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[chrisames]

Professor Banaji certainly knows something about psychology, but it doesn't seem he knows much about satire.  What he derisively calls "The New Yorker trying to be cute" in its controversial July 21 cover is a much more serious response to "The Politics of Fear," as the title of the cover suggests.  Each element of the cover responds to slurs about Obama's character that have been circulated on cable tv, talk radio, and the blogosphere (that he's really Muslim, that he's unpatriotic because he doesn't wear a flag pin, that a video will be released showing Michelle using the word "whitey").  The cover does what satire normally does: exaggerates hateful ideas in order to subject them to ridicule.  Banaji's comparison of that to a celebratory depiction of child sexual abuse shows an inadequate understanding of what was being satirized in the cartoon.

We would do well to recall the objections raised to "All in the Family": that depicting a bigot critically would have the opposite effect of celebrating bigotry and making it more acceptable. The controversy over Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," while much more complex and, at times, nuanced, engages the same ideas: the satire of Christian racism in Twain's novel runs the risk of presenting racist characters and letting their own ridiculousness and illogic undermine them.    Just like Swift's "A Modest Proposal," it runs the risk of being misunderstood.

Banaji joins the chorus of people condemning The New Yorker cover under the argument that others (not me) would misunderstand the imagery or simply be negatively affected by it on an unconscious level.

[litcrittr82]

Didn't read this particular article (link?), but read a bunch on this issue a while back.  Another related objection to the cover is that it never quite reached the point of satire; that it wasn't nuanced at all; that it has no business being mentioned in the same breath as Swift.  I'm sure I can't set a worthwhile definition of satire; but the NYorker cover seemed pretty heavy-handed to me.  So, apart from anyone's practical concerns about how the cover would be received, is the cover good satire?

[thomaskerr]

To excoriate the powerful or mock the insipid--graphically--is what visual satire does. In this case, Barry Blitt took aim at the fear mongers (the insipid) who would whisper, but never qualify the unfounded worries about Obama's potential presidency. He realized, in his artwork, that such concerns, visually manifest become ridiculous and thus the image enters the satirical world as a card carrying member in good standing.  What Banaji should have focused on is the diminution of visual literacy in society in general rather than Blitt's supposed graphic misfire. Perhaps there, he would be qualified to comment. Sure, the message does not clobber the viewer over the head, but a point is made. Sadly, graphic satire in the United States has eroded to such a level, that even those, who we consider educated, cannot make heads or tails of what would have been a easy read in the days of James Gilvray (the English satirical printmaker) only  160 years ago.  That, in my opinion, is the real story surrounding this illustration.