The New Yorker Covers Obama

Brainster

Penultimate Amazing
Brainster
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Whole lotta fury going on:

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “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."
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Michelle Malkin points out that the media routinely print offensive cartoons about conservatives, like this one that ran in Obamania Central (aka Rolling Stone):



My take? The uproar is mainly over this appearing on a "liberal" magazine's cover. If this had been the cover of National Review or the American Spectator, nobody would have noticed.
 
Well, I'm a hardcore Obama supporter and my first reaction was a belly laugh. I think most New Yorker readers are savvy enough to get the lampoon. They are clearly poking fun at the idiot conservatives who made hay out of the "terrorist fist bump".

But, this wouldn't be an election season without a lot of false outrage.
 
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The McCain campaign is agreeing with the Obama campaign over this. I guess neither have heard of the term "Satire" .
Frankly, the Obama campaign has made itself look like stupid with it's overreaction to this. and the McCain campaign is no better.
Like a magazine with a political outlook as liberal as "The New Yorker" is going to publish a racist anti Obama cover...
Not for the little old lady from Dubuque, indeed.....
 
I think the McCain campaign's hands were tied as soon as the Obama campaign expressed outrage. The only safe response at that point was "yeah, what they said". Anything else could easily be spun into bigotry and intolerance and stupidity. The best they can do is say "we recognize it is satire, but we think it went too far".
 
I think it's nicely done satire, but I can understand why some people are sensitive about it (and it takes a lot for me to say that, I'll laugh at most things). 9/11 still isn't a joking matter for many Americans from some conversations I've had (comedy is tragedy + plus time, which the New Yorker clearly think has been long enough), so perhaps it's muddied by that. Then again, if terrorism paranoia wasn't rife in America (and the UK, don't get me wrong), there wouldn't be any need for this satire in the first place.

I think the official Obama reaction is about what I'd expect though. When it comes to insinuations that a presidential candidate is a terrorist (or even a Muslim sympathiser) [and yes, a parody will be taken as an insinuation by some and not for what it is. The New Yorker audience isn't representative of your average voter, I suspect], you can't just laugh it off. If you aren't seen to get angry, then you might be taken as not minding the connection. And he has to be seen to mind the connection.
 
Good point made weakly here:

I think the problem is that it's very hard to satirize the rumors around Michelle and Barack. Satire needs overstatement. But the cover doesn't actually overstate the beliefs of the scaremongers. Indeed its (sic) the sort of image you'd expect to see at one of the nuttier websites or publications, and so in that sense it doesn't work very well.
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Like I said in the OP, it would not be a surprising cover for a conservative magazine. Maybe the New Yorker thought it was a hilarious parody. Or, you know, maybe they're secretly setting the stage for Hillary 2012, by poisoning the minds of the brie and chardonnay crowd?
 
Let me add that the cover itself is very well-designed if you look at it from the anti-Obama point of view. Starting from the top left:

1. The 'fro. Sends the message that Michelle Obama is the same pissed-off radical black woman we've been hearing from since the days of Angela Davis.

2. The turban. How ironic is it that Obama's Senate compadre from Illinois is known by this name? Still, the Muslim connection is a staple of anti-Obama conspiracy theorists.

3. Portrait of Osama (or somebody sinister and Muslim-looking) on the wall.

4. American flag burning in the fireplace.

5. Obama wearing sandals. Just another hippie leftover from the 1960s.

6. Michelle wearing fatigues and military attire. She's a communist revolutionary (see #1).

7. Oval Office. Obama has succeeded; the revolutionary Marxist Islamic flag-burner has been elected and engages in a celebratory terrorist fist-knock with his baby momma.
 
Brainster said:
Let me add that the cover itself is very well-designed if you look at it from the anti-Obama point of view. Starting from the top left:

1. The 'fro. Sends the message that Michelle Obama is the same pissed-off radical black woman we've been hearing from since the days of Angela Davis.

2. The turban. How ironic is it that Obama's Senate compadre from Illinois is known by this name? Still, the Muslim connection is a staple of anti-Obama conspiracy theorists.

3. Portrait of Osama (or somebody sinister and Muslim-looking) on the wall.

4. American flag burning in the fireplace.

5. Obama wearing sandals. Just another hippie leftover from the 1960s.

6. Michelle wearing fatigues and military attire. She's a communist revolutionary (see #1).

7. Oval Office. Obama has succeeded; the revolutionary Marxist Islamic flag-burner has been elected and engages in a celebratory terrorist fist-knock with his baby momma.
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and the terrorist fist jab....don't forget the terrorist fist jab.
 
Poe's Law is in effect:

While the New Yorker said in a press release that its cover "satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama's campaign," for a majority of respondents to [WorldNetDaily.com]'s poll, the cover apparently provided support for their false perceptions of Obama's religion and patriotism: As of 10:07 a.m. ET on July 14, the most popular option in the poll -- selected by 60 percent of WND respondents -- was "The image isn't too far from the dangerous truth about the Obama family." The second-most popular option was "Funny, because there's some truth in it," which was selected by 11 percent of respondents.
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(source)
 
If you can't take the heat.... (or parody of the most retarded forms of it)
 
... I don't think either of them are funny...

But really, this type of inverse satire is easily misconstrued, like when conservatives quote Onion stories as evidence for how crazy liberals are.

And, of course, a poll just came out from Newsweek that shows that 12% of people think Obama is a practicing Muslim and swore in on the Koran. That's not even a misperception, it's just BS.

Of course, I'm not an elitist like you guys so I have no idea what the norm is for the New Yorker.

And WTF are you talking about Brainster? If this had been a major conservative cartoon people would be foaming at the mouths. I don't know why you came to the opposite conclusion.
 
the very basic point of the cartoon was to lampoon the insane ideas that republicans and right-wingers have of obama and his wife.

i dont find it offensive one bit. i find it honest.

i like obama, but i think he using this to play the victim.

its just like how when he was at an event, and a questioner called him "barak osama", barak actually thanked the guy for calling him that, so he could point out the rediculous accusations the right wing makes about him.
 
A lot of people think there is a constitutional right to not be offended. Dumb cartoon, dumb publication, who cares.
 
The New Yorker forgot to include their daughters wearing explosive vests. How can they make fun of these parents who promise to get their little girls a dog when they move into the White House?
 
Would I be bad for pointing out that the New Yorker's audience gets the joke and that those who don't get it... well... aren't the readers New Yorker is looking for?
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
And, of course, a poll just came out from Newsweek that shows that 12% of people think Obama is a practicing Muslim and swore in on the Koran. That's not even a misperception, it's just BS.
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I think this is the part that makes it problematic. There are too many people out there who won't see this as satire, just as confirming their views (how many actually read the New Yorker is a different story). Pat Buchanon tonight claimed as much. No, people might not think these aspects are exactly true, but they will see it as confirming their questions about who Obama really is.

Seriously. If this is supposedly so over the top exaggeration, why would it cause people to question Obama's real traits? Unless, of course, they are ready to believe it...

I can understand the New Yorker claiming it is exaggeration for effect, but I can also understand Obama's folks saying, we are fighting a huge smear campaign and the media is only feeding them, knowing they are bs, by perpetuating the stereotypes.

I heard earlier about how 12% think Obama took his oath of office on the Koran. My jaw dropped pretty hard. I wonder where they are getting that idea? You have to want to be so ignorant - it doesn't come by accident.
 
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Brainster said:
Run that by me again in English.
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Why do you think that the cartoon being in a "liberal" magazine made people more mad than they would have been if it was featured in a conservative one? That doesn't make any sense to me, and goes against what I've seen liberals posting about it.
 
Joe Bob! Lookie Here! Shazam! This new copy of the Nooo-Yawka done confirmed my bigoted feelin's!
 
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