Remnick’s Revolt
July 15, 2008 on 12:24 pm | In Media, National, Race for Prez |
My initial reax after seeing the New Yorker cover at right was: “What’s all the fuss about? It only a cartoon!”
Sometimes after proper reflection, I “refine” my positions, in the words of the male subject of the cartoon. Not this time. When I first saw it yesterday, I thought it was a mildly amusing slam against the ignoramuses who have used the Obamas as a vessel into which they pour their worst fears. And I’m sticking to my story.
The prevailing wisdom among Obama supporters such as Connecticut’s own Colin McEnroe is that the image is dangerous because “it’s quite likely to be circulated, out of context, among the credulous, as proof of something it was (I assume) meant to disprove.”
As I stated when I led off Colin’s thread, he seems to be suggesting that certain types of satire are out of bounds because packs of morons (who won’t vote for Obama anyway) might misinterpret what they see and spread it around the Internet to their fellow know-nothings.
I heard New Yorker editor David Remnick on an NPR interview yesterday with Michele Norris (she’s from Minnesota; why does she pronounce her name MEE-shell?). She asked him why the magazine didn’t do a better job explaining its cover — to which Remnick replied, “A satirical cartoon would not be any good if it came with a set of instructions.”
Precisely. But in this case it may be that for some readers the cover did require a little explanation. Most political cartoons, for example, have a caption that provides context or perhaps even a line or two of dialogue. New Yorker readers (who are disproportionately intelligent) are on their own. Is this is a problem?
From a political standpoint, however, the Obama camp, which has described the cartoon as “tasteless and offensive,” is revealing itself as thin-skinned. As an LA Times editorial asked today: If Obama’s people react this way to a cartoon mocking the knuckle-draggers who smear their boss, “what are they going to do when the Republicans start sharpening their artists’ pencils?”
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Bravo - Obama is thin-skinned. You wrote exactly what I was thinking about the whole stupid, overblown affair.
Comment by Marciano — July 15, 2008 #
Agreed. But is it Obama who is thin-skinned, or his handlers? Satire is lost on most people. I think Remnick got what he wanted: 1. attention to the unfair Obama attacks, and 2. tremendous publicity for his magazine, separating it from Tina Brown’s lite version and the long-winded version before that.
Comment by Peter Halle — July 15, 2008 #
My wording was “the Obama camp” is think-skinned, which I guess would include the candidate himself since they report to him.
But you are quite right that Remnick created buzz for his mag. And in that sort of world, buzz is what it’s all about.
Comment by Terry — July 15, 2008 #
It’s the New Yorker for C*****’s sake!
Take a chill pill, its just satire.
Not everything you see is going to be amusing to you!
Comment by Marshall — July 15, 2008 #
Well, I found it unbelievably upsetting. Imagine if the New Yorker ran a cartoon with John McCain on one of those scooters that people who cannot walk use and a box of Depends diapers being burned in the fireplace and Cindy McCain depicted as a nurse who has to shoot up her husband to keep him going. That would be considered tasteless and offensive wouldn’t it? Just satire? I would not find that funny in the least and I am not a McCain supporter. You could argue that it’s just lampooingin the liberals’ unfounded fears that McCain is too old and will become feeble in office.
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2008 #
Dan,
I think one of the reasons Obama supporters are upset about this is that a casual viewer of an email forward might not see the satire intended to help Obama and view it instead as confirmation that he is a Muslim and his wife an Angela Davis look-alike.
As someone who isn’t inclined to vote for Obama, I might very well find a satire on McCain (of the sort you describe) as funny if the real targets are those bigoted ageists who assume anyone over 60 is too old to think straight.
Comment by Terry — July 15, 2008 #
This is why we are lucky to have the First Amendment! Censorship is the worse option.
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2008 #
I dunno, Terry.
I’m over 65 now, and I guess I don’t think as good as I once did, but it did occur to me after watching the news most of the day today, that anybody who could possibly support John McCain (i.e. four more years of Bush) or the Libertarian candidate (whatever his name is) must not be running on all eight.
Those two choices represent either disregard for the rule of law or complete elimination of it, and it surely looks to me like that this precise attitude on the part of the Bush administration is exactly what has gotten us into the financial disaster, loss of individual liberty and privacy, sanctioned torture of prisoners, and explosive growth of government debt that we are now seeing.
Actually, when the New Yorker arrived in my mailbox today, the cover sort of left me cold. I had expected to react to it with some emotion, but perhaps watching the chronicling of the latest malfeasances by the Republican Party and their disastrous consequences for this great nation simply left me numb.
Comment by Geoff Brown — July 15, 2008 #
Being one of those Bush loving troglodytes the cartoon is meant to ridicule, I’m mildly amused that most of the gnashing of teeth is coming from the left. Anyway, excepting the ever more infrequent contributions from Roger Angell, what’s the point of reading the New Yorker anyway?
Re Meeeechelle, more amusing than the pretentious pronunciation of the first name, is combining it with low-brow, nasally upper mid-west pronunciation of the last name. Makes the silly pretension all the more stark. Fitting for NPR (given what the “P” stands for).
Comment by jake — July 16, 2008 #
Obama was on Larry King last night, and didn’t seem at all bent by the New Yorker cover. Bottom line is that he got positive spin for a campaign problem - to refute the ugly rumors and slander. And he reached millions of voters. I think Dan’s comparison is not apt. No one suggests McCain wears Depends or is feeble; his age is not a rumor. Look, the cover cartoon was neither particularly funny nor well-executed, but it was satire. Aimed at the Obama hate-mongers, not the candidate himself.
Comment by Peter Halle — July 16, 2008 #
The cartoonist who drew the cover is usually very good; he’s the guy who adds the graphics to Frank Rich’s weekly NY Times columns. But this cartoon, in my humble opinion, stinks. Offensive and tasteless? I don’t think so. Satire? I guess. But I think it’s lousy satire and isn’t humorous. OK, Swift’s Modest Proposal wasn’t a knee slapper either. I’m not sure what Remnick was thinking when he gave this one the green light. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he wasn’t out looking for attention. But he’s sure getting it. The issues raised in the cartoon are getting a lot less ink and airtime than the debate about whether it’s offensive and tasteless and all that. It’s a lousy cartoon. But it’s great PR. Free media galore. My guess is that Remnick is smiling, not at the ” humor ” of the cover. But at the consequences, intended or otherwise, of it.
Comment by Terrence McCarthy — July 16, 2008 #
As requested…
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=1792
Feel any better now?
Comment by jake — July 16, 2008 #
Now that one really is funny (in a Mad kinda way). Parody of satire.
Comment by Peter Halle — July 16, 2008 #
Oh this one is terrible, Jake. Imagine all the know-nothings who already think McCain is 95 and jacked up on Cialis. This will be sent all over the Internet and be misused, right Colin?
Comment by Terry — July 16, 2008 #
This is even better.
Comment by Jake — July 16, 2008 #
oops…
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=176628
Comment by Jake — July 16, 2008 #
I don’t often agree with Jake…
but….
This time I do!
I have to admit that I got a chuckle out of all of em…even the one on the Obama’s!
Comment by Marshall Miles — July 17, 2008 #
I’m not sure if this is the intended or unintended consequence of the cover, but all the conversations I’ve heard about it this week have run along the lines of “well of course I ‘get’ it.”
It’s diabolically clever.
Anyone who wants to be identified as sophisticated, intelligent and cosmopolitan (and don’t we all) has the new yorker on their coffee table. Do all of us read all the articles? Ummm.. no. But we all look at the cover.
That cover, and the debate it has engendered, will almost certainly persuade many people who might have had doubts about Obama’s family background (and the Rev. Wright) to quell those doubts so they don’t seem like “small-town rubes.” This seems like a return to the original aim of the New Yorker. I think it’s brilliant.
Comment by cynthia — July 18, 2008 #
Do you remember The New Yorker cover a few years ago that showed an Orthodox Jew dressed in black hat and with the usual sideburns kissing a woman who was in a Muslim robe? At least that is how I rmember it. I have been looking for it this morning and can’t find a link.
That blew over rather quickly I believe and this Obama cover might too. I think it is another attempt of the magazine to make waves. I’ve read it for years, but mostly for the cartoons.
Comment by Carolyn McDonough — July 21, 2008 #