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About the Author
Laurie Fendrich, a painter who lives and works in New York, is a professor of fine arts and the director of the Comparative Arts and Culture Graduate Program at Hofstra University. Her writing has focused on the place of art and artists in society and the education of young artists, but she has also written essays questioning the viability of beauty in a post-Darwin era, the meaning of abstract painting, and the tyranny of outcomes assessment. She will blog about university life, the arts. and culture.
About Brainstorm
Gina Barreca
Mark Bauerlein
Marc Bousquet
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Dan Greenberg
John L. Jackson Jr.
Stan Katz
Michael Nelson, guest blogger
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
Brainstorm Alumni
Marty Nemko, guest bloggerBob Zemsky
Recent Posts
A High Note for Hofstra | Comment [2]
Religious Interference in the American Election | Comment [86]
The Little Engine That Couldn't | Comment [2]
At Least I Wasn't A Banker | Comment [5]
Great Expectations | Comment [2]
Featured Articles By the Author
The Bad Cover
Are they really this stupid? I’m talking about the editors who decided on Barry Blitt’s cover for this week’s The New Yorker — the one depicting Barack Obama in a turban, his wife Michelle done up as terrorist with an Afro, the two of them gleefully standing in the Oval Office while an American flag burns in the fireplace.
The New Yorker has put out controversial covers before — remember the famous Art Spiegelman Hasidic man embracing a black woman on the 1993 Valentine’s Day cover? They missed their mark back then (more than one of us never quite got the point), but this time they didn’t even aim in the right direction.
Forget the racism for the moment (it’s there, but others can deal with that). I’m interested in the editors’ defense of the cover, which is to claim it’s “satire.” Talk about a weak excuse. It’s up there with students who write a poor paper and then protest the professor’s reaction (a bad grade) by saying, “But wait. Listen. This is what I meant.”
For whom is it satire? For the chattering classes that read this elite magazine every week and already support Obama? Talk about preaching to the converted. Assume for the moment that all New Yorker readers “get” the message of the cover (that there are bigots who are crazy enough to think Obama is secretly a Muslim terrorist). So what? What about non-New Yorker readers (the editors clearly don’t know they exist) who end up seeing this cover and don’t get its putative point?
It’s too bad that The New Yorker editors apparently know so little about how images work — in general, within art, but more particularly, as objects to be manipulated in the age of the Internet. More than words, images, once released into the public sphere, take on a powerful life of their own. Unlike paintings (which are special kinds of images that invite lingering and ruminating), images like The New Yorker cover hit the viewer quickly, decisively, and all at once. The first response is always and without exception the strongest one, and it’s very difficult for it to be fully erased later on. Images have a longer and stronger shelf life in the mind than do words.
Literary satirists can be as complex, subtle, and indirect as they care to be. They have all the time in the world — provided them by the nature of words, which come in sequence, over time. Like cats, they can playfully toy with their prey. (Think Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels or his The Battle of the Books). Readers cease reading when something is boring, but will read reams as long as the satirist is a master of the art of writing.
The visual satirist (the caricaturist), on the other hand, even when he or she is a bad artist, can have an enormously instantaneous and powerful impact. Caricaturists lure people by looks — by creating disturbing, long-lasting, and powerful images whose nature is to work their wily effects as a whole and all at once. Whatever the caricaturist’s underlying message, the image will predominate. Honoré Daumier, the greatest visual satirist ever, was wise enough always to aim directly for his target (we know right away that he loathes the king) and leave fooling around with subtlety to the writers.
Wiser than Daumier, The New Yorker editors want viewers of their cover to deny what they see (“the terrorist Obama and his wife are in the Oval Office”) and replace it with what they know (“Look at that terrorist Obama, but be sure to remember that’s only what stupid bigots think.”)
The problem lies with what people do or do not already know.
Posted at 04:10:50 PM on July 14, 2008 | All postings by Laurie FendrichComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
To the at least 50 people who must have seen this
cover before it went to print,
You need to know the reason why I am canceling my
lifelong subscription. When I was born, my parents
were already subscribers, and I have had a
subscription almost my entire life. ( By the way, I
grew up in Kansas. Plenty of people there will greet
this cover as reinforcing evidence that their “fears”
about Obama are true. ) I have given subscriptions to
the magazine as gifts. This is one of the most
disappointing journalistic letdowns in an already dark
time.
I did the majority of my master’s work on the satire
of the American Revolution. Although the magazine and
“artist” claim that was its intention, this cover is
not satire. To qualify as satirical, a work must
contain a germ of truth. The “artist’s” previous
covers (the flooded cabinet, the Iranian president in
the men’s room) all have a whiff of truth about them.
That’s why the satire works in these portrayals. This
cover is different. In fact, if we follow the logic
displayed in his previous covers, then the Obamas must
really be flag-burning, Osama-worshiping terrorists.
An even more offensive aspect is the inclusion of
Michelle Obama. I don’t ever recall seeing a
presidential candidate’s or president’s wife satirized
( and as a terrorist at that) on a New Yorker cover.
No wonder so many African Americans are offended.
This treatment reveals that the “artist” and the
magazine will do anything for attention, including
smearing the magazine’s own reputation for excellent
journalism in the past.
Just writing a letter obviously won’t get your
attention. You didn’t do anything to stop this
appalling act. That is why I have to stop buying your
magazine.
Deborah Sanborn
San Diego, CA
— Deb Sanborn · Jul 14, 05:06 PM · #
Good grief, Deborah; lighten up a bit. Anyone for whom this splendidly scornful New Yorker cover serves to reinforce pre-existing inclinations to believe in the racist and Islamophobic nonsense hurled at Obama could hardly have been expected to ever come around to reason and vote for him. I applaud The New Yorker for so lightheartedly exposing such nonsense to the contempt it deserves.
— Anonymous · Jul 14, 05:38 PM · #
Who are these people in charge of today’s media outlets?
Did they any of them even go to college? Did they pay attention when they were there?
Or did they do the equivalent of web-surfing [back in the 70s & 80s] and just skip all those classes where things like “satire” got explained and explored?
This is just another symptom of a HUGE elephant in the room that is the United States of America. I think Fendrich is right; they really are stupid.
When the Fourth Estate goes rabidly anti-intellectual, what does that do to democracy?
— anon · Jul 14, 05:44 PM · #
Did you know it’s a scientific fact that one’s IQ goes down five points for every extraneous letter in one’s pseudonym?
(Is this “splendidly scornful” enough?)
— Mr. Wiki · Jul 14, 06:06 PM · #
One of the reasons I was initially not thrilled about the Obama candidacy because I was not convinced of his supporters (or his) ability to take a joke.
And face it, political jokes are pretty unforgiving.
I don’t have a reaction to the cover because after the Clinton’s, and those portraits of George Bush’s ears, I feel like I’ve seen it all.
The cover does speak to the deepest and most biased (racist) opinions that whites have about black people, however. I totally agree with D Sanborn that satire is rooted in fact and hyperbole, which is what makes true satire humorous.
The cover is more propaganda (lie) than satire, and given that it was conceived in Hillary’s homestate, I am not surprised that it was approved without much thought to the disgust, rather than appreciation, it would cause.
— Drew · Jul 14, 07:38 PM · #
A kernel of truth?
It is my understanding that the Jewish and Islamic faiths have a “birth” requirement for official initiation into the religion: to be Jewish, one must be born of a Jewish mother; to be a Muslim one must be born of a Muslim father. Thus, Khaddafi literally embodies the ironies of the middle East, having been born of both.
Well, need I say more?
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 14, 08:07 PM · #
Very interesting thoughts even if I disagree with them. The cover achieved exactly what it was meant to. It ridicules the vicious misperceptions surrounding Obama and subjects them to ridicule.
Come back by the Achenblog some other day when things are more civil.
— yellojkt · Jul 14, 08:56 PM · #
When I hear someone say the term ‘Islamophobic,’ I often wonder if the same individuals would have said ‘Naziphobic’ in 1939.
— Dr. Haywood · Jul 14, 08:57 PM · #
From a deconstructionist point of view, the cover says exactly what that means, nothing more, nothing less. De gustibus non disputatem est.
— Shiloh · Jul 14, 10:36 PM · #
Well, need I say more?
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul
(Is this “splendidly scornful” enough?)
— Mr. Wiki · Jul 14, 06:06 PM · #
Abandon this thread, friends, or risk getting troll squack on your nice suit. The grad students are out tonight, and off their medication.
— T Paine · Jul 15, 12:45 AM · #
The only reason that this Mr. & Mrs. Obama satire DOES have impact — and may very likely spread — is because like all good satire, or good humor for that matter, there’s more than a germ of truth in it. Otherwise, the satire would utterly roll off the Obamoids’ backs, having no impact.
— Malloy · Jul 15, 02:04 AM · #
I thought it was hilarious, but that’s beside the point, which is, first of all since this is the Chronicle of Higher Education, why don’t people outside Manhattan, Cambridge, San Francisco, and small enclaves of gentrification elsewhere understand satire? Perhaps it’s because they are poorly educated by a failing educational system? How many of the emos (sounds like a bird) Fendrich wrote about read and were properly taught their Swift? Who’s to blame for that? The New Yorker cartoonist? David Remnick? The first ammendment? Or, dare I suggest, sacred academia?
Second, the tone of the post could be interpreted to mean that there should be greater control over public expression, especially when an intellectual decides it could be easily misunderstood. What do people suggest? Censorship by committees of well meaning liberals? A tiered, class-based censorship to protect the sensitivities of “working Americans” while still allowing satire to the elites? More dumbing down so that we have no more disturbing provocations to critical thought? Or just shaming the New Yorker into adopting a more consciously elitist editorial policy than it already has? Just what measures should be employed to counteract the perceived shortcomings of the common people, whose provincial illiteracy and misguided lack of support for Barack Obama only allow them to stare agape at “sophisticated” magazines read by “cityfolk” and cry out that their innate racism has been confirmed as they wipe away their drool on the way to the polls this fall?!
— bored with academia · Jul 15, 02:05 AM · #
The rumors about Barack Obama are rediculous.
The cover was intended to ridicule the rediculous.
The problem seems to be that some people see “more than a grain of truth” in rumors, and allusions to them, where there is nothing more than pungent excrement.
— Joe Erwin · Jul 15, 04:37 AM · #
How exactly is this satire supposed to work? Obama supporters are told to lighten up—after all, Bush and Clinton have been caricatured, so why shouldn’t Obama have to take a joke too? The problem is that in order to defend the cartoon, David Remnick has to assert that the joke’s not really on Obama at all; it’s on right-wing nuts who think that Barak Obama is a Muslim and his wife is a terrorist. In an interview with the Huffington Post, he put it this way: “What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics.”But if it’s supposed to be targeting people who have prejudices and dark imaginings about Obama, why is it that none of those people seem to be upset about it?
The best comparison isn’t with Swift but with his contemporary, Daniel Defoe. In “The Shortest Way with Dissenters,” Defoe attempted to satirize High-Churchman like Henry Sacheverell, mimicking fanatical language and suggesting that Dissenters (like himself) be “rooted out from the face of this land for ever.” The satire doesn’t have as many red flags as a work like “A Modest Proposal” that it’s a satire, and plenty of readers missed the point. Defoe ended up in the pillory.
If the New Yorker cover had appeared instead on the cover of the National Review, I doubt anyone would read it as a satire on right-wing prejudices. What the New Yorker editors seem to be counting on is their readers willingness to say, “This magazine would never satirize Obama this way, so it must really be about someone else.” Unfortunately, the cover is not skillful enough to work that way.
— a. non · Jul 15, 05:13 AM · #
I’m an Obama supporter. I also think that Laurie Fendrich is way off the mark in her comments. The
New Yorker cover was simply terrific—a bold and witty deconstruction of right-wing myths & rumors.
I was absolutely delighted by it and worry about the anti-intellectualism of so-called “liberals” of Fendrich and others who’ve responded here.And by the way, many, many of us do cherish that wonderful Spiegelman cover of the Hassidic & African American embrace.
— Ranen Omer-Sherman · Jul 15, 06:44 AM · #
On Comment 10:
Despite being born of a Jewish mother, Khaddafi does not self-identify as or act as a member of the Jewish faith.
Despite being born of a Muslim father, Obama does not self-identify as or act as a member of the Muslim faith.
I guess I did need to say more….
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 15, 07:26 AM · #
a.non (the period is crucial) explains the dubious mechanics of the cover, and is right on.
Hard to find African-Americans and Hasids who “cherish” that ham-handed (pun intended) Spiegelman cover. At the Self-Congratulatory Club on the Upper West Side, though, it’s framed and on the wall.
Comments #11 through 17 (and more to come): Ah, the persuasive powers of T Paine.
— Just Passing Through · Jul 15, 08:44 AM · #
Glad to see #14 noting that Defoe was pilloried for “The Shortest Way With the Dissenters.” The satire-wise age that produced Swift wasn’t always smart enough to tell the difference between satire and invective. The New Yorker is written for the readership within the NYC bubble and the NYC diaspora all over the world who connect with their utopia by reading The New Yorker. Its belief in its own wisdom, shrewdness and genius is immeasurable and, quite frankly, I doubt that it cares very much for those who are unlikely to see the points that it makes, which is to say that it does not care very much for any particular collateral damage that it may do. It sells because of its (very) considerable advertising revenue. That keeps the price down and the readership (with the commensurate advertising revenue) up. As a commentator on politics it is generally predictable and less interesting say, than the Atlantic, which is open to opinions and, indeed, facts, that do not necessarily square with the party line.
— BeenThereDoneThat · Jul 15, 09:33 AM · #
I’m with Jake Tapper (at Slate) on this:
“Calling on the press to protect the common man from the potential corruptions of satire is a strange, paternalistic assignment for any journalist to give his peers, but that appears to be what The New Yorker’s detractors desire. I don’t know whether to be crushed by that realization or elated by the notion that one of the most elite journals in the land has faith that Joe Sixpack can figure out a damned picture for himself.”
Also, Gary Kamiya at Salon has a slightly less punchy, but still very sane, opinion-piece on this non-issue today (Tuesday, the 15th).
— Obama supporter #10,358,965 · Jul 15, 09:47 AM · #
I can’t wait until, after election, Obama is subjected to the same “standard” that has applied to Condi Rice.
— Bob · Jul 15, 10:04 AM · #
The Obama Cover: satire :: Alanis Morrisette: irony
I’m not going to argue about any of this other stuff. The simple fact here is that this is NOT satire by any definition that I—as an English professor—know.
— JM · Jul 15, 10:40 AM · #
“The Obama Cover: satire :: Alanis Morrisette: irony” is just brillant!
Brillant in a way The New Yorker will never be…
— ProfJables · Jul 15, 12:58 PM · #
Thank You!
— JM · Jul 15, 01:23 PM · #
Isn’t much of this outcry condemning the cover a bit premature?
If we can assume that those who are so riff-raff-minded that their voting behavior is determined by the credence they give to the falsehoods mocked on the New Yorker are, generally speaking, Fox News and AM talk radio consumers, shouldn’t the effect of the image be assessed in light of the coverage of the story in Fox and AM radio?
Naturally, this cover having made me an even more than usually smug New Yorker subscriber, I don’t get Fox News at home, but as I was watching last night MSNBC and CNN I was struck by how frequently the false status of the falsehoods in question were reiterated.
And so I wonder: perhaps Fox and AM radio will (unhappily for them!) have to underscore the falsity of the claims mocked simply in order to cover the story, and perhaps this coverage will have a disabusing effect on at least some of the rabble whose consumption of news media is more or less exclusively confined to Fox and AM radio.
So perhaps the condemnations so quickly hurled at The New Yorker should be more qualified and tentative. What if it turns out that the cover has the effect of actually shrinking the number of rabble whose votes are determined by their belief in the falsehoods in question?
— Anonynous (poster #2) · Jul 15, 01:49 PM · #
For the record, Anti-hypocrisy advocate (posts # 6 & # 16) stands corrected. True, to be Jewish one must be born of a Jewish family. False, to be a Muslim one must be born of a Muslim father.
There is no “birth” requirement for being a Muslim. And there are thousands of American-Muslims who had no “muslim father,” but simply declared islam to be their religion.
Satire? Apparantely not since even those who claim to be educated (Anti-hypocripsy Advocate!) suggest that there might be some true to the New Yorker Story. Alas, Obama is … and Laurie is right on the spot on this.
— AM · Jul 15, 02:17 PM · #
On Comment 25:
I would appreciate a source for the alleged correction. Here is the link to a New York Times op-ed by Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “President Apostate” wherein the same allegations which I presented are asserted: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/opinion/12luttwak.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
While it is apparently easier to become a Muslim by conversion than a Jew by conversion, a birth inheritance appears to be present in both religions.
What surprises me is that it should be considered a smear to discuss Obama’s dual heritage. Could it not be considered a positive thing that the Senator might have ties by birth to a religion shared by so many of the world’s population? Could this not be the beginning of a dialogue which might otherwise not take place?
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 15, 08:30 PM · #
I move that it’s time for the next ‘furor,’ which also will be forgotten long before November. Second?
— Tnachtrab · Jul 16, 12:57 AM · #
AHA, there is nothing wrong at all, in my opinion, with discussing Obama’s dual Kenyan/Kansan (i.e., African/Euroamerican, Christian/Muslim) heritage. In terms of ethnicity (racial and cultural heritage), it helps us, I think, understand something about who he is and even who we are as an American people. With regard to religion, however, it is only the cultural aspects of religious affiliation of one’s parents and ancestors and relatives that counts. There is, it seems to me, a basic difference in orientation between Islam and Judaism with regard to “conversion.” There is a sense in which some elements of Judaism resist bringing in people from outside Jewish cultural traditions, while the tradition within Islam has been to attempt widespread conversion, even by jihadic force. So, while an individual American may have have a cultural context in one or another religious tradition, one of our deeply engrained cultural values seems to be assertion of the fundamental right to choose our own religion and our own way of exercising it. This tradition has deep roots in the history of America. Obama’s heritage, as a natural-born American, is to have the right to choose any religion (or none). And also, to not have any religious requirement for running for President of the nation. As AHA points out, having some relatives from various religious traditions is surely a positive qualification in a world that suffers from clashes among various traditions, and in a nation whose recent leaders have probably allowed religious differences to play too large a role in our military and other foreign policy decisions.
— Joe Erwin · Jul 16, 06:53 AM · #
AHA, this is what you said: “It is my understanding that the Jewish and Islamic faiths have a “birth” requirement for official initiation into the religion: to be Jewish, one must be born of a Jewish mother; to be a Muslim one must be born of a Muslim father.” [Emphases mine.]
You’re dead wrong on that, and somebody called you on it. Islam does not require anybody to have a Muslim father in order to be a Muslim. End of story.
“While it is apparently easier to become a Muslim by conversion than a Jew by conversion, a birth inheritance appears to be present in both religions” are weasel words. Now, you’ve backed down to “a birth inheritance is present,” which means that if one has a Muslim father, most Muslims consider one a Muslim, which has nothing to do with a Muslim father being “required.” Second, if Islam required a Muslim father, then nobody without one would be able to convert, would they. So there’d be no “easier” or harder conversions, would there.
And a stray New York Times op-ed piece by a veteran neo-con with an agenda is hardly authoritative.
Give it up, AHA.
— LuckyJim · Jul 16, 07:18 AM · #
No doubt next week’s New Yorker cover will depict John McCain as the Ancient Mariner, on a ghost ship floating on a sea of Coors money, with GWB hung around his neck as the albatross. (I can hardly wait to see how the artist will work Ms. McCain into the picture.) In the interest of balance and fairness, of course.
At the risk of arousing the derision of the editors of the magazine that is not, after all, published “for the little old lady in Dubuque,” I’ll quote Kin Hubbard’s Abe Martin, who said, “The problem ain’t what people don’t know. The problem is what people know that ain’t so.”
— dan · Jul 16, 08:46 AM · #
You might consider suing the public school you went to.
— Anna Notherthing · Jul 16, 10:49 AM · #
JM (post 21),
Since you identify yourself as an English professor, I thought you might like to review this basic definition of satire that I use in my freshman courses: “a work that uses humorous exaggeration to make a point.” Seems to fit the cover just fine, no? Not sure what definitions you’ve been using, so feel free to take this one. You’re welcome.
— also an English professor · Jul 16, 11:54 AM · #
On Comment 29:
To be “fair and balanced”, here’s a discussion of the Luttwak NYT op-ed by Ali Eteraz at the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-eteraz/obama-islam-smear-changes_b_101337.html
Of course, I corrected the “must” error of my first comment. The birthright situation follows a similar “if/then” process with respect to a Muslim father and child and a Jewish mother and child. Of course, likely only Obama’s mother would know whether the “call to prayer” was whispered in his ear by his father since many “atheists” perform religious rituals for “cultural” reasons.
The point is that it doesn’t matter. What does matter is the Islamiphobia based on Obama’s heritage which the cartoon was satirizing. That what could be an important “plus” in a political career (a bi-cultural, bi-religious heritage) is seen by many Americans to be a “minus” – to the detriment of our nation’s relations not only with its own Muslim community but with Muslim nations throughout the world.
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 16, 12:02 PM · #
Boy, AHA, you are good.
If you hurry on over to McCain headquarters, maybe you can help him with his, “Well, if you consider that a lot of Czechs and Slovaks still live on one side of the border and work on the other, and maybe visit their parents, who might be a Czech mother and a Slovak father, you could probably consider Czechoslovakia to be kind of, sort of, maybe being de facto still one country, in a loose sort of way…” statement.
By the way, can you help out with traffic tickets where there’s a photograph of the car running the red light?
— LuckyJim · Jul 16, 01:18 PM · #
So nice to have you back, Lucky Jim! (I have this feeling, though, that LJ is Cordelia to JPT’s Fool.)
Comment 34’s resonances remind me of France when birth citizenship there was determined by being born of a French mother. (Yes, indeed, such a form of racism was the basis of citizenship in more than Nazi Germany.) Those males who were born in the United States of French mothers and American fathers had dual citizenships until they were forced to confront the requirement of French military service at the age of eighteen. Since they couldn’t continue to be Americans if they served in a foreign army, they were only able to retain their French citizenship if they didn’t set foot in France.
Issues of religion and of citizenship are often quite convoluted. In fact, there are those who are still trying to sort out whether McCain is a natural-born American citizen since he wasn’t born in any of the states, if I recall correctly….
I’ll close (as I opened) with Shakespeare: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 16, 01:42 PM · #
AHA, you’re even better than I thought. Getting you to admit you got anything wrong is like trying to pick up mercury from a broken thermometer. Suddenly, we’ve been beamed over to the vicissitudes of French citizenship, and bracketed with (nothing like him for borrowed gravitas) the Bard himself. (I always thought that “Fool” was something that Mr. T called people he didn’t like.)
You’re much too slippery for me!
— LuckyJim · Jul 16, 03:50 PM · #
I tried to warn you. You don’t have the shoes for this kind (s)troll through the morass. There are people who must always be right, even if only by re-write. They are very clever. They perform and pirouette and we lesser beings can only watch and wonder.
To confront them with the facts is like shooting Mongo: ( “Oh, no, no, don’t do that! You’ll just make him mad…”) (to seek gravitas elsewhere than with the Bard). They will win with a clever one-liner. It’s the goal, the winning; they already have the truth. Obama good, McCain bad. And politics=everything.
— T Paine · Jul 16, 06:11 PM · #
On Comments 36 and 37:
Oh, the joy of a Brainstorm blog where a statement about the relativity of judgment (“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”) is labeled “having the truth”. When a commentator corrects himself and then expands the commentary in response to another posting, he’s being “slippery”. When he queries the background of Obama and then McCain, he’s an Obama supporter. Go figure.
As for the Fool in King Lear, he is the one character besides Cordelia who calls it as he sees it, who speaks truth to the king – but is never on the stage at the same time as Cordelia (for reasons understood by Shakespearean scholars and perhaps readers of this blog).
Oh well, some people just can’t take a compliment….
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 16, 06:36 PM · #
To quote Ms. Fendrich:
“Forget the racism for the moment (it’s there, but others can deal with that). I’m interested in the editors’ defense of the cover, which is to claim it’s “satire.” Talk about a weak excuse. It’s up there with students who write a poor paper and then protest the professor’s reaction (a bad grade) by saying, “But wait. Listen. This is what I meant.”
Seems to me that your analysis is tautological at best, reactionary at worst. First, how is it so obviously racist that you don’t even have to explain why or how? Can you at least explain the obviousness of its racism? That will save you the greater burden of actually having to explain, through reason and facts, how the cover is racist.
And as for what Ms. Fendrich seems to think is an obviously fitting analogy to the student who writes a crappy paper and then insists that the professor simply didn’t “get” it, well, I think Ms. Fendrich needs some education in analogical thinking, not to mention satire, irony, representation, and much more. (Tragically, she’s an artist by profession. How does she get by?) The sloppy homework student is protesting, even lying, in order to evade the justice involved in handing in material that is either unclear or irrelevant. Here, the New Yorker is neither protesting nor lying; it is using imagery to critique common attitudes that it finds objectionable.
One might reasonably argue that the New Yorker cover is an unsophisticated act of satire, but satire it is, and better suited to its audience and historical moment than most readers are willing to admit, even though it comes through in their shrill replies.
Deb (#1), how self-righteous can you get? Obama’s got nothing on you.
— Neal Jung · Jul 16, 07:44 PM · #
Is this the Neal Jung who plays with Crazy Horse’s Ass? Sounds like him.
— Mr. Wiki · Jul 16, 09:12 PM · #
Seeing Michelle “O” with a “fro” and in her camouflage trousers, with the AK-47 over the shoulder didn’t remind me of the stereotypical terrorist, who is usually depicted in a turban and white cotton trousers, but of Tommy Smith and his “bros” at the Olympics with their Black Power Salute! She’s not a terrorist, the satirist implies, she’s heir to the rhetoric of the Black Panthers and has the hair, uniform and gun to back it up!
Stan Fish was right, the text reads the reader and most of the emissions from the Obamesssiahiacs demonstrate the very liberal racism that Liberal Jim Sleeper wrote about in his book by that name (2002) and Conservative Jonah Goldberg reiterated in chapter 7 of his Liberal Fascism (2008).
The classist/elitist anti “typical American” bias of these comments is sure indication that readers of the Chronicle blogs, for all their protestations to the contrary and dollars spent for liberal causes, are nothing more than impudent, effete, and snobbish! H/t to that estimable thinker, the late Spiro Agnew!
The satire, and I’m an English Professor who also teaches Swift and Satire, is validated by the way most posters are revealed to be anything but what they claim. The late Rev. Dr. JS would be delighted to read the cant in these posts by those who chortle approvingly over the simian-eared depictions of “W” and the equally “hilarious” depictions of “Aunt Jemima/Condoleezza with the psittaciformes lips” or the simianized and darkened depictions of Clarence Thomas as a silverback—no one protests. However, Time Magazine was eviscerated because they darkened the picture of a murderer on its cover, but these posters make no comment about equally abhorrent racist imaging of individuals who happen to be Republican.
As the bumper sticker says: “Friends don’t let Friends vote Republican” and for many of the above posters, free speech ends when their party is impaled. Isn’t that why Rush Limbaugh is so reviled? He makes fun of those of us on the Left who take ourselves so seriously that we cannot see our enemy staring back at us from the mirror. Lighten up? Cease the intellectual masturbation signifying nothing but the fertility of a mind wasting its seed!
— Another Professor on Satire · Jul 16, 11:19 PM · #
“Oh well, some people just can’t take a compliment….”
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 16, 06:36 PM · #
No, actually. You were cought disseminating BS and you couldn’t find the nuts to admit that. Fun to watch.
— T Paine · Jul 17, 01:42 AM · #
You can work on the cought-caught thing. But you might try “I was wrong” and begin work on the character thing.
— T Paine · Jul 17, 01:56 AM · #
On Comments 42/43:
In Comment 34, I stated: “Of course, I corrected the ‘must’ error of my first comment.” The word “error” in most people’s idiolect of English is roughly synonymous with “mistake”.
The obvious main point of my argument was not whether the only way to become a Muslim was by birth to a Muslim father, but rather that the New Yorker was using a fact (Obama’s father and step-father were Muslims) in its satire.
A reading of King Lear will reveal that any comparison with its Fool (or Cordelia, for that matter) is, indeed, a high compliment to a commentator.
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 17, 05:42 AM · #
Why is it that English professors, working at home during the hot summer, inevitably bring up masturbation?
— Mr. Wiki · Jul 17, 07:20 AM · #
Well, Mr. Wiki, if you read through the comments supposedly on Ms. Fendrich’s article, I think you’ll get the answer to your question: that’s what a lot of people are doing, so that’s what they talk about.
I hope this isn’t indicative of classroom performance. If it is, it’s time to raise the white flag. Reminds me of Richard Brautigan’s poem “Education.”
— Dan Kirklin · Jul 17, 09:00 AM · #
Is perception reality?
If so then what reality shall the cover’s perception create?
And, what variations of such perceptional realities will engulf the nation —- interpretations whose foundations are and will be rooted in individualistic comprehending and understanding abilities.
Is a post-graduate level discussion of any subject matter suitable for the 8th grade?
Whilst an academic interpretive discussion is the focal perspective in this narrow arena —- I am sure that the perspicacious readers (in general) of The Chronicle will easily discern that the same is in all probability not the case elsewhere. Hence shouldn’t focal perspective shift —- analyzing intent, interpretation, action, reaction, and possible outcomes in the context of the broader national arena? And, shouldn’t the same be inclusive of comprehending abilities present therein?
— zahid · Jul 17, 09:16 AM · #
To Another Professor on Satire—Yes, you are right that we should all lighten up, and you’re also correct that the left holds distorted views of the right as well. But as to your criticism of academics’ snobbishness and elitism, what’s wrong with that? I am proudly both snobbish and elitist. This is why I don’t care what those who cannot comprehend the cover’s intended satire think about it.
— also an English professor · Jul 17, 10:46 AM · #
When the (was it Belgian?) cartoons came out which satirized Islam (or was it Mohammed – I must be careful now), the West was scandalized that many in the Muslim world were taking to the streets in protest. We, in the West, are sooooo above such things, right? Freedom of speech and all that….
But when the cover of a niche magazine satirizes the presumptive Democratic nominee for the U.S. presidency, well, it appears to be self-censorship that is being recommended – in the midst of multiple reprimands.
The answer to hateful speech is supposed to be more speech but, then again, that speech is likely to upset someone who will then recommend (self)censorship – in the midst of reprimands. Ad infinitum….
The Germans have been so skittish about their Nazi past that free speech has content limits: it is against the law to post a swastika or to make genocidal remarks. (Oh dear, I mentioned another country again.)
Tricky thing, this free speech in the United States, isn’t it? Does it all come down to whose ox is being gored?
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 17, 10:55 AM · #
The cartoons were Danish, or at least the original ones were. In the event, the Islamic extremists cooked the data by adding a couple bogus cartoons of their own, to “improve” their case. But I don’t think anyone’s said that The New Yorker didn’t have the right to run whatever they wanted to, just that it was dumb, inept, and ill-advised. I haven’t seen any death threats about this. The magazine has a right to be nitwitted, and the rest of us have a right to make fun of the magazine’s witlessness.
— Dan Kirklin · Jul 17, 02:38 PM · #
Simplistic Musings:
Among the possible voters —- can anyone provide guesstimated percentages?
The % of the general voting population who comprehend the satire vs. the % who don’t comprehend the satire
What % of those among the general voting population who don’t comprehend the satire would have their voting doubts reinforced?
Is it merely satire, or is it a political attack (or defense), with the use of satire as the delivery vehicle?
And, doesn’t the latter sort of mandate, —- a prior to use interpretative analysis, of actions, reactions, and possible outcomes in the context of the majority of national voters’ comprehending abilities?
In my opine —- if the resultant consequences of the satire for the majority were “Unintended,” then the failure lies at the foot of those presenting perspective satire.
However, if the consequences were “Intended” —- then “Mission Accomplished” —- Of course preplanned PC backlashes defenses would have to be brought into play (inclusive of explaining the “Intended” as the “Unintended” in terms of Outcomes).
Summarily, it should be noted, that in any comparative analysis of various satires and their intended messages (inclusive of attacks or defenses) —- one does not, or should not lose sight of the target (individual, institution, issue, etc. and methodology personal, offensive, etc.), —- in conjunction with the “Comprehending Abilities” of the “Intended Audience”.
“Intended Audience?” —- It involves another level of analysis —- i.e. Who is/was the “Intended Audience?” —- Was/Is the “Intended Audience” the “Regular Readership?” Or, Was/Is the “Intended Audience” the “General Voting Population?” (Analysis indicating that at a “Certain Level,” generated “Publicity” in all likelihood would ensure that the “Message” goes way beyond the “Regular Readership” per se.).
— zahid · Jul 17, 02:49 PM · #
That’s it, then. zahid’s post says it all. And the remarkable thing is that, if you read it backwards, it says the same thing! Hope this guy is teaching freshman writing somewhere.
— T Paine · Jul 17, 04:48 PM · #
43 comments, including a few from T Paine himself, after T Paine told everybody to abandon this thread. Talk about clout!
(Betcha there’s at least one more I-can’t-follow-my-own-admonition contribution from T Paine…)
— Just Passing Through · Jul 17, 05:29 PM · #
AHA,
Given the back and forth conversations between you, LuckJim, and T. Paine, it appears you folks have a history that precedes the current blog. I will thus stay out of the fray.
I had a feeling from your early postings that you were trying to make a point about how Obama’s background could be advantage point for his historic nomination. I agree with you on that point. It is no secret that Obama had a Kenyan father whose family has both Christian and Islamic imprints (not only Islam but both religions!). But Obama, as a child of immigrant Kenyan father and Kansan mother, grew up on Christian tradition and has known no other religion.
Obama’s understanding of Islam is no better than yours or any other non-Muslim person. It is his international background and having living sometime abroad that could be an advantage point. I certainly consider it a plus. What is more important to the international community is his political views, liberal ideas, and perhaps ending the philosophy of “you are either with us or them,” a black and white world where force and believe in “mightiness” replaces political dialogue and pragmatism.
That said, it is misinformation such as the suggestion that having a Muslim father or Muslim genes within one’s familial pool, no matter how distant, that determines the “islamicity” of an individual. As any religious scholar who studies Islam will point out to you, family-blood has nothing to do whether one is Muslim or not. It is this misunderstanding of the Islamic tradition that leads some to believe that Obama, because of his Kenyan father, is a Muslim despite his proclamation on so many occasions that he is not and has never been a Muslim.
You appear to suggest that his “Islamic” background would be a plus. But how could a background that is not true be a plus? It was under this context that I responded to your earlier posting. I hope this conversation would force you to pick a book or two to learn one or two things about the Islamic tradition within the context of our conversation.
— AM · Jul 17, 05:37 PM · #
Just Passing Through.
No there won’t. “cept for this one…
— T Paine · Jul 17, 08:08 PM · #
On Comment 54:
Actually, the link to the Huffington Post article by Ali Eteraz (in Comment 33) was specifically meant to dispel the misunderstandings which many have on this subject of Islamic religion and parentage and heritage. I doubt anyone who expressed discontent with my first comments on this blog has bothered to read it. Unfortunately.
As to the “past history” of commentators among themselves, well, yes, my outspoken-ness has often led to attack by the commentators in question – who seem to enjoy the “attack” mode far more than the “engage the idea” mode which I try to espouse. However, at the “risk” of attack for paraphrasing Voltaire: “I may not agree with what they say, but I will defend to the death their right to say it”.
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jul 17, 10:10 PM · #
For T. Paine #54
For the nonce —- the teaching of any writing is simply a nonstarter, for I am totally lacking in the essential requisites (qualifications and credentials). Res Gestae; as an engineering major, I merely took a solitary English course in order to satisfy the electives requirements per se.
— zahid · Jul 18, 08:03 AM · #
I Hope I Win The Lottery Next Week
Two things …
First, this “New Yorker” cover is going to force me to declare bankruptcy. Every time someone threatens to cancel a subscription because they are incensed by something satirical, I purchase an additional subscription and donate it to a charitable organization … like the Rush Limbaugh Society for the Edification of Left-wing, Knee-jerk, Bleeding-heart, Tree-hugging, Prius-driving, Hyphen-obsessed Liberals. At the moment there are so many “New Yorker” subscription cancellations I’ll soon be broke.
Second – and I’m leading up to my advice to young faculty members — you young folks in graduate school and in your first positions as assistant professors, however you structure your careers, do not, under any circumstances, write parody or satire. Eschew irony! Take my word for it, you will be writing in an environment in which sarcasm, biting wit, and paradox will confuse your colleagues, anger your chair and dean, and infuriate your provost and president. And the legislators who vote on bills providing financial support for your university … well, du-uuh. Were Jonathan Swift your colleague, “A Modest Proposal” and “Gulliver’s Travels” would forever block his progress toward promotion and tenure.
It’s not that these academics and legislators object to satire and irony, per se; it’s simply that they don’t understand it … they are forced to take it at face value … the curse of the intellectually challenged. We live in a time in which many of the works of Voltaire, Mark Twain, Aldous Huxley, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Lewis Black, and Dave Chappelle will blow right past your provost.
Perhaps I’m overstating the case, but I’d wager that the best many of your colleagues can manage will be along the lines of Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Cosby. They probably love the poetry of Edgar A Guest. Some will think the Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket series are subversive.
The Language Police have been patrolling outside academe for years. Now they’re firmly entrenched inside. I implore you … DON’T WRITE SATIRE!
— Frizbane Manley · Jul 22, 10:07 PM · #
A joke attempted is not necessarily a joke made.
— Commissioner of Satire · Jul 23, 08:15 AM · #
I’m Revoking Your Title
I can’t imagine that someone who calls hirself the Commissioner of Satire would make a statement that seems to equate a joke and satire.
Occasionally satire reveals itself in a humorous vein, but just as frequently it is revealed as “biting” commentary.
— Frizbane Manley · Jul 23, 02:55 PM · #
Many people are saying of the The New Yorker cover, “I get the joke,” or “I’m afraid a lot of people just won’t get the joke.”
As for “I’m Revoking Your Title” and its odd capitalization: FM is 0 for 1.
— Commissioner of Satire · Jul 23, 05:54 PM · #