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

[bellebonnesage.livejournal.com]

I agree: it's way stupid. Because if the satire is supposed to point out that the Right is insane for what they're saying about the Obamas, the cover should have shown them, not the Obamas. Even enclosing the current picture in a dream bubble coming out of the head of some fearful or gleeful wingnut would have been better. Right now, the cover offends us and validates the stupid whisper campaigns slurring the Obamas as anti-American terrorists. It's just plain stupid, a real miscalculation.

As Atrios says, the presidential campaigns this year are going to be awesome! <- snark

[mia-mcdavid.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm.

On the one hand, if it gets the article read, that might be good. BUT, it's well known that people tend to "let in" ideas that mesh with the ones they already have and ignore the ones that don't, so my fear would be that people would see the cover and *not* read the article, and just say, "Yeah, that Obama, he's a rag-head."

I think it's unfortunate. A better cover might have been to show Uncle Sam (us) tied down and being force-fed lies about Obama?

[jdtacv.livejournal.com]

I think it is a great cover. The only thing missing is Michelle's hijab. Lighten up!

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Would you be deeply embarrassed to have it show up in your mailbox if it had been George and Laura Bush pictured *the same way*? Disregard for a moment the cognitive confusion that illustration would likely engender.

If you'd be equally embarrassed, then I don't think you're a victim of anyone's double standard. If your discomfort is based on whether or not the people depicted are ones you support and/or respect, well, then, yes, you might want to look at that.

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

I think Kevin Drum nailed it:

So: gutless. And whatever else you can say about it, good satire is never gutless.

[madtruk.livejournal.com]

It's simply bad satire if it has to be explained. This has the tinge of opportunism to it in that it will sell copies without having to justify its existence.

I don't think it's worth canceling, but it could be worth writing the magazine about.

Buddy Hackett's worst joke was: "So there's these two fags fucking a dead alligator on the back of a bus." He never, ever finished the joke, and at the end of his show he'd sing a sweet song to his daughter.

Somehow I find this relevant to the current conversation, but its been a long day and I can't quite pinpoint why.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it is hilarious.

However if I were editor of the New Yorker I probably wouldn't have published it because 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!"

On the other hand, are there really that many readers of the New Yorker that would have to have this explained to them? Clearly there are some number of readers (at least 5 by my count) who find it offensive rather than funny, but I'm pretty sure it's not influencing any of you against Obama.

[hatfield13.livejournal.com]

The alligator joke is really, really funny.