Satire, Like Most Art, Is In The Eye of the Beholder
Tuesday July 15, 2008
One of the best analogies I came across while reading comments expressing both outrage (see Obama camp response) and laughter compared it with Stephen Colbert's 2006 appearance at the annual White House Correspondents dinner. Colbert was in full satire mode at an event more comfortable with "bland buffoonery" or "insider jokes." Many - most? - traditional journalists did not find his performance "funny." Neither did the President. (I did.)
Flash forward two years. A highly vocal part of the liberal blogosphere has had its collective Hanes in a knot for well over 24 hours ... focused on a Barry Blitt cover, The Politics of Fear. (See nine of his New Yorker covers.)
The cartoonish characters recreate the infamous fist bump. Who is being skewered with this pose? Not the Obamas, but mainstream media and the inanity that passes as political reporting in America. How can Obama supporters not see this? (I think this is the funniest part of the cover.)
Barack dressed in traditional Middle-Eastern attire; Michele decked out like Angela Davis (Afro, machine gun, fatigues); an American flag burning in the fireplace of the Oval Office; an Osama bin Laden look-alike overseeing all from a fireplace portrait. What's not to laugh about here? It's every spam-mail attack on Obama that's graced your mailbox, rolled into one!
What Is Satire?
It's been a long time since I took English lit, and I quickly grew tired of the "it's bad satire because it's not funny" ... "no it's good satire and it IS funny" comments. So I decided to reacquaint myself with the art of irony and satire.
My first stop was Writing.com (emphasis added):
A satire doesn't have to be comedic (and is oftentimes quite the opposite) ... A satire's main purpose is to be political, social, or moral and not humorous. A humorous satire tends to be so in subtle ways, usually utilizing deadpan or irony in large doses.Funny, I don't remember seeing anyone talk about irony. Answers.com has this to say about irony:
Most clever and satirical art is in some way ironic. The layers of complexity are added as more than one meaning can be attached to the piece. The subject can be taken for face value or absorbed into the conscious of association. Ideas may possess more than one interpretation. The alternate meanings do not come about due to personal experience, but rather the typical association of alternate meanings. In this way ironic art is almost always specific to culture, language or time period.Irony is not literal. And one of the best social satirical cartoons around is South Park. Can you see this New Yorker scene in a South Park episode? I can, but I admit that I was not happy with the Hillary Clinton episode featured in the prior Guardian link.
The writer at eHow reminds us that the point of irony may very well be to be offensive. "If the main voice of a text does or says something offensive, chances are the author is drawing attention to the absurdity of those beliefs through satire." Remember that spam-mail I referenced earlier? That's what this means.
Then there's this gem from 1942. And Seattle P-I cartoonist David Horsey serves up McCain in a wheelchair pre-inaugural parade, in a faux National Review cover. Will the outraged left laugh at this one?
No Consensus
There is no consensus among the rabble or the 10 professionals interviewed by Editor & Publisher, although more think it was "clumsy" ... "shallow" ... or "tin-eared" than think it effective. But since you've probably heard very few people praising the cover, I'll clip this bit:
Philadelphia Daily News/WPWG editorial cartoonist Signe Wilkinson's first reaction to E&P's query was: "If you're spending time on this, it must be summer!" Then Wilkinson, who also does the "Family Tree" comic for United, added: "After the obligatory 'tasteless and offensive' huffing and puffing, Obama strategist David Axelrod said they weren't going to be spending a lot of time on it. I would recommend that the rest of the media do as David Axelrod does. It's satire."There was little discussion of The New Republic cover that portrayed Hillary Clinton as crazed. (Cover story: The Voices In Her Head.) Why not?
Ann Telnaes, whose work includes animated political cartoons for WashingtonPost.com, said: "I think people need to get a grip. The cover was meant to be a satirical comment on the rumors about Obama's religion and so-called lack of patriotism."
Calls for Censorship
Some have compared this cover with the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, in that there is widespread criticism of the New Yorker's decision to print the cover. Some call the image racist. Others worry that some voters will think that this presentation is "real" rather than satire. [Hint: those people would not pull a lever or ink a box for Obama anyway.]
It's amazing to think that a regional news magazine with a circulation of about 1 million could trigger this widespread foaming-at-the-mouth response. But it has. Pre-Internet, most people who live or have lived outside the New York metro area would never have seen the cover. For sure, they would not have seen it before it hit the newsstands!
The New Yorker is a victim of the frictionless dissemination of bits enabled by Internet technologies. Its loyal audience -- its subscribers, the people who pay the money that keeps the magazine going -- are not the people who are up in arms about the cover.
What does this say about the adage "know your audience" in the Internet age? Should the New Yorker focus on its core subscribers and basically say "to hell with the rest of you"? I mean, those folks yelling about the cover probably don't have a subscription to cancel in protest.
Are we doomed to lowest-common-denominator culture at the same time that these technologies provide the potential to support rich, niche communication?
My only regret about the cover is this: the gnashing of teeth over the cover has completely subsumed the substance of the feature on Obama inside: 15 pages entitled Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama.
However, those yelling about the cover probably won't like the reporting, either. It's more robust than the Chicago Tribune feature from 2007. I'll be using it to add to my Obama Political Career Timeline. For the starry-eyed true believer, it's devastating.
From Around About:
Comments
Hi Kathy
And excellent presentation of the facts. Just like you, I am completely in favor of total free speech, particularly humorous one. I think the hysterical reaction of the medias is more hypocrisy than anything else. Or sense of guilt for having their nose rubbed in their own complicities.
Hi, Alphast - thanks!
I’m going to do a followup, because I’m annoyed at people who keep saying he is “dressed like a Muslim” — no, he’s dressed like a middle eastern man. Some of them are Christian. Maybe some of them are Buddhist. They are no more “all Muslim” than Caucasians are “all” Christian. Grrr.
And USA Today’s “news” story was as one-sided as possible.
Criminey.
I found the Colbert speech to-die-for hilarious. I found this cover hilarious, too. I devoted some of my blog this week to expressing my disappointment at Obama’s reaction–he used to have a sense of humor about himself, quite recently, and the joke’s not even about him or his wife!
I guess this is what I get for having read almost every issue of Mad magazine since I was eight–laughing while everyone around me’s sputtering in outrage. I’m glad someone else gets it.
Hi, Jayelle!
Thanks for the note — and for letting me know someone else saw humor in the cover.
Belatedly, i just have to comment about this hilarious cover. everyone should get over themselves. i liked what Jon Stewart said, that Obama should have said that “we don’t get upset about cartoons. religious fundamentalists get upset about cartoons.” (i’m paraphrasing.) I imagine that Swift’s essay “A Modest Proposal” met with outrage at the time. (available on line, folks should check it out.) and I’m reminded of a scene in Annie Hall, when her WASP family doesn’t see a typical NY Jewish schlemiehl when they meet Woody, but a Chasidic Jew decked out with the black hat, peyis (side curls) and the whole regalia. At the time, I laughed like hell.
there are just a lot of “satire-impaired” folks around. Meanwhile, the New Yorker is a pretty liberal publication in its political sympathies. Amazing how easy it is to condemn something, you know nothing about, isn’t it?
Others have pointed out that there’s a lot of “we get it but regular Americans are too stupid to get it” reactions in all the harrumphing about the cover. The issue is totally sold out all over New York and, I hear, in other parts of the country. I hope they’re laughing all the way to the bank.
Thanks, Lee! I’m glad you wrote — and that we see eye-to-eye.
I found a copy, btw, through an online site that sells singles as well as subscriptions. It’s costing me a pretty penny (with shipping and handling), but that’s what I get for not trying to buy one Monday, when I knew it was gonna sell out!