Check out the cover of the New Yorker Magazine (July 21, 2008 edition) which shows Barack Obama in Muslim garb and head gear, with an Afro-dooed, camo-clothed Michelle Obama slinging an AK-47, doing their famous fist-bump -- in the Oval Office with the American flag burning in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden looking on. The New Yorker cover by Barry Blitt satirizes "the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama's campaign," the magazine said in a press release.Is it incendiary or satire? Or tasteless as both the Obama and McCain camps declare it to be. Both camps want to maintain a high moral tone throughout the campaign. (I think there is a consciousness on both sides that whoever might make the mistake of a sudden or inadvertent descent to gracelessness could actually lose the race thereby!). Now, there are probably some people out there for whom the satiric humor in the New Yorker cartoon might be lost altogether, on both sides of the aisle!
Now whether it is "a change we can believe in" or "the right kind of change", both candidates have been creating a "centrist landscape" out of remarkable agreement on once divisive issues: immigration, nuclear weapons, global warming and stem-cell research.
I'm sure the New Yorker will get around to cartooning John McCain too.
UPDATE:
I don't know about y'all but I guess I like West Coast humour a lil better. Here's the latest monologue from Jay Leno on Barack Obama...
"It was quite a weekend, politically. Yesterday, an estimated 75,000 people attended a Barack Obama rally on the banks of the the Willamette River. ... And if you believe the media, listen to this. After the rally, Barack Obama fed them all with just five loaves of bread and two fish. Amazing!"
10 comments:
A satire becomes tasteless when people don't want to get the joke. I think the Bin Laden, Muslim costume and the requisite AK 47 isn't funny but the fist bumping is!
Wait until McCain gets the New Yorker treatment!
I think is offensive particularly when even the Old Glory is on fire!
The First Amendment of the US Constitution gives the right for anyone to set Old Glory on fire and to spoof Barack Obama!
I wonder which is more offensive?
In contrast the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the Philippines gives no right to anyone to burn the Sun and Stars!
The Flag and Heraldry code section 34 prohibits mutiliation of the flag. The flag is an object of reverence. Mutiliation of the flag carries a jail sentence.
it's just catharsis, better to vent and do satire rather than ACT it out.
Kudos to the New Yorker...
As dame edna everage says "if you have to explain satire, you just don't get it.."
Well, maybe those who don't will retreat to their guns and bibles...
leno's biblical allusion was not funny. it was scary!
That’s right, flag-burning is enshrined in the US Constitution.
As to the satirical cover by the New Yorker on the Obama couple, I say subject is very crucial in how typically the US population reacts and judges.
Satirists usually have a field day poking fun at US politicians or government officials, so long as they are male and white; and occasionally, may be directed at females, too. Of late, George Bush has been one favorite subject who has had to suffer through in silence many of the most virulent samples of how publications can be very brutal in their alleged satire. Even, Condi Rice, a female and black, was not spared due to their deep disdain for this current administration.
But directed against a member or members of a minority, especially the African-American minority? Examples are not plentiful, and are quite distant and far between. Because usually members of this minority will rise as one to defend one of their own. Or maybe because of PC?
Even O’Reilly in his strained effort to stay in the middle has considered this cover as distasteful and inappropriate. Wrapped under his default blanket standard: Bad action cannot be excused or justified by comparing to another past bad action.
First, this was a joke...a satire. And the satire was not directted against Osama, but was a portrait of the leftist fantasy of how they think conservatives view Obama. I was designed by leftists to help Obama...a little inside joke among the faithful. It's instructive that the Obama campaign reflexively played the victim card here, when they could have actually done far better, and reached more people by simply admitting that is was a joke and that they got it. It was supposed to help them, after all. Instead, they instinctively took the 'identity politics' route and denounced it because they thought that would play better in their racially polarizing campaign....and, sadly, it probably did. But, to anybody capable of understanding even the most basic concepts of satire, it makes them look pretty much look like the ideological dullards they are.
Richard,
I agree. The satire here is still directed at the same thing being satirized in anti-Bush and anti-Condi cartooning of the last few years. The Obama campaigned called it "tasteless" though they must have secretly reveled. Although that appears to have been the same reaction of the GOP, there might've been less revelry there. It's a very subtle, but very pro-Obama cover page cartoon. If I were thinking like a Filipino, I'd say the Obama campaign probably PUT the idea in Blitt's head.
DJB,
That filipino thinking is pretty good after all...
And in case you were wondering where the icing on the cake was...Obama is happy to oblige:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_new_yorker/2008/07/15/113193.html?utm_medium=RSS
It's now not just insulting to him...but to muslim-american as well...who knew this was coming?
at the end of the day, people will talk about the satire, and mccain will be left wishing he will be given the same treatment soon. but no. no one pays attention to a loser.
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