This is the cover for this week's The New Yorker. I'm not going to link to all the hubbub, because either you live on the net or you don't, but there's some disagreement about whether this is hilarious satire (not crap) or badly done satire (crap). What say you?
3 comments:
Funny, I was going to put that up as crap or not crap, but I thought it was so obvious....
crap...
I think digby has the best insight I've seen so far...
"I've been wondering since 9/11 when the right would get around to conflating the Muslim terrorists with "black Muslims" and I think it may have finally happened in the couple of Barack and Michelle Obama. It would seem odd that the right wingers would smear him as being muslim. He's black, not arab, and it doesn't fit the stereotype. But it does fit the stereotype of the Farrakhan type of militant black muslims and that's what they're getting at with this. The image of the dangerous black radical is the purpose of the muslim smear, not the terrorist association. It's good old, All American racism...This whisper campaign is just a message to racists that they can safely use the muslim/militant tag to explain why they can't vote for a black man. The New Yorker cover snidely laughs at these silly rubes who believe such silly things, but it misses the point entirely. Those rubes know exactly what they are doing. I'm afraid the joke's on us." excerpt from digbysblog.blogspot.com
Christ, what a fucking mess. I admit that while I am not sure that "hilarious satire" (i.e. not crap) would be the words I would use to describe the cover image, my first reaction was, "ha! that's a trip." I'm frustrated by the reactions on all sides. That's not to say that I don't understand them; I just find much of the discussion maddening and disheartening for reasons that require more explanation than I can reasonably include in the comments on this post.
I've written something on this, but I think I'm going to sit on it overnight to make sure it still makes sense to me in the morning...
I think the crap or not crap question depends entirely on what frame we use. Is the cover to be judged by the industry standards for magazine covers? If so, I think its a smashing success. Or, are we supposed to judge it as art? Then I'd say that it's okay, but not up to the standards Bellows set for Harpers. As satire? The point could have been clearer, but ok. As political rhetoric? Not so good.
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