Yeah, but Bob Hope was never the host of the tonight show.

I always hoped he had been...

Satire

Not Satire

The line continues to blur...

Maplefugde:

Only a member of Al Qaeda would say that Bob Hope was never host of the Tonight Show! I bet you fist-bumped your Che Gueverra tee-shirt wearing comrades right before you drove unsuspecting mothers to abortion clinic madrassas where you all raised your fists in opposition to the WTO. Denial of this fact is, of course, proof of its veracity.

I had no idea I was so sophisticated.

My Satire prof in school way back when would say that satire is a test of wit. 'Wit' from the Anglo-Saxon word Wittan - meaning 'to know'. It's about who's in the know, and the sweet superiority of finding yourself there. Of course if you don't get it... well, you just don't get it, like more and more folks out there every day.

ladyfractal has a nice Monbiot set!

Quasar for President!

For satire to work, it needs to go beyond the actual beliefs of those being satirized.

Nowadays, that is getting hard to do. And the New Yorker cartoon didn't succeed in doing so. Their cartoon could quite credibly appear on the cover of say, the National Review or The weekly Standard.

They would probably even make the idiotic, nonsensical association between Islamic fundamentalism, and the avowedly athiest, Marxist Angela Davis and her former membership in the secular black Panthers (who Michelle was made to look like).

Those Danish cartoons also come to mind. Were they mocking the attitudes of Islamaphobes? Quite the opposite!

When we became "politically correct" a few years ago, we lost our sense of humour, our ability to laugh at ourselves. We've gone downhill ever since.

When Congress put out the "hate-crimes" legislation, my first thought was,"Great, then you couldn't throw a bomb into a church or synagogue, or lynch a black person." Then I thought, "Don't we already have laws against that?" Then I read the legislation.

Any thought uttered by a person, that may be overheard by someone else, if it even appears critical of a race, creed, religion, or virtually anything else, may be considered a hate-crime and subject you to heavy fine and imprisonment.

In other words, freedom of thought and freedom of expression are now illegal. Voltaire said, "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Now it would simply be, "Watch what you say or I'll throw you in the slammer." What first amendment? I think that is why comedians are usually scatological. You can't joke about anything else without becoming politically incorrect and liable.

Note: Voltaire was the inventor of electricity, that is why they call it "volts."

"Yeah, but Bob Hope was never the host of the tonight show."

LOL !! Thats funny maplefudge.

The cover would be offensive if it were not in fact a visual repetition of the "terrorist fist jab" remark of E.D. Hill for Fox News. What concerns me is that Obama does not seem to have a sense of humor, while McCain, of course, is desperate (while on the campaign trail) to avoid the appearance of having rabies.

It was satire! It was satire! It was satire!

Even Olbermann didn't get it!

Obama's reaction, on the other hand, appears to show some sensitivity. For that kind of satire is not beyond his dry wit and humor. They must have really been afraid people would take it seriously.

Doesn't say much for out intelligence, does it?

"Somewhere between the stained blue dress and the vice president shooting a guy in the face, between swift boat lies and "war on terra" alibis, the absurd became the ordinary, facts became optional and satire became superfluous.

We are beyond satire, my friends. These days, there's nothing more ridiculous than the truth."

BRILLIANT! I thought the New Yorker cartoon was quite funny, but it's revealing that folks on the left and the right thought it was tasteless. It's telling what a stick in the mud Obama was about the whole joke.

Maybe Pitts is right, but those of us who haven't given way to the absurdity of fascist America still need our satire. So keep your PC hands off!

"Note: Voltaire was the inventor of electricity, that is why they call it "volts.""

Electricity is an invention?

I don't know if it counts as satire, I just think it was stupid and unfunny. Why would the New Yorker feel the need to go there? Seems like it kind of messes with their brand. Anyway, if only Michelle Obama was secretly Angela Davis, and Obama was a crypto-Islamist... at least this campaign would be interesting again. How painful to watch everyone pretending the candidates can be/should have been/might yet be anything but products of our ridiculous electoral system. Obama never claimed to be anything but a centrist, can't see why the left is the least bit surprised. And McCain's claim to be a reformer was always transparently false to anyone who spent five minutes looking into his career. As for Nader... please spare me the jabber about him being a true progressive, he's just not - he's against gay rights; he believes feminism is identity politics; he is a religious puritan; his supporters have just imagined him to be something he never was. Plus... have you heard the man talk? He's as arrogant as Chomsky without the intellectual depth.

Face it... we're screwed in the short term. I'll vote for Obama, but only because he would move things to right-of-center, rather than the pure unapologetic plutocracy we've had for eight years.

I believe it was Paul Krassner who first observed that reality has not only surpassed satire, it has turned around, in the driver's seat, and flipped satire off with both hands while sitting on the horn...

Satire/not satire?? (By the way, Stephen Colbert's invented "self" uses irony, not satire. So did Jonathan Swift.) More to the point: The cartoon is disgustingly RACIST, and I can't believe that no one on this thread has brought that up! Two African-Americans, both highly intelligent and superbly educated, are depicted as a time-honored American type: UPPITY BLACKS. Humiliate 'em! Take them "elitists" down a few pegs before they forgit their place!

Just imagine what the reaction would have been if The New Yorker had run a cartoon of an AIPAC meeting in which all the participants were shown slobbering, with huge hooked noses and unkempt hair, etc. like the hideous German cartoons of the 1930s. Even in the corporate media, the shit would have hit the fan.

Sometimes I wonder if CD is frequented by people other than Progressives -- or maybe you're Progressive but you don't know any black people?

But I don't think I'll be forgiving the New Yorker for this cover until they also run a cover cartoon of Dick Cheney riding an H-bomb, ala Slim Pickens in "Dr. Strangelove" down toward a map of Iran screaming "Yahhhhhhhhoooooooo! Eeeeeyaaaahhhhhhoooooooooo!".

Or would that be too close to the truth to be considered satire?

it's about illiteracy.

#
rabo July 17th, 2008 3:05 pm

"Note: Voltaire was the inventor of electricity, that is why they call it "volts.""

Electricity is an invention?

;-)

I agree with Muggles in everything but the fact that the New Yorker cover was satire:

"Nader… please spare me the jabber about him being a true progressive, he's just not - he's against gay rights; he believes feminism is identity politics; he is a religious puritan; his supporters have just imagined him to be something he never was. Plus… have you heard the man talk? He's as arrogant as Chomsky without the intellectual depth."

I think Nader calls abortion rights and gay rights "gonadal politics" and suggests these issues distract us from the most important issues like corporate abuse, corporate welfare. In some sense he's right, these things as portrayed in the mainstream distract us from pressing issues of class and justice. On the other hand, class cannot be separated from gender, race, and "gonads". Gonads have a lot to to with systems of control.

I don't know if I agree that Chomsky's arrogant. He just knows more than you or me.

Pitts writes: "Me, I like the cover. It strikes me as an incisive comment on the fear mongering that has attended Obama's run for the presidency. Still, I understand why it is incendiary: some of us will take it seriously."

I would edit that to read "MANY will take it seriously."

I taught high school English for 15 years, and one of the toughest literary concepts for students of low- and low-average ability to grasp is satire. The honors students get it every time; the high-average types usually get it; past that on the intelligence scale, forget it. I would try to explain satirical works to these kids until I was weak from talking, and most just couldn't fathom the concept. Everything, to them, is literal.

And so it will be for the adult of low- or low-average intelligence. Obama knows that, and the cover's satirical value will be lost on the very people he is trying to convince that he is not an unpatriotic, Osama-loving Muslim married to Angela Davis' daughter.

The problem is that the New Yorker chose the victims of the right's smear campaign as the subjects of its comedic cover, rather than the Karl Roves, the Ann Coulters, and the Rush Limbaughs and their minions who are spreading this garbage for the vast, uneducated, dumbed-down masses to absorb.

Perhaps one thing the Obamas can console themselves with is that the dumb bunnies among us will never read that magazine, and should they see the cover, it will only reinforce their right-wing radio beliefs. These people are already lost to him. No one could get them to see the satire here, just as you couldn't convince some people that the junk in the (now-defunct) Weekly World News wasn't true.

Adele is way out of line in calling the cartoon racist. It's clearly making fun of an attitude held by racist people. It's making fun of racists.

Then she writes,

"Sometimes I wonder if CD is frequented by people other than Progressives — or maybe you're Progressive but you don't know any black people?"

Well interestingly enough, Leonard Pitts is a black man. He's not offended by the cartoon. He's offended by ignorant attitudes of so many Americans.

The satarist, in my opinion, assumed something he really had no right to assume. That is, that most people in the US know who Senator Obama and Mrs. Obama really are, what their background is and what they have come to represent.
If this cover had been done say a year into Obama's Presidency, it might not have received the reception it did.
I, too, thought is was outlandish, but also offensive, give the political climate Dubya has created. It really was ill-timed and in poor taste. Better luck next time.

I'm in agreement with kane51... While I thought the cover was quite good, many, MANY folks will take it at face value, not recognizing the satire. Considering the cover has spawned quite the media circus, the dumb-asses out there will take it literally. Unfortunately, it's been my experience, that there are more dumb-asses than not. Therefore, I can understand Obama being upset about the cartoon, as it will be taken literally.

also, as AdeleTheCzech pointed out, if the cartoon depicted Jews rather than the Obamas, there's be serious shit hitting the fan...

Adele writes:
"Just imagine what the reaction would have been if The New Yorker had run a cartoon of an AIPAC meeting in which all the participants were shown slobbering, with huge hooked noses and unkempt hair, etc. like the hideous German cartoons of the 1930s. Even in the corporate media, the shit would have hit the fan."

That wouldn't qualify as satire by any means. That would be pure racist propaganda. Big difference between satire and racist propaganda. I truly fear a society so lacking in critical capacity that it can't tell the difference between the two.

Limbaugh and his fellow loony travelers spent the past few days accusing BO of being a secret, radical Muslim and/or Islam-ist (their word) because, to quote: "And who are the only people in the world who get upset by cartoons? Radical Muslims. And who's upset? Barack Obama. Need I say anything else? Is this clear enough?"

He failed to mention that the only people in the world who write letters to the FCC complaining about "bad" TV and films are radical Christian nutjobs.

If only there were a new "monkeywrench" gang focused on taking out the crazy "right-wing talk radio" circuit...

When CNN International asked a bunch of people in American cities what they thought of that cover, most didn't get it at all. But, CNN reported, the one thing most got and which upset them was that burning US flag..

Having loosely followed the uproar surrounding that cover - which I personally like very much, I think they really nailed it - I've come to the conclusion that "The New Yorker" from now on ought to print a warning on its covers, like a health warning:

"Looking at this could make you feel confused, angry, self-righteous and depressed unless you have a university degree and an above-average IQ. This warning does not apply to non-Americans, though."

There are two big problems in this here country and if you ain't heard about them yet you ain't been paying attention. One is illegal aliens, the other is welfare queens. They both belong to the Illuminati, whose purpose it is to ruin this here country and establish a one-world godless, commonist dictatorship which will have everyone, late term pregnant women included, working in coal mines for 15 cents an hour. Don't ask, I really don't know what they're going to do with all the coal.

We had a very decent society until these two groups arrived on the scene; no wars, everyone had a house with a two-car garage, mothers didn't have to work, no one lived in parks or under bridges, pills cost $1 a bottle and gas was 25 cents a gallon. Today that's all changed, thanks to illegal aliens, welfare queens and their Illuminati masters.

The people fighting best against these here Demons all belong to the Republican Party, which has done a bang-up job in the past seven years to stop this destructive conspiracy and save the republic. The Democrats helped too, but they did nothing original. They just went along with whatever the Republican set in motion. Now they're building walls along the Rio Grande, hiring snipers to cut down those who get through, building prisons to hold those the snipers miss, and doing many other fine and humanitarian things to improve our quality of life. Such as throwing the welfare queens into the streets along with their six kids where they have the freedom to work for peanuts, beg, rummage through garbage cans or starve. Freedom, one of the foundations upon which this great republic was built, is denied no one, not even our vilest enemies.

If we could only just get government off our backs, the free market would see that these here Demon Groups and their masters disappear. But progressive websites, with their ranting commonist bloggers, keep government on our backs, thereby assisting the Illuminati and their minions in their efforts to destroy this here republic and sell us all down the river into slavery.

Hooray for the "Commonist" revalushion!

Lissen up, folks, & pay attention to doodledoo's post. Now that is TRUE satire, from humorous beginning to waggish end. Not quite Swiftian in biting prose, but promising...

What really bothers me is that there are millions of shoppers who mainly read gossip magazines and scan the shelves of magazines while waiting in line to get to the cashier.

They watch reality shows and soaps and FOX news. With a quick glance at the cover of the New Yorker, that's all they need to crystalize an opinion (a powerful sound bite), or to re-enforce rumours they've heard from the loud-mouthed pontificators of FOX and their ilk. After all, why would a sophisticated intellectual magazine have such a cover if it wasn't true?

I personally liked the satire but feel that they should have placed the cartoon inside knowing that actual readers of the magazine will get it.

kane51 -- "The problem is that the New Yorker chose the victims of the right's smear campaign as the subjects of its comedic cover, rather than the Karl Roves, the Ann Coulters, and the Rush Limbaughs and their minions who are spreading this garbage for the vast, uneducated, dumbed-down masses to absorb."

This is exactly right. The New Yorker is probably way to afraid of the right-wing attack machine to smear the Coulters and Roves. This is what leads me, to suspect the motives of the New Yorker.

And yes .. the cover is racist.

Is it the New Yorker's fault that the news services have done such a bad job that millions of Americans think Obama is Muslim?

Satire is dead among those Americans who actually thought the Beverly Hillbillies lived in the mansion where the show was filmed.

riddimboy writes,
"The New Yorker is probably way to afraid of the right-wing attack machine to smear the Coulters and Roves. This is what leads me, to suspect the motives of the New Yorker."

But this cover is precisely a shot to the Coulter's and Rove's who push the rubbish that Obama is a Muslim and Michelle Obama is a radical in the style of Angela Davis. As far as I'm concerned, Rove and Coulter are farces in themselves and don't really need to be satirized. It's far more comical when their attitudes are satirized.

And by the way, Michelle Obama is an executive for a hospital in Chicago who dresses very conservatively and appears on the View. Pretty funny that anyone would portray her as a radical.

Jonathan Swift wrote an essay in which he said that the English should eat Irish babies to end the problem of poverty. A few dunces were probably horrified by Swift's over the top, absurd solution. These dunces were, I suspect, the same ones perpetuating the problem of poverty that Swift decried. The image on the cover of the New Yorker is so absurd and over the top that it scares me to think that people couldn't see the humor in it. Have we lost our capability for critical thought?

Satire;

Tomatoes for the School Lunch Program, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled…
Will the Bush Government help the poor, hungry and homeless by giving them 'free' killer tomatoes?

The New Yorker is not responsible for the fact that millions of Americans think the Obamas are Muslims. But they have a responsibility to take that into account when they repeat the frame of reference, as George Lakoff would say, for everyone to see.

One other salient point: no one who watches the Colbert Report believes it is anything but satire. That's what the show is. I get the New Yorker, and I can't remember more than a handful of covers over the past several years that were any kind of satire, let alone the bomb-throwing kind such as this

Remember Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondence Dinner a couple of years ago? Remember how it was quickly panned?

Why is it that some of America thought Colbert was the most brilliant satirist since Voltaire and many did not think he was the least bit funny?

The New Yorker magazine was funny to me personally. Satire is supposed to be funny, and tell the truth in a wickedly, delightful way. The New Yorker was telling a truth about rumors in a wickedly, delightful way.

That is TWO steps. Way too many for the low information voters. When you try to explain satire, they just think the magazine was playing with the truth. New Yorker should come out to middle America and satire the religious right. But, that would be just awful, wouldn't it now? Where is their guts to do that?

That's not funny, overkill! My girlfriend got very sick from bad tomatoes.

Go to hell, you hateful jerk!

leftk -- "The image on the cover of the New Yorker is so absurd and over the top that it scares me to think that people couldn't see the humor in it. Have we lost our capability for critical thought?"

You are being elitist and condescending to feign such surprise.

Satire has no place unfortunately in current day American politics, especially after the last harrowing 8 years and especially since 'mainstream media' has long since moved to the far right of the political spectrum. The New Yorkers supposed attempt at satire is suspect in my opinion as the cover is definitely racist. Ive been reading their rag forever and have never seen 'satire' that disparages rich white people.

Its rarefied literary mystique works well for upper class liberals who cannot understand what its like on the street corner. Like Kane51 mentioned in another blog, if their cover had targeted the architects of the right-wing smear campaign it would have been different, but turning their guns against one of their own smacks of cowardice and opportunism.

This is my thought:

It is still satire even when the audience is too thick to get it.

Must we dumb down everything to the lowest common denominator?

Must all our programming be "G" rated or are the adults alloweed to have a bit of a laugh occasionally too?

Course I did think the cover woulda been funnier if that scene depicted woulda been the thought bubble over the heads of both a Right Wing Looney and an Old Grey Leftie...one person's Nightmare of the Apocalypse is another's Revolutionary's Dream Ticket. Everybody gets skewered equally. (but then it would be irony, not saire.)

Never mind, isn't American Gladiators on tonight?

riddimboy July 17th, 2008 6:30 pm

"You are being elitist and condescending to feign such surprise."

I suppose you're right. I am a New Yorker reader, I like independent films, literature, poetry, jazz, etc.

Yeah my tastes have a lot to do with my sociological status as a white male. I don't see the world as would someone from a different culture or class. My sense of humor is defined by my education and my class as well. I can appreciate that my sense of humor might be different from people of other groups, but I also don't want to say that most people are too stupid to understand satire. Rather, I'd say our mainstream political discourse is too dumbed down to allow room for satire.

I think what it comes down to is my disagreement with you over the target of the joke. You'd say it's the Obamas and I'd say it's the conservative blowhards who push racist lies about Barack Obama.

I am very sensitive to the absolutely horrible stuff that has been said about the Obama's because of their race. The New Yorker cover only highlights how absurd this kind of racism is. I'd argue it's a very anti-racist cartoon.

riddimboy,

leftk is perfectly right. I don't know why Americans like to term intelligent contributions as "elitist".

America is populated by so many dumb people by now that it's becoming a menace for the functioning of that country, let alone for the rest of the world. This is nothing to be proud of.

Any US politician who looks like he might have brains is routinely branded as elitist, has to basically apologize for knowing foreign languages (in Europe, a politician who doesn't know at least one foreign language would be considered unfit for high offices) and instead of that person, some intellectual underachiever with a winning smile becomes president (Reagan. Bush. For example). Who then BTW proceeds to rob and further impoverish those who voted for him because of his winning smile.

It can't be a goal to want a nation to become more and more stupid. But this is what this "elitist" BS achieves. Is it cool to be stupid where you live? Not where I live.

It is WRONG to be stupid. It is WRONG to be uninformed. It is WRONG to want to remain uneducated. Greetings from Europe!!!

ClassAct July 17th, 2008 2:29 pm
"The cover would be offensive if it were not in fact a visual repetition of the "terrorist fist jab" remark of E.D. Hill for Fox News. What concerns me is that Obama does NOT seem to have a SENSE of HUMOR."

I agree. And thanks for pointing it out.

Aside from that, is there anyone that thinks a NYer cover is going to change someones vote? They weren't going to vote for him anyway.

AdeleTheCzech July 17th, 2008 3:22 pm:

"Satire/not satire?? (By the way, Stephen Colbert's invented "self" uses irony, not satire. So did Jonathan Swift.)"

So you're saying irony and satire are mutually exclusive? On the contrary, irony is one of the key tools of satire. Colbert's character is a perfect example of using exaggerated irony to create brilliant satire.

Further to Kane's point about many or most people not 'getting' the New Yorker cover's satire... you're right, BUT the people who wouldn't 'get it' would most likely never see the cover of the New Yorker, but have now because it's all over the mainstream media.

Araquin - I couldn't agree with you more. At some point liberal intellectualism was stigmatized as 'elitism'.

What happened to the days of JFK when his intellectual prowess and love and knowledge of classic literature were things people looked up to and wished for their children?

Furthermore, are the Yale/Harvard neocon intellectuals that make up Bush's cabinet and populate the right wing think tanks not intellectual 'elitists' to the same degree as liberal intellectuals?

Maplefudge:
"test of wit"
Lately more like a battle of wits with an unarmed man. And we, armed, seem to be losing!

Thomas More July 17th, 2008 6:55 pm

"Aside from that, is there anyone that thinks a NYer cover is going to change someones vote?"

Did it for me.

Run, Quasar, Run!