are those it's meant to satirize. That's the definition of failure in a satire.
You can easily verify this for yourself. Check the letters to any blog about the controversy. You'll find Michelle Malkin, the National Review, and assorted racists and nuts enjoying the "humor".
These kooks say that the reason they enjoy the cartoon is precisely that it conveys some truth.
If satire is meant to make those satirized think again, and to help the rest of us poke fun at them, this is cover art's most massive failure in quite a while.
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Just because I like to be a pain in Matty's neck, note that people in those states voted for Obama over Hillary and other Dem also-rans, not McCain or any Republican. And in the vast majority of those states the elections you're referring to only involved Dems voting in the Dem primary, not the electorate as a whole. And Clinton is the senator from NY, so did you really expect NY to not vote for her? It would be like Obama losing Illinois (which is where you're from and where your sensitivity to the phrase 'flyover country' comes from).
And finally get this one straight -- The New Yorker wasn't lampooning Obama!!!! They were lampooning the flakes who think that that is an accurate picture of Obama. Jeez.
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Don't think the cover is "funny" like..you know..FUNNY..it's effective satire though. Get over it. I supported the guy but he acts like a P*ssy sometimes with this "don't make fun of me" crap. Look at how much crap Bush/Cheney (deservedly) take.
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SHVIOSS NAILED IT
This cover is just plain lousy. It doesn't even deserve all this attention.
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I think it's like that scene in "Annie Hall", where Grammy Hall looks at "Alvy Singer" and sees a Hasidim.
"You know, you're what my Grammy Hall would call a real "Jew"."
It's effective because it brings out all the covert associations and caricatures. Let's get it all out in the open, we are talking about the FIRST (half) Black Presidential nominee in a country founded with the enslavement of Africans. Not going to be an easy road.
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Funny or not, how many people are going out and buying the New Yorker just because of the controversial cover? David Remnick knows how to sell magazines!
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holyfrioje what is it that you fear? How exactly does Obama "set the party up for disaster" come November? I find it odd that you use terms such as "Obamabots", "minister of change", etc.. as well as calling Howard Dean incompetent. That's the same Howard Dean who has led the resurgence in state and local parties, resulting in a Democratic Congress and potentially larger gains this fall.
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Satire is a wonderful thing, and misunderstood by many people. That's why Al Franken is having such a tough time in MN. If Obama embraced it he'd have been better off; it wouldn't have made such a ruckus and he'd be the candidate with a sense of humor.
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Jen,
I think people know and heard that they're not serious and are being satirical. The reaction though is that it won't be used or received in that way, and it is inappropriate and is more fodder for anti-Obama fears.
I mean the latest poll went from 10% thinking Obama was Muslim to 12% recently. This isn't what he needed right now.
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I'm more angered by the smug East Coast superiority which assumes anyone not from New England is too dumb to get a joke. Bullshit, as pure as it gets.
Obama held office in Illinois. "Flyover" country as this entry called it, so I'd shut the fuck up.
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Politburo: you can ignore holyfrijole, as he stated, he's a puma & doesn't know when he lost.
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I think the New Yorker needed to make Obama look more like sambo. And yes, now all the hayseeds have the New Yorker on their walls and light candles as a shrine to it, that's what I'm doing.
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Thanks for the link, Zodak - I was wondering what a PUMA was. And, well, that sounds like a depressing thing to be. Maybe this irrelevant fringe group of rumormongers will get its own lame New Yorker cover someday, too.
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"I'm more angered by the smug East Coast superiority which assumes anyone not from New England is too dumb to get a joke."
New England? Way too broad. I'd say downstaters usually consider anything north of Westchester as'flyover', as Bostonians consider western Mass. or DCer's anything outside the Beltway.
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When was the last time the New Yorker even had a funny cartoon? I wouldn't read it if you gave me a free lifetime subscription. This is the same unoriginal rag that ripped off Jack Kirby. Pretty sad when you have to rip off a comic book.
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PUMAs are an irrelevant fringe group of rumormongers? Hardly. There are now hundreds of PUMA website set up with thousands of members. That's in addition to the millions of disgusted Democrats who refuse to vote for Obama and will hold their nose and vote for McCain.
So go ahead, do whatever else you'd like to do to destroy the party unity that your candidate is so desperately trying to build... because asswipes such as yourselves have done more to ruin your candidate's chances than he has himself.
My single vote may not count for much, but there are millions of others like me out there. And my money (and the money of PUMAs everywhere) is going to McCain and not the cash-strapped DNC. So I guess we'll see come November just how "fringe" we are.
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there are also hundreds of Care Bear websites with thousands of members. but i guess you are either too stupid or too racist to listen to your own candidate.
from wiki:
Clinton herself has been quoted as saying, "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that anyone who supported me ... understands what a grave error it would be not to vote for Sen. Obama."
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Thanks Zodiac.. I was wondering what that meant and was unable to find anything that seemed to match holyfrijoles' attitude of disconnection from reality. I guess these people are the new Nader-ites..
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Ah, Zodak, I was wondering when the "you're a racist" bullshit would come out. See, when that's your default response to whenever someone disagrees with you, you lose a great deal of credibility. Obama could be as lily white as a fresh snowfall and I still wouldn't pull the lever next to his name.
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How exactly do you get from "thousands of members" to "millions of disgusted Democrats"? I've noticed you haven't answered my previous questions, so I'm not holding out for an answer on this one..
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Colbert is funny. This cover is not funny. Just what stupid conservative people need to see to jump to a conclusion. Way to go, David Remnick.
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Hayseeds in the midwest don't read the New Yorker any more than thuglife in Flatbush or Parkchester.
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"Ah, Zodak, I was wondering when the "you're a racist" bullshit would come out."
actually my default belief was that you were stupid (i listed it 1st), but i thought i'd give you the benefit of the doubt that you might just be racist. but you are, in fact, stupid.
"Obama could be as lily white as a fresh snowfall and I still wouldn't pull the lever next to his name."
because his policies are just soooooooooo different from hillary's. go ahead, vote for McSame. prove how stupid you are.
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Hardly stupid. Three degrees, including a doctorate, from top schools. Nah, not stupid at all. Smarter than you, in fact, since, unlike you, I refuse to vote like a lemming along party lines.
And frankly, Obama's policies ARE different from Clinton's -- unlike Obama, she didn't vote for FISA. Clinton already had her foot firmly planted between the left and right -- a centrist, if you will. Obama, however, is proving to be quite the disappointment for liberals as he gleefully dances his way to the middle, flip flopping along the way. Gun control, death penalty, FISA, Iraq -- flip flop, flip flop, flip flop, flip flop.
Anyone who doesn't recognize the only change Obama is capable of enacting is within his own pitifully thin platform is the "stupid" one, though I would be loathed to use a word as sophomoric as "stupid" -- it sounds so 2nd grade. Then again, most Obama supporters are barely out of high school, so what more could I possibly expect?
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holyfrijole: And that's better than having McCain as president for the next four years? Seriously, are you willing to send this country deeper down the hole it's already in just because you're a sore sport?
Have you even bothered to read Obama's policy papers? If you stopped pleading blind ignorance, you just might learn that his platform is not "pitifully thin," but clearly laid out.
In fact, the media spawned the "Obama-stands-for-nothing" myth. You're just gullible enough to believe it. You can have several college degrees and still be stupid and gullible. And you can tack on the word "elitist" for your holier-than-thou attitude towards us. We aren't lemmings - we know that we need to win in November, and Hillary couldn't do that with a 49% national disapproval rating.
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On a note far more related to this article... why did the Obama campaign even bring this up? If the campaign and the media didn't blow this all out of proportion, nobody would've noticed.
Find me one person who believes Obama is a Muslim who also reads The New Yorker.
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east village idiot, you're going to be waiting for a while.
I offer all a chance to see what Remnick's intent was, and a chance to read something that is well thought and well written. It's not that hard to understand, assuming you're not illiterate.
About this week’s issue: Our cover, “The Politics of Fear,” combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are. The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall — all of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover. In this same issue you will also see that there are two very serious articles on Barack Obama inside — Hendrik Hertzberg's Comment (http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/07/21/080721taco_talk_hertzberg), and Ryan Lizza's 15,000-word reporting piece on the candidate's political education and rise in Chicago (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza).
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Here's a good take on it from someone at Salon:
Vast swaths of the left have apparently been so traumatized by the Big Lie techniques employed by the Bush administration, its media lickspittles like Fox News, and the right-wing attack machine that they have come to regard all images or texts that contain negative stereotypes as too politically dangerous to run. If you satirically depict Obama as an Islamist terrorist, in this view, you are only reinforcing and giving broader currency to right-wing smears.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/07/15/new_yorker_cartoon/index.html?source=rss&aim=/opinion/kamiya
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"Three degrees, including a doctorate, from top schools. Nah, not stupid at all."
i'm sure you also have a black belt in kung fu.
we are going to win and be the next president.
awesome, bingo's back & now he thinks he's obama.
lolz!
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The real cartoon is to depict Barack as an anti-war candidate. Something all of us idealists are going to have to swallow REEAAAL soon. 1. He can't get us out of Iraq and 2. Doesn't WANT to get us out of Afghanistan...dark days ahead.
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yup. that drawing's as dumb as it looks.
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I'm really hoping the new Yorker will next lampoon Muhammad on their cover. Then we could all sit back and enjoy these idiots go at it for the championship. As was stated above, the new Yorker is simply unreadable.