Thu 17 Jul 2008
Daniel Drezner is featured in today’s New York Times online edition discussing the challenges posed to humorists by Obama. (I attempted to embed the video, without success).
Thu 17 Jul 2008
Daniel Drezner is featured in today’s New York Times online edition discussing the challenges posed to humorists by Obama. (I attempted to embed the video, without success).
July 17th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Challenging only if one is a politician first and a humorist second - otherwise one wades in with a meat axe.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
What’s absolutely true is that some of the things that Obama is synonymous are hard to joke about - those being Hope and Race.
Here’s one way to do it: http://sendables.jibjab.com/sendables/1191/time_for_some_campaignin
July 17th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
JibJab videos are the antithesis of humor.
July 17th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
The guy playing Obama in the JibJab video sounds almost nothing like him; it’s really disconcerting.
Anyway, the Onion has done its fair share of Obama-related humor.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
An attempt by The New Yorker that has more than Michelle, ‘(up) in arms’.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Humor like beauty….
July 17th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
There is nothing humorous about it! One could claim that the NYer attacks other politicians like this all the time, but then you would be an ignorant fool… the fact is, Obama is black. An attack on McCain could never be as damaging.. Earth to NYer, McCain is white.
The NYer played on race and religion. They gave people the imagery they needed. The fact that they say that the cover should be understood as “satire”, and that those of us who “do not get it” are not sophisticated enough to, is all the more insulting. We get it! It is racist. They may think it is cute, but “we” do not.
I have a cool satire front page… I am going to break a serious rule here.. and play the flip side… which is ugly.. to prove a point.
Why not do a NYer cover of some white men (“publisher/ editor types”) attacking a black man for a big bag of money, while they exploit his black wife? How cool would that be? Not cool at all, of course. Not cool at all.
Obama is black, these stereotypes and hatred exist, and joking about them is not funny! It is dangerous. It should not be tolerated. Maybe 30 years from now, but we are not there yet.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:04 am
I don’t think it’s nearly as important as its being played. This is controversy for controversy’s sake.
The NYer had the right to print it; others have the right to condemn it.
For myself, I think it did speak to the phenomenon of how those chain e-mails have defined Obama and his wife as horrible people, though I would have preferred a headline to make it clear how false these are. I don’t like how this image might end up sticking in people’s minds come voting day, but then again, I’m an Obama partisan.
July 18th, 2008 at 6:36 am
The New Yorker has a small readership base, Wikipedia estimating its subscribers for 2004 at 996,000 - almost all of of that readership is liberal, left-of-center or otherwise left-leaning whose votes will not be changed by this cover. The vast majority of that part of the great political middle in this country, whose votes remain up for grabs in the forthcoming election, has not (and by election time will not have) heard of, or otherwise noticed, The New Yorker or this cover. This matter does not amount to the proverbial pimple on the political ass. Take some tranquilizer for your hissy fit!
July 18th, 2008 at 9:38 am
frank,
you complain about the NYer because you don’t want the daily newspaper in a swing state to do the same thing months later.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:41 am
This is funny, but as with most Onion stories, it’s an attempt to turn what should be a one-liner into an article… the writing there rarely lives up to the headline:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/time_publishes_definitive_obama
July 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Pretty funny, Ronit.
The unfortunate truth is that there are many for which the ‘puff’ of this article serves as legitimate voting criteria.
Perhaps it will help…
July 18th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Rory: I may be an idealist, but I hope newspapers in swing states and other media everywhere would have the good independent editorial judgment to recognize, with the benefit of retrospect, that The New Yorker cover is feckless satire in the extreme, irrespective of one’s political position (i.e. - The New Yorker has made itself a laughing stock) - but if they don’t, then I suspect that complaints will not deter them from their follies.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
frank,
clearly, if the editorial board of the New Yorker was foolish enough to publish such bad satire, there’s no reason to assume others are smarter than they were.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Here’s a video of the editor of The New Yorker discussing the criticism of the cover with Charlie Rose.
There is also a more detailed interview with him at The Huffington Post, but I couldn’t get it to link.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Tilt away.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
The New Yorker cover is being used repeatedly as an image on Fox News. They keep brining it up.. they even used it to attack Michelle today. They did a peice on “is she really a radical”. Debating if she was indeed a radical black activst, while they flashed the New Yorker cover.
White publishers attacking a black family on a cover and calling it Satire. Most people are not laughing. It is wrong. It is dangerous. They screwed up, royally.
I do not care how “liberal” the mag claims to be, they should never, ever, have printed that and stirred such racial and relgious tensions. It is not funny.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
And also is not significant in the scale of things.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Like most magazines, the New Yorker is a 19th-century business desperately trying to survive in the 21st. Like Vanity Fair’s recent feature of a topless 16 year old, I would categorize this cover under “desperate ploy for attention”. It will give them a short term sales boost, and that is all that matters to the New Yorker - the discussion about “satire” vs. “stereotype” is superfluous, as long as the cover makes for good business. Please remember that the only reason the New Yorker exists is to to sell magazines. This is probably the biggest sales boost they’ve had in years, and whoever approved the cover deserves a nice bonus.
It is unlikely, however, that the New Yorker will be able to bring back advertisers (ad revenue is plummeting, and the New Yorker is reportedly in the worst shape of any Conde Nast publication). Within the next 10-20 years, most of these magazines will be out of business, relegated to the status of historical curiosities. As it is, the vast majority of the public already refuses to pay attention to such trivialities. Most people have more important things to worry about.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:29 am
And also is not significant in the scale of things.
I don’t claim to know whether it could be or is not significantly influential. How do you know that it is not?
There was a point in time in our recent passed when over 60% of Americans thought Saddam was involved in 9/11. This was the result of the propaganda put out by our government and endlessly repeated by Fox news. People in other countries who don’t watch our news didn’t think Saddam was involved in 9/11, not one iota. So tell me again how you know this cover is not significantly influential?
If you think the American people deserve a more accurate view of the truth, especially in matters of choosing a President, then maybe you could rethink your assumptions.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
If we had a country in which the majority cared enough to find things out for themselves, to base their opinions on something other than the imagery and sound bites they are spoon-fed, then maybe, this cover would be insignificant.
However, much that has happened in the last several years, proves otherwise. This administration; (how they attained office, how they have stayed there, and what they have been allowed to get away with), the war in Iraq, Abu Garaib…all of these are signs of an ignorant, uninformed majority…ready to base their approval, and their vote (if they even bother), on ‘puff’ (at the very least), and total deceit, at the very worst.
I hate to be so harsh and pessimistic, but that is how things appear to me. I hope and pray that the outcome of this next election proves otherwise.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
“…Abu Ghraib…”
(I suppose if I am going to accuse others of ignorance, I should at least check my spelling on something as significant as this)
July 20th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Soph mom- The spelling is not what is important. What is important is that you know what was done by the administration was imooral and illegal, and that the congress and the judicial system has let them get away with it up to this point.