Last night, the interwebs were all abuzz with news of the most recent New Yorker cover. Generally, left-wing bloggers appear pretty outraged: 
There’s no other ulterior motive to publish cartoons like this right? …This is disgusting. Might be worth canceling a subscription or two. [Daily Kos]… so singularly out of touch … It may not be unusual for Upper East-Side liberals that a half-black man with an African father and Hussein for a middle name … might ascend to the presidency, but to some Americans IT IS EVERYTHING. [TPM]
While I was alarmed at first, the image grew on me as satire. It’s a veritable Where’s Waldo compendium of right-wing fears about the Obama candidacy:
- Michelle Obama as old American black nationalism allied with …
- Barack Obama as the purported American who is still loyal to his immigrant roots
- The alliance between them represented by the “terrorist fist-jab”
- Washington’s replacement by Osama Bin Laden in the painting over the mantel (OMG OBL Booga Booga!)
- Patriotism discarded, as shown by the flag in the fireplace
As I see it, the cartoon intends to show just how absurd people’s fears are: fears of foreigners as fifth columnists, fears that men who wear turbans (even if once, for a foreign photo-op) must be Muslims, and therefore unpatriotic. The cartoon makes these images concrete and then laughs at them, like a riddikulus spell against a boggart.
This approach is one I take with kids, who are both fascinated and afraid of me. When a five year old whispers loudly to his mother “Hey look Ma! A genie!” I turn around and offer the kid three wishes. This confuses them because they know that genies aren’t real, and it breaks through the wall between us. When 10 year olds say to each other “look out, he’s got a bomb!” I look at them and go “Boom!” More often than not, they laugh in response.
The problem is, it doesn’t work with grown-ups, who generally take themselves far more seriously then kids do. The kinds of people who have these fears are also generally deaf to irony.
I don’t think this cartoon will change people’s minds, nor do I think it’s trying to. It’s more like an episode of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report, something that mocks narrow-minded knee-jerk bigotry by pretending to take it seriously. If it makes you either squirm or laugh, it has done its job.
UPDATE Here’s the New Yorker’s explanation of what they were trying to do (thanks reader):
In a statement, The New Yorker magazine said the cartoon “combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are.” The New Yorker said the cover, called “The Politics of Fear”, was a critique of unfounded allegations that have tried to portray Mr Obama, a Christian, as a closet radical Muslim. “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,” the statement said. [BBC]
Ennis, we may have differing opinions, but this morning, I truly adore you. Would you mind if I sent this insight to Rachel Sklar of The Huffington Post? 馃槈
On a side note, who knew The New Yorker could still generate this much buzz? Perhaps that’s a lot of the reasoning behind this editorial decision? I doubt their web site has gotten this many hits in years.
For me the image of Michelle puts it in the negative category – she is depicted as so ugly, and ugly in a way that calls to mind historical caricatures of black women, that it loses whatever humor was intended. I do believe satire of right-wing Obama fears was the intention and I can appreciate what the cartoonist was trying to do in that sense, but the execution isn’t funny or skilled enough to bypass my personal triggers. Others might feel differently.
I personally think it would have been better suited to be used inside the magazine instead of on the cover. You put it on the cover and unfortuanately, there are too many dumb people who wouldn’t get the joke. Hell, there are still people who are offended by Rev Wright AND YET STILL THINK OBAMA IS A MUSLIM. It’s like they can’t process in their lil heads that they were just offended by a Christian based scandal related to obama, and don’t have a problem believing he is muslim.
But too many people get too easily offended these days.
If you switch the magazine from The New Yorker to National Review or Weekly Standard, is it still funny?
Really? To me she looks like Angela Davis. I sent the image to a friend whose only reaction was “Hey, Michelle looks really hot in fatigues” I didn’t think anybody would see her as ugly in that image.
Forward away, that’s what the button is for.
Not since they broke the Abu Ghraib story. Last cover this scandalous was in 1993.
I do find this image funny. The problem is that uninformed voters may see this image at the newsstand on their quest to find the first pics of Brangelina’s babies. It could leave an impression.
At least it had time to grow on you! Most people won’t give it that much time. This magazine appears on newsstands everywhere, all over the world. So tens of millions of people will glimpse this image on their daily commutes without giving it a second thought. I think that’s where it can do real damage, by contributing to the right’s endless misinformation campaign.
If you switch the magazine from The New Yorker to National Review or Weekly Standard, is it still funny?
No, because the New Yorker through the cover is mocking the right. It will not make any sense for the right to mock itself so there would be no joke and without the joke it will just be nasty. Unless of course, the right is parodying the caricature of the right by the left.
I personally think the cover is quite brilliant.
9 脗路 Pagal_Aadmi_for_debauchery said
Do people really have such short memories? The “Obama is a Muslim” meme was started by Hillary Clinton. Obama’s turban photo was distributed to the media by Hillary’s people. Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright was also popularized by the Hillary campaign.
And now of course New Yorker has unwittingly done more to spread the Obama is a Muslim meme with this cover.
But the New Yorker is being ironic. That makes it ok!
What I personally find problematic is not necessarily the smearing of Muslims in general; rather it is the New Yorker’s statement on what they deem to be an “Islamic outfit” and a “traditional Muslim garb.”
The problem, as I see it, are deeply-rooted orientalist attitudes manifested in simplistic depictions of Muslims on the cover of the supposedly enlightened New Yorker.
In the minds of the New Yorker illustrators, sandals, a robe, and a turban constitute the Muslim garb. This is disturbing for a number of reasons:
The New Yorker magazine, a bastion of progression and cultural sophistication, while attempting to deal with a real problem, namely, the attacks by some in the right wing in the form of hateful, xenophobic, racist depictions, lies, and fabrications, when attempting to deal with all of that, the New Yorker falls miserably short of treating the same simplistic caricaturing of Muslims that has been taking place within the context of the Obama rise to prominence for many months now. Instead, the New Yorker’s statement astoundingly goes as far as referencing an “Islamic outfit” in the same sentence as flag burning, nationalist-radical outfits, hanging Bin Laden’s portrait on the wall, etc. and equates all of them as “attacks” on Obama; something that the Obama campaign has been guilty of as well.
This is a more dangerous manifestation of the neo-con-ish orientalism. One that cloaks itself in liberalism, cultural sensitivity, and tolerance yet doesn’t apply that same high standard when it comes to the continuous, and quite nauseating, simplistic depiction of Muslims and their various cultural, political, and ideological manifestations.
Someone needs to hold up a clearer mirror to the New Yorker because their “mirror to prejudice, the hateful and the absurd” is quite foggy.
It’s a reference to this outfit here, that Obama wore while visiting Kenya. Click on the link for the story behind the photo.
That would be more plausible, if the cartoon included, say, an image of Karl Rove in bed dreaming this image. Or John McCain sitting at a drawing board drawing the cartoon. But there are no such figures in the cartoon. And to second JGandhi – it was not the right-wing that distributed those early rumors, but surrogates of the Hillary campaign. It was Larry Johnson of No Quarter, a Hillary backer, that started the rumor of the Michelle Obama “whitey” video.
Perhaps the New Yorker hoped to follow Time magazine’s recent cover story on America’s most famous satirist, Mark Twain, with their own weak attempt. They failed.
Some good points have been made above, and the intent, the imputed intent, and the degree of nested irony deserve to be analyzed thoroughly. But it’s also worth knowing how many people actually read the New Yorker, or remember its front cover, or what they read when they read it, and what kind of people they are.
I just looked up the circulation figures from Audit Bureau of Circulation. (scroll down one screenful – the list starts with magazines that do not file reports!) The highest circulation ‘Consumer Magazine’ is the AARP Magazine at about 25 million copies per issue. The New Yorker’s circulation figures are behind Motor Trend and Boy’s Life, but just ahead of National Enquirer, and Cottage Living – at about 1 million copies per issue. So on this basis, the New Yorker isn’t too widely read countrywide, though probably widely read among readers of this blog. Readers’ Digest has a circulation of about 10 million, National Geographic is 5 million, for context.
However, the ABC figure does not measure the full degree of impact in the case of something like the Enquirer – because lots of people look at it in checkout lines etc than actually buy it. So if the Enquirer were to publish a picture of the New Yorker cover, with a suitable accompanying headline, then, you really will have a problem.
I declare FATWA on the cartoonist.
Michelle should be rocking a black beret and aviator shades…
From what I’ve read in a few online discussion groups, there seems to be a debate as to whether the broad American readership will recognize the cover image as satire, with commenters falling pretty evenly on both sides of the question. For me, however, it’s not so much a question of whether or not people will recognize this as satire. Rather, the issue is whether there are some things that, given a particular cultural/social/historical context, are not satireable (I know… invented a new word). Worthy of comment, yes… possibly even worthy of ridicule, sure. But [i] satire [/i]? No. Something parallel might be making a satire about the kinds of physical and sexual abuse Ingrid Betancourt suffered in the FARC’s custody… entirely not okay.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7505953.stm I guess Obama didn’t think it was all that funny.
Reader, thanks for the link. I’ve updated the post, although with another part of the story you directed us to.
i see their point, but the editors/publishers are more out of touch with reality than i ever would have guessed….someone already pointed out that it would have been better suited as an editorial cartoon or inside.
what i think would be hilarious is if the “barack is really a muslim” and otherwise right-wingh, pickup truck driving, chew tobaccy spitting crowd suddenly started championing The New Yorker. for that irony alone, and if the editors have that dark of a sense of humor, then maybe the cover was worth it.
I always thought Afros were preferable to the heavily treated hair a lot of African American women have been sporting since the 80s. I dont think she comes across ugly in the caricature.
“but the editors/publishers are more out of touch with reality”
You don’t know how right you are.
To sum up the progressive black zeitgeist, the problem with this cover is that the author is white. White liberals shouldn’t think themselves so far beyond racism that they can draw racist cariatures as satire or irony because they’re not.
so in this paradigm, progressive feminist blogger amanda marcotte can use iconic images of a beautiful blonde woman as her heroine–an image problematic to feminism b/c its an example of oppressive socially constructed beauty standards–b/c as a feminist and woman the images were surely intended ironically. But could the same be said about these, where her heroine does battle with dark skinned natives? Is there anything ironic about a white woman appropriating the narrative of colonialism?
A fury ensued and I could see her critics point. The irony wasn’t clear. Though the intent of the New Yorker is more obvious there are some similar questions. Where were these latte-sippers when the Clinton’s where doing the nasty? Don’t they have the same problem as National Review? Are they really so beyond this that they can engage in irony?
For an unfortunately unsurprising response to the cover, take a look at the comments on the Fox News Election HQ blog. Comments like
Do people really have such short memories? The “Obama is a Muslim” meme was started by Hillary Clinton. Obama’s turban photo was distributed to the media by Hillary’s people.
I think this is misleading. I don’t think it was ever shown that the turban obama photo was distributed by the Hillary campaign. It was so easy to make Hillary’s campaign seem like they were distributing xenophobic or racist messages about Obama b/c she is white. There was never any official memo, like Obama’s “D-Punjab”, which he apologized for and I’m sure he didn’t know condone, stuff.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Clinton_campaign_wont_investigate_who_sent_0225.html
I just wanna say that I absolutely hate when they do the fist-jab… It is sooo annoying. How old are they????? This isn’t a spelling-bee contest!!!
Just like the comments from the Fox link above you’d be surprised at how many people won’t process this as satire. They will just walk by a newsstand remember something they got in an email, heard on the radio or TV and accept the fact that Obama is a flag burning, Muslim with a wife who is a militant. I’m not saying that the New Yorker needs to self censor but the impact of the images they put on their covers goes beyond the bubble of liberal intellectuals who will get the joke.
You missed the biggest fear – Baraka Hussein Osama seems to be non-adulterous and monogamous, and also apparently in love with his non-stepford first wife. Wrong values. [ link ]
Here’s what Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks about this issue.
The “Obama is a Muslim” meme was started by Hillary Clinton.
excuse me, but that is complete BS. If you watch the 60 mins. interview with Hillary, you will see that she says that this is a scurrilous attack on Obama. You should either read the whole transcript or see the interview. She makes the now-famous comment, “as far as I know, no”, when she is pressed for the 3rd or 4th time whether a case can be made that he is muslim.
Anyway, people who will “believe” this cover don’t usually shop in places that sell the New Yorker, so stop getting your knickers in a twist.
All in all, New Yorker is a very pro-Obama magazine, and I think Obama is over-reacting because of all the fire he has been getting from the left because of his recent flip-flops (or “refinements”). Very thin-skinned if you ask me.
There are alot of dumb people in this country and most people will go “I knew that sumabitch was a Islam” while the people who support Obama will go “Yeah, I get it”. Not saying that Obama supporters are smart, but that they already know these sterotypes.
So, who is getting enlightened here?
30 脗路 libra said
She was asked twice. The first time she used the qualifier “I take him on the basis of what he says”, which sounded weird to Kroft. (I mean reverse it, imagine if Obama said “i take hillary at her word that she’s not a lesbian”. sounds funny right.) So he asked again, and she did it again, using the infamous “As far as I know.”
Judge for yourself. I report you decide.
Plus consider context. This was right b/f Hillary’s firewall: tx, oh, pa…where she used the 3am ad, the type of ad the clintons themselves claim is fear-mongering and tantamount to doubting one’s patriotism when used by republicans. obama she argued, hadn’t reached the threshold to be commander in chief. the timing of this muslim smear worked perfectly to reinforce the 3am/threshold argument.
Plus it was around the same time drudge allegedly got the Somalia pic from the clinton camp. clinton campaign official maggie willaims saw nothing wrong with the pic and surrogate steph tubbs johnson went as far as saying Somalia is his native country. er, no…that would be the usa, steph.
rewind a bit more to Iowa. 3 clinton supporter where forced to leave b/c they spread the muslim rumor. bob kerrey, while endorsing clinton, spread it in a very clintonian way as well…saying its a good thing his middle name is “hussein” and that the attended a madrassa.
he thought that gave him plausible denial, and it did to clinton supporters. but by this point clinton is more connected to the muslim rumors than bush the first was to the willie horton ad. plausible denial is plausible to be fair, and thats the way these things are done. some people believe bush jr had nothing to do with the rumors that mccain gave birth to a black baby. and to be fair, there is a degree of separation.
Ennis said
I think that if people were exposed to more goofy depictions like this, the racist characterizations of the Obamas would lose some of their power.
4 脗路 KXB said
No. Context matters.
7 脗路 reader said
Come on, give the public a little more credit than that. And as for the people who really are that dumb–they are a lost cause and one magazine cover is hardly going to tip them in either direction.
10 脗路 JGandhi said
Have they spread it or have they mocked it?
When you are relatively unknown and in midst of definition, and your current political priority is to appeal to the masses who possess bigger ear lobes than frontal lobes, higher cortical functions such as visual satire may be viewed as a subtle swift boat strategy regardless of intentions ie advertizing works on many levels because we are not complete agents of ourselves.
Maybe someone should do another bloody study on this.
A small positive is that ragazine is relatively hardly read, a big negative is everyone is talking about it. A bigger negative is visual literacy and verbal literacy have different cognitive values.
The biggest positive is that all of this is more virulent and less painful than attending a Jesse Jackson coalition on castration.
Karl Vague
Manju,
here’s the exchange as per http://mediamatters.org/columns/200803110002, which I believe is a pretty liberal site:
CLINTON: Of course not. I mean, that’s–you know, there is not basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn’t any reason to doubt that.
KROFT: And you said you’d take Senator Obama at his word that he’s not a Muslim.
CLINTON: Right. Right.
KROFT: You don’t believe that he’s a Muslim or implying? Right.
CLINTON: No. No. Why would I? No, there is nothing to base that on, as far as I know.
KROFT: It’s just scurrilous —
CLINTON: Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors. I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.
Not in any particular order, she said it was ridiculous, nothing to base it on (as far as she knew), she takes him at his word, there is no basis for it, sympathizes with people who are victims of rumors, there is no reason to doubt that. What else did you want her to say? Maybe if Kroft had stopped after the first time, people wouldn’t get in such a tizzy.
Just for the record, how do you know Obama is not a muslim? Because he says so, and you believe him. right? Or, do you have some other information that he is not? Also, if Obama stopped getting offended and outraged when someone thought he was a muslim, perhaps it won’t be considered a smear.
I agree with KXB that the satire would be much more obvious — and pointed — to have the image being thought/dreamed/”spoken” by a third party in the image, a kind of represented scaremonger.
I don’t think it’s off-limits to satirize ignorant fears about the Obamas, but I also don’t think this cartoon is only doing what it was meant to do. For example, Media Matters reports that 60% of World Daily News readers reported in a poll that “The image isn’t too far from the dangerous truth about the Obama family.” WTF, right?
I just wish that the New Yorker wasn’t ADDING to the pile of images that might one day show up deranged, racist T-shirts.
37 脗路 Lizzie (greeneyed fem) said
Or a big surgeon general’s warning. All jokes should come with a disclaimer so nobody’s caught off-guard by the punchline. Punchlines are violent. Violence is bad. 馃檨
no LOL
World Daily News
Is that like the National Enquirer? I am in Suisse right now, and (on Google) I don’t get any real hits for this…
i agree – and not just with afros, but with all other styles that don’t require heavy treatment. however, in many ways, treated hair is a way to fit into a mainstream/american notion of beautiful hair, and therefore, to some extent, a way to be more ‘white.’ i’m not sure it was intended this way, but an afro vs. treated/straightened hair has certain political connotations.
“he thought that gave him plausible deniability” Manju nailed it. It’s interesting to see who gives the New Yorker plausible deniability and who doesn’t.
40 脗路 ak said
Interestingly I see a lot of black boys and girls here with ‘fros, even some non-black non-whites. I guess there are less racial connotations of beautiful hair than in the US…
frankly, i don’t believe much of what either candidate says. plausibly, in a 60 minutes interview, she would have had to deny her involvement with the release of the photo and distance herself somehow – to be really sceptical, once the photo was out, and since there was no direct link to hrc, she could deny involvement and play to get in good with the voters, while releasing the photo already accomplished the intended result. essentially, it’s possible that she had her cake and got to eat it, too.
as to the issue on obama’s offended reactions – i agree. i understand that this is a political campaign and you’re playing to win, but his reactions have been rather vehement. and in an idealistic world, i would have liked to see a so-called liberal candidate stand up and address the very narrow and xenophobic picture that americans have of muslims, rather than just deny, deny, deny his muslimness. in fact, as a person who probably identifies himself as a christian, it would have been the perfect opportunity – once he had established that he was not, in fact, a practising muslim, he could have also taken the opportunity to say how it wouldn;t have been bad if he were. alas, given the general population, it’s not realistic. and quite frankly, that part just sucks.
What’s wrong with pointing out that the satire fell flat on its face? I am sure we all know people who cannot tell a joke, and wind up embarrassing themselves. Or is it poor manners to point out such failed attempts at humor? I guess Michael Richards is back in everyone’s good graces.
I have never read the New Yorker – did not even know such a magazine existed. First impression for me was “OMG. Did they actually print that”. I thought it was a right wing magazine. Yes – if someone explains it to me then I can sense the satire. One picture = 1000 words – I daresay that the chances of an Obama victory has reduced by a fair bit.
With friends like these who needs enemies. But was it meant to be funny or does the New Yorker really hate Obama.
The truly dangerous person for a POC is a white liberal. David Duke is far less trouble than a Bill Clinton.
Why are they outraged ? Shouldn’t this also come under freedom of expression category in the same way as the Danish cartoon controversy some time back ? What offensive speech/expression is pardonable and what is not ?
Meena: I live in an integrated neighborhood (60-40 white-black) and I see ‘the natural’ all the time, as well as some pretty big hair, Afro-wise. This morning I saw a kid with the biggest ole’ early 70s bouncy-bounce white kid Afro duck into a bookstore near me. It was hilarious. It really is the 70s again for kids. Having caught it the first time around, at a young age, I’m not so sure I think it’s so great for a second round (and a third, and a fourth. This is like the tenth time 70s retro has come back since the early 90s. Enough, okay?).
*A couple years ago, McLeans had Bush dressed up as Saddam and der Spiegel had some, er, interesting Bush covers and right wing blogs got very bothered about them. Crickets chirping everywhere else. Come to think of it, der Speigel did that Uncle Tom cover. I guess Obama better get used to the covers – ain’t easy being President of the Great Satan.
They’re not asking for it to be banned, they’re simply saying that it’s in poor taste. Believing in freedom of expression doesn’t mean that you have to agree with all sentiments expressed.
37 脗路 Lizzie (greeneyed fem) said
It’s actually “World Net Daily” which is a notorious gateway for the worst Freeper/LGF/Harry’s Place memes. Usually if i get a WND link from a friend, it means a whopper is forthcoming. The fact that WND forums were alight with “The cartoon is dead-on!” comments reinforces the critique of the cartoon that it fails as satire because it succeeds wildly as reinforcement for WND nuts and their Obama myths.
driving back from the gym today, i heard a caller to the Sean “quivering bowl of rancid yogurt (thanks Reason!)” Hannity Show cite the cartoon as encapsulating every left-field depiction of the Obamas and was delighted to see it on a generally liberal mag’s cover.
Ah, but MD, you’re being white-centric in seeing an Afro as being a trend rooted in a particular time rather than a timeless look. Why is an Afro a fad as opposed to, let’s say, a bob or crew cut?