The New Yorker

[lollardfish]

I love the New Yorker. My father buys me a subscription every year for Xmas and has for about 10 years now. I read almost all of almost every issue, skipping the articles that bore me (local New York theater/opera/music/dance), devouring the film reviews and the politics, and regularly learning an immense about. The magazine is often ahead of the curve - it ran its first long piece on Obama before he was asked to do the keynote address at the Dem convention. It ran a piece on evolution in the PA courts/school system before the decision was handed down (after the decision it was in all the papers). Seymour Hersh writes for them (I hope you read his recent piece on Iran. Among other conclusions, the Bush admin. has been giving money to Baluchis in Iran. Kalid Sheikh Mohammad and Romsi Yousef were both Iranian Baluchis, to give you an idea of the issues here.

Anyway.

Next week this cover will be running, but since it's already online, the shit is hitting the fan as we speak. Here's what the editor of the New Yorker has to say about it - it's satire.

It may be satire. I'm embarrassed to have it showing up in my mailbox. I'm considering canceling my subscription.

What's going on here? Am I victim of my own double standard? I was happy enough having Bush the cowboy or idiot showing up on the covers. I think I'd be just as offended if the New Yorker ran a cover showing Clinton as a dominatrix or with a penis (or with Bill's penis) or something else as crude. The cover /is/ expressive of the current lies being perpetrated by the right against Obama (the piece is called "The Politics of Fear"), so I guess it's a great job by the artist.

But I'm embarrassed to have it showing up in my mailbox.

What do you all think?

Comments

[zinzinzinnia.livejournal.com]

there are going to be some people that don't get that it's satire and will go, "Yeah! That's EXACTLY why I wouldn't vote for that guy!"

Here's one from my AP Listserv this morning -- these are educated, politically engaged teachers of AP English, and this one I respect for his erudition, if not his political views:

"I do not think it is that far from the truth, and thus am not amused by it. I take it to be an accurate representation of their true inner life. I think they do work as a team (fist bump at capturing the White House) and I do think that at their root they are out to replace traditional American values of love of freedom and protection of individuality (flag in the fire place), with a radical socialist collectivist program which will make the populace even more dependant on government than they are now.

With McCain we get what we see. With the Obamas we don't know who they really are, so conservatives project their fears and liberals project their hopes. I'd love to see a cover showing how liberals see the Obamas. Perhaps as The Messiah and Mary at the moment of the rapture. How funny is THAT?"

If that's how a well-read rigorous thinker sees when he looks at this image, I can't imagine what the bigger idiots in your country will think. The New Yorker editors HAD to know they wouldn't be able to fly this one under the radar. Whether New Yorker readers are discerning enough or not becomes beside the point when something like this becomes the centre of a media firestorm.

If the image was out of context before, just think about the lack of context now as it's splashed all over Fox News and 30-second sound clips on local TV news reports. It may not influence any stalwart Obama supporters against him, but you can bet any number of "undecideds" will take a step back for a moment... and some won't come back.