It’s hard to make a joke about a politician like Barack Obama when he appears to be without flaws, says an assortment of comedians in today’s New York Times. The article was sparked by the childish outcry of both Obama’s and McCain’s camps about the New Yorker’s cover, which depicts Obama as a Muslim and his wife, Michelle, as a terrorist. They are fist-pumping each other while Osama Bin Laden’s portrait looks on and an American flag burns in the fireplace of the Oval Office.
It clearly, unmistakably satire. It’s titled “The Politics of Fear” and it lampoons all the stupid assumptions, half-truths, and falsities that people believe, or want to believe, about Obama.
More importantly, it’s supposed to be funny. It is funny. It’s certainly as funny and no less “scandalous” than another cover some weeks ago drawn by the same cartoonist, by Barry Blitt, depicting Obama and Hillary Clinton in bed together and scrambling to beat the other to answer a red phone at 3 a.m.
Fortunately, no one at the time expressed alarm that The New Yorker was suggesting that Clinton was a slut, or that Obama just wanted to get into a white woman’s pants, or rape, or miscegenation, or some other unbelievably dumb conclusion that might have been taken seriously, just as this cover is now being taken seriously, a half a century ago.
Here’s Stephen Colbert’s take, quoted in the Times, on the whole brouhaha:
Mr. Colbert said in a telephone interview that a running joke on his show has been that Mr. Obama is a “secret Muslim”; the New Yorker cover, he said, was consistent with that. “It’s a completely valid satirical point to make — and it’s perfectly valid for Obama not to like it,” he said.
Mr. Colbert said he had been freer to poke fun at Mr. Obama than other late-night hosts because “my character on the show doesn’t like him. I’m expected to be hostile to him.”
Here’s David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, saying he understands why people are upset but that in any case this is humor, that’s the point, we’re not sorry, you have the right to get upset, too.
3 Comments
Satire is an exaggeration of the truth. If the New Yorker (& pls do not judge those of us who are real New Yorkers by this magazine or our corrupt racist junior senator) wanted to satirize the myths about the Obamas they should have shown their purveyors in KKK garb w/ balloons over their heads. This was racist propaganda pure & simple. & given the slavish devotion of the New York “elite” to their Wal-Mart Evita I agree w/ those who believe that she was behind this.
Ahh yes, play that racism card as long as you can. Because whenever anyone, regardless of color attacks Obama, he/she is either racist or an “uncle tom.”
So I guess I’ll play it as well, Obama hates white people. Sounds stupid doesn’t it? I have no REAL evidence of this except for some gaffs, the same you have about the junior senator from New York— gaffs. And those are NOT evidence of racism, Miriam. Find some REAL evidence and cite it before you go blabbing accusing someone of racist behavior.
And don’t EVEN get me started on conspiracy theorists. I mean c’mon, are you really that uneducated? Or are you just so blind in your devotion, you’re willing to attack anyone for anything they do to support another candidate?
Back it up, or give it a rest.
IF THE SHOE FITS!!!!!!