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Blittzkrieg

By David Topping

20080715newyorkerobama.jpgAt right is the cover of The New Yorker‘s July 21 edition. It depicts, as Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar summarized, Barack and Michelle Obama enacting “every smeary right-wing stereotype imaginable: …[Barack] Obama in a turban and robes fist-bumping his be-afro’d wife, dressed in the military fatigues of a revolutionary and packing a machine gun and some serious ammo. Oh yes, this quaint little scene takes place in the Oval Office, under a picture of Osama bin Laden above a roaring fireplace, in which burns an American flag.” The image has caused considerable uproar in the States—to take one example of many, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer today suggested that it was something a neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klan publication would create—and Obama’s campaign immediately called it “tasteless and offensive.”
If the people who hate the cartoon hate it because it’s “tasteless and offensive,” though, then it has done its job. Barry Blitt—the artist behind it, a former cartoonist for Toronto Life, former enemy of Conrad Black, and former Ontario College of Art student—told the Huffington Post that “…the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.”
The New Yorker cover is, then, a pitch-perfect case of satire. As M.H. Abram’s Glossary of Literary Terms puts it, satire is “diminishing or derogating a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking toward it attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation.” The satirized subject in the cartoon is not the Obamas, just as it wasn’t Irish babies in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal (or soldiers in this Torontoist article); it is, instead, the same group that Obama’s campaign recently launched Fight the Smears to respond to. Fight the Smears and the New Yorker cover share the same aim: to show that the no-longer-whispered claims against Barack and Michelle Obama—he is a secret Muslim; he hates the flag; she hates “whitey”—are ridiculous.
For those who “get” the cartoon but still don’t like it, the oft-cited reason for deeming its publication irresponsible is the ‘what if they don’t get it?’ argument, which says that other, dumber people will get confused and frightened by the cover, and that that’s a good reason to hold back on its publication. Gawker expertly summarized: “This obvious and heavy-handed satire has enraged Democrats and liberal media critics because now they are pretty sure this nation of child-like imbeciles will believe it to be an un-retouched photograph from the FUTURE.” Even if the argument wasn’t asinine (and, well, pretty elitist), it’d still be moot—fear of public stupidity or ignorance is never a good reason to muzzle satire. If you think that people are dumb now, just wait’ll you’re not allowed to challenge them.
Blitt has now, sadly, been cast in the eyes of many as no different from the people whom his cover was so obviously taking aim at. (To borrow everyone’s favourite phrase from the Reverend Wright era of the Obama campaign, he’s been thrown under the bus.) And sure, there’s probably more important news out there—Obama writing an Op-Ed in the New York Times about Iraq earlier today, and The New Yorker publishing an extensive article about his past not too many pages after the cover—but until Jesse Jackson threatens to cut off Obama’s nuts again, this is distraction enough. And just wait’ll they find out that Blitt is a secret Canadian.

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Comments

  • jennyfish

    re: “the Torontoist article about soldiers”
    Ya pretty sure that we all got that the article was written satirically (ok…well I shouldn’t speak for all the readers cause some didn’t actually get it), but the way it was done was still not cool.

  • malmo

    “Even if the argument wasn’t asinine (and, well, pretty elitist)…”
    The smear tactics of other recent campaigns in the States, while admittedly not satirical, were just as preposterous—and yet all too effective. Appeals to rational thought often lose to those which inflame emotions.

  • Lauriemc

    I agree with Malmo, and while I appreciate Torontoist for pointing out my ‘elitist’ attitude I still just can’t feel right about this cover.
    Perhaps satire has an appropriate place and time?
    And shouldn’t the audience at least be taken into consideration? The new yorker cover touches on some pretty serious issues that Americans consider very close to home.

  • McKingford

    If the people who hate the cartoon hate it because it’s “tasteless and offensive,” though, then it has done its job.
    Wow, what a facile analysis.
    Why don’t I just put out a cover of Obama and the subtitle: nigger, nigger, nigger#? It would be tasteless and offensive, so I guess I’d have done my job.
    The point missed here is that this cartoon takes the right wing whisper campaign and…does nothing with it – it simply presents it. Although, yes, I get that there was an *intention* to satirize, this is not satire. This isn’t an *exaggeration* of right wing talking points, simply a documentation of them – where’s the mockery there? A real satire might be to show John and Cindy McCain in the same getup; or this same depiction but in Archie Bunker’s thought bubble…
    The clearest evidence that this fails as satire is that the right wing doesn’t get what the ruckus is about: G. Gordon Liddy says the New Yorker “finally got it right”; Johah Goldberg says this is what he would expect on the cover of National Review. Why? Because it is simply a recitation of right wing talking points. The only thing satirical, I suppose, is that it is done by the New Yorker instead of the National Review. That’s a bit too outre to be satire.
    Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not offended, nor do I think it’s tasteless. What I do get my back up about, though, is the notion that this is yet *another* example of the New Yorker being too clever for me to “get”.
    ~
    #On further reflection, the entire right wing whisper campaign depicted in the cartoon is really another way to say: “nigger”. So in that sense, it would actually be satirical (and funnier) to run a subtitle of “nigger, nigger, nigger, black, nigger, nigger, nigger”…

  • ked

    ‘The point missed here is that this cartoon takes the right wing whisper campaign and…does nothing with it – it simply presents it.’
    And that is why, in my opinion, it works as a piece of satire, by presenting the whispers in one place it shows just how ridiculous they are and sends-up the fears of a paranoid right.

  • dowlingm

    excellent post – especially the secret Canadian bit :)

  • McKingford

    But ked, just repeating the paranoid whispers is banal, not satire. Good satire portrays the object of the satire, whereas this cover effectively makes Obama the subject of satire.
    In essence, because this could be a non-satirical cover of a right wing magazine, The New Yorker is effectively saying that only because it is The New Yorker, which would never otherwise believe such things it must be satire. And then the joke only really works as The New Yorker satirizing its own readership’s smug opinion of itself.

  • David Newland

    If the first casualty of war is truth, it looks as though the first casualty of election politics is principle.
    The principle, in this case, is the right of political cartoonists to do their thing. This is a crucial pillar of democratic debate and one the Obama campaign should be supporting with fervour.
    Sadly, both Democrats and Republicans are so afraid of the other side winning, they’re willing to push aside those higher things for which they are both supposedly fighting.

  • ked

    As I said, and again it is only my opinion, the ‘object’ that is being satirized are the whispers and for that reason I think it holds up.

  • spacejack

    Relax everyone, I don’t think “they” get the New Yorker anyway.

  • bigdaddyhame

    maybe the point of this is, aside from getting the New Yorker some free publicity, to sensitize as many people as possible to the smearing campaigns against either candidate so much as to make them completely ineffective. Blowing the wad in one image, capturing as many inappropriate jabs as possible and directed at one candidate, followed by an extended public discussion as we are having now, should serve to fuse the issue. Maybe the next few weeks will be free of ugliness in the campaign.

  • McKingford

    The principle, in this case, is the right of political cartoonists to do their thing.
    But the discussion here is not over the right to publish, it’s about how effective the cover was as satire. Nobody here, myself included, objects to the right of The New Yorker to put whatever it wants on its cover. Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from critique.
    What I object to is the concept, put forward by David Topping in this post, that this is actually effective satire. Rereading his post, along with my initial reaction to it brings me to a more succinct critique of the problem. Topping claims that the very fact that there is outrage proves its effectiveness. But for satire to be effective, it should outrage the target of the satire; in this instance, who is outraged? Not the supposed target of the satire, the right wing. And hence it fails as (effective) satire.

  • David Newland

    McKingford: you’re right to point out that the discussion is not over the right to publish, although I do think that the principle is implicitly undermined by the Obama camp’s reaction to the cover.
    To your point, I think it’s actually too soon to decide whether the satire has been effective. The waves of influence are far from subsiding. It may not have convinced G. Gordon Liddy, but surely the discussion this cover generates is going to remind a few people to question how they’ve been looking at the Obamas.
    It’s also important to note that satire doesn’t have to have a measurable outcome that is “positive” for one side or the other. The New Yorker isn’t required to convert wrong minds into right ones, or right minds into left ones. Satire is about perspective and is just as effective, if not more so, when it’s unattached to the outcome.
    To cause people to question and discuss the issue at hand is to be effective satire.

  • spacejack

    Actually for once in my life I agree with McKingford here. It’s like when you see a movie parody that does nothing more than replicate the stupidity of the thing they’re parodying. Why bother?
    Sticking this particular piece on the cover of The New Yorker stinks of “recontextualization” B.S.

  • David Topping

    First: the cover is pretty obviously an exaggeration. Michelle is carrying a machine gun and dressed in camo, an American flag is burning in the fireplace, a portrait of Osama Bin Laden is hanging above the mantel, and the Obamas have the same poses and expressions they did when they gave each other what Fox called a “terrorist fist jab.” The whole thing is over-the-top and ridiculous.
    And sorry, McKingford, but I don’t think you get it, especially my point about the outrage over the comic proving its effectiveness. (Your first comment, which argues that a comparable example that my argument would support would be a picture of Obama with a caption that says “nigger, nigger, nigger,” is just dumb and totally untrue.)
    It’s not the cartoon itself that is offensive and tasteless, but the attitude that it depicts. That people are offended by it shows that those people get that what it depicts is offensive, but not that the cartoon itself is satirizing those offensive ideas, not participating in them itself. That news shows in the States are even posing this as a two-sided topic (“satire or smear?”) shows how absolutely misguided the whole thing is, because it is absolutely for sure satirical, and now the satirist is being lumped in with those who he’s (totally obviously) satirizing.
    Frankly, given the uproar, I’d be pretty happy if I was on the “right wing” in the wake of this, because the anger over this cartoon has been deflected onto the totally wrong person, and not onto, say, Fox News. I’m more worried that the Obama campaign didn’t just point to Fight the Smears and say “the attitudes that the comic satirizes are false, offensive, and tasteless, and we’ve been trying to stop them. This cartoon shows just how ridiculous those attitudes are.” Instead, they blamed The New Yorker and Barry Blitt, just like everyone else is.

  • spacejack

    First job of an artist: communicate your ideas clearly. While the cartoonist in question may normally be capable of doing so, this time around, he failed. Frankly, it fails mostly because it’s lazy.
    I also don’t understand how people can still cling to the idea that generating “outrage” or some sheer volume of comments makes something worthwhile. Why not re-post a bunch of Mohammed cartoons, or a picture of a giant swastika. Or even a big webserver error message. Those would generate comments too.

  • The Explosively Talented Christopher Bird

    The whole thing is over-the-top and ridiculous.
    So is most of the whispering campaign against Obama. Remember, we’re talking about a candidate who’s been accused of being a Muslim while sharing the beliefs of an America-hating Christian pastor at the same time.
    Tack on the “he’s not actually a citizen” rumour, the “closeted gay drug dealer” rumour, and the “Michelle Obama went into a hate-filled tirade against “whitey” somewhere” rumour – all of which get massive play thanks to the internet and conservative talk radio – and it’s no surprise that, over the course of the campaign, the number of people who think Obama is a secret Muslim has nearly doubled.
    Most voters are low-information voters; you’re looking at this from a high-information perspective.

  • matty

    Satire or not, it’s tasteless and mean. Like really mean, and it indulges people who don’t understand that it is satire.
    It’s like a bad joke – not funny but definitely tasteless.

  • McKingford

    I think D. Newland makes a couple apt points. It may well be that the discussion provoked by this is helpful. I also agree that The New Yorker doesn’t owe anybody anything, and it isn’t up to them to make sure everything they do is pro-Obama all the time.
    I didn’t say (because I don’t believe) that the cover was tasteless or offensive. My only issue here is the meta-criticism – particularly the defense of The New Yorker that this was good satire, and that those complaining just don’t get it. Not all satire works, you know, and when it doesn’t work it doesn’t always mean the reader doesn’t get it. The fact is becoming increasingly clear that David Topping (and similar defenders) doesn’t get it, as is evidenced by this line from the post:
    If the people who hate the cartoon hate it because it’s “tasteless and offensive,” though, then it has done its job.
    Really? So the point was to satirize Barack Obama? Oh, it wasn’t? Then I don’t think you *do* get it, because *that’s* who finds it tasteless and offensive. (if you want to talk about smug elitism, I think privileged white WASPs telling a visible minority not to be offended by how they are depicted is a pretty compelling example).
    The reason nobody on the right (the supposed object of the satire) is objecting, is that the cartoon is simply a catalog of their criticisms of Obama. They look at it and say “see?” If it were an effective parody of what they are saying about him they would be denouncing it as an outrageous exaggeration. Similarly, taking these same whispers and applying them to *McCain* would be real satire.
    What makes A Modest Proposal effective satire is that poor Irish people weren’t selling their children to be eaten. If there had been a not-insignificant portion of the population eating poor kids, or there was a vocal constituency advocating it, then A Modest Proposal becomes a lot less funny. And so, because a non-insignificant segment of the population actually believes these things about Obama, it isn’t effective satire to simply chronicle their complaints – as outrageous as we might think them to be.

  • atomeyes99

    David Toppings:
    Buggs Bunny cartoons from the 40s and 50s were also exagerations.
    so was blackface and Sambos.
    they had their time and place. but exagerating stereotypes is akin to Nazi-era anti-Jewish propaganda posters. you look at it now and think “Man, those Nazis were insane and those posters were ridiculous. they satirized the Nazis, not the Jews.”
    but that doesn’t mean the posters weren’t insulting, rude and inappropriate.
    shock value HAD its time and place. i would like to think society’s evolved beyond that.

  • David Topping

    atomeyes, those examples really don’t have anything to do with this.
    McKingford,
    Really? So the point was to satirize Barack Obama? Oh, it wasn’t? Then I don’t think you *do* get it, because *that’s* who finds it tasteless and offensive.
    In my post, and my last comment, I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t think that the cover was intended to satirize Obama, but the set of false beliefs about him. To repeat, again: it’s not making fun of Barack and Michelle Obama. As I phrased it in my post, “The satirized subject in the cartoon is not the Obamas.” That’s what Blitt said, that’s what The New Yorker is saying, and that’s what I think is true. You keep going at that one sentence of mine (“If the people who hate the cartoon hate it because it’s ‘tasteless and offensive,’ though, then it has done its job”), without ever taking into account the words around it that expand on and explain that thought. (Namely, that the sentiment that the cartoon is mocking is tasteless and offensive. The cartoon is the wrong target of people who find what it depict offensive.) As The New Yorker cover proves, context is sorta important in determining something’s intended meaning!
    Anyway, that some in Obama’s campaign have said they find it offensive really is too bad, but it seems to be indicative more that they’re handling it with kid gloves than that the Obamas are themselves repulsed by it, which would be very weird, seeing as how Barack and Michelle are very smart and well-educated and presumably know what satire is and isn’t. (Barack himself had no comment on the image, interestingly; we don’t know if he, himself, is offended.) And besides, you can’t necessarily determine the target of satire by who’s offended or claims to be offended by it. In other words, you can’t base the success of the cover as satire based purely on the reception it’s gotten.
    And, one last thing: I’m not a “privileged white [sic] WASP.” And if I was (I am white!), should I have excused myself from having an opinion?

  • David Topping

    Also, this Gawker article pretty much says a bunch of things I totally agree with, in different ways than how I’ve said them.

  • Robin Sharp

    To begin, this cover has nothing to do with the article inside, which is about Obama’s political past.
    This is a cheap attempt at selling magazines. Obviously.
    Secondly, of course it’s satire, that’s not in question. how about…Is is successful satire? Does is get it’s point across in a direct way? Is it witty?
    The answer is No. No. No.

  • David Topping

    And Barack Obama himself has responded. He doesn’t think it was “entirely successful” satire, and that “in attempting to satirize something, they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead, but that was their editorial judgement.” He says that it didn’t personally sting him cause he’s “got a pretty thick skin.” And he took the opportunity to address the smears it depicts. His basic line: “you know what? It’s a cartoon.”

  • Paul Kishimoto

    McKingford and TETCB contributed my two cents:

    This isn’t an *exaggeration* of right wing talking points, simply a documentation of them – where’s the mockery there? A real satire might be to show John and Cindy McCain in the same getup; or this same depiction but in Archie Bunker’s thought bubble…

    Most voters are low-information voters; you’re looking at this from a high-information perspective.

    My own clumsy addition, roughly echoing spacejack: It’s an editorial cartoon yet there’s no objective correlative. If the over-the-top claims or claimants are to be satirized, they should be present visually, not left for the viewer to infer. Omitting them weakens both the piece and its effect, so I don’t see how the omission is laudable, deliberate or not. Robin Sharp is right; this is trolling for sales, not scathing political commentary.