I think the New Yorker cartoon was pretty funny. The fact that Jonah Goldberg and G. Gordan Liddy have proclaimed that the cartoon is a pretty righteous depiction of the Obamas makes it really fucking funny. The lame histrionics over it have reminded me why I hate the internet so much.
The first person to correctly identify who the cartoonist is mocking in the above cartoon will get a half a pack of stale Newport Lights. Yes, I know the answer is obvious, but apparently a lot of people are appallingly stupid.
Amazing — no one has identified it yet.
I’ll do some research and get back to you with an answer tout suite.
I guess nobody really wants half a pack of stale menthol cigarettes. No accounting for taste.
Why, they’re mocking liberals!
Ten stale menthols for Susie! I know you’ll put them to good use.
You keep them, Chris. Consider it a bonus!
The problem with the National Review cover is that it doesn’t successfully mock liberals at all, but instead mocks the McCains.
It isn’t irony deficiency to make that observation. It’s true. The critiques of McCain (too old, loves Cheney, doesn’t respect the Constitution, wife had a pill addiction) are too close to home to make a joke of the people that note them.
The Obamas cartoon was not funny for a different reason. None of the caricatures had any accuracy whatsoever, but columnists for the LA Times and Washington Post think the cartoon works as literal truth. In other words, they see it the same way I see the McCains cartoon. They see little irony and a lot of truth.
The problem here is that I’m not on an equal left-right footing with Jonah Goldberg and Charles Krauthammer. The merits of the caricatures are much different. Put McCain in a Klansman hood and have him try to shove an aborted fetus back into the womb and maybe we’ll be on equal footing. Then I might recognize some self-parody.
But that’s what makes it so fucking funny. The morons don’t get that they’re the ones being made fun of or how obviously deranged they are. It’s sort of like the “A stupid person says what?” trick that was so much fun in first grade.
I get that the parallel Horsey makes with his cartoon isn’t perfect, or even very good. It could have used some of the imagery you suggested along with McCain paying tribute to his Communist masters in Saigon by hoisting the Vietnamese flag up the White House flag pole. But whatever, he went for something very obvious instead and I can’t blame him.
what you’re missing is that neither of them are funny. They’re not funny because the subject matter isn’t funny. I’m not amused by Jonah Goldberg’s employment at the LA Times. Are you?
Yeah, it’s pretty funny. Sure it’s tragic and likely a sign that our republic is near its end, but if you can’t chuckle a little on the way to your execution, what fun are you?
Gotta agree with BooMan on this one … the “irony” in the cartoons will be overly subtle for many, and not all that funny even when one sees it (and I do). The problem is that a very great many Americans don’t “do” irony, and won’t get it at all … the Obama cover for them is merely a reinforcement of the vague impression they have that Obama and his wife are somehow dangerous radicals, Muslims perhaps, and certainly not “regular Americans”. That’s what the picture shows if one views it literally.
In the long run, probably no great harm, but I can most certainly see why Obama would object to it. Most people will “get it”? I doubt it - consider that most people thought Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, had “WMD” and was a direct threat to the US. Or consider that most people loved Ronald Reagan as president, or most people think Hugo Chavez is a dictator, … etc, etc . Most people can be pretty clueless, in a political environment full of spin and imaginary “facts”. Magazines have a right to publish their covers, but folks have a right to object to them as well, and are correct in doing so here.
Yes, many people can be pretty clueless in a political environment full of spin and lies. This is true. And I’d certainly be the last person to argue that very stupid people prone to believing insane shit never read the New Yorker, or that very stupid people don’t, from time to time, write for the New Yorker. That said, very stupid people prone to believing insane shit aren’t the New Yorker’s target audience and it was perfectly reasonable for the cartoonist and publisher to expect that their readers would understand the satire.
And that’s one of the weird parts about all of this. So many of the people who are very upset about this cartoon actually do get it and they’re really concerned about the reactions of people who either don’t get it, or are actually the targets of the satire. This makes no sense to me. These people deserve to be publicly mocked and ridiculed and then to be laughed at behind their backs. It’s like worrying about the press corps reaction to Steven Colbert’s performance at the White House Press Corps dinner. Just weird.
It’s also reasonable to expect that such a cover would generate a certain amount of controversy, given the image and subject matter, and generate a certain amount of publicity. Mission accomplished, for the New Yorker, and that’s fine. But I certainly understand any objection from Obama that such an image is introduced into wide circulation.
Besides which, the cover is just not very clever as humor, although that is admittedly subjective. From me it just drew a wtf? reaction, as opposed to a laugh … like, ok, Barack and Michelle are being portrayed as characatures of the way some people view them … where’s the punch line? It just kind of lays there. It’s silly that people view them that way, and it’s silly that media portrayals sometimes echo these misperceptions … it just doesn’t add up to much of a laugh. Or chuckle. Or smirk.
The difference with Colbert is that he’s funny!
Obama deserves to be skewered after his FISA collapse. This thing is just weak tea in the current climate.
A cover with an angry Jesse Jackson holding a large pair of scissors in the area of Obama’s groin might be funny. I might laugh at that … Get back! Jesse’s goin’ in!