The Best Commentary on that Idiotic New Yorker Cover. . .
posted by Frank Pasquale
that I’ve seen so far is from lawprof David Dante Troutt, writing in the Washington Independent:
[T]he meaning of its manifest vulgarity— depicting Michelle Obama as a Cleopatra Jones of anarchy; Barack Obama, defamed by, of all things, Islamic dress and linked once and for all with Osama bin Laden, burning . . . the American flag — [is] up for grabs. . . .The cover is destructive and misguided satire because viewers act on its meanings independently, with no guidance from the satirist.
I know the folks who did this. I went to school with them, work with them, dine with them, pass them in the halls of my children’s school. I know them well enough that they are almost me. They are elitists, and you can know them by their smugness. Not only did they think this was funny and clever and smart in a pro-Obama way, but they figured that its edginess would separate the kindred readers who get it from the ignorant multitudes that would not. . . .
This is very Harvard, where I went to school; very New York City, where I live. Between then and now, I’ve watched the distance close between erudition and intellectual hipsterism. . . Like the Beltway they mock, they cannot help but interview each other again and again in order to understand the world. From within the four-corners of this downtown/Hamptons exclusivity, they never venture far — unless it’s really, really far, like exotic.
I don’t usually use words like “idiotic” on the blog, but I think it’s appropriate here because it resonates with the word’s root’s original Greek connotation of personal, isolated, cut off (as in idiom or idiosyncrasy). Commentators like Troutt (and Glenn Greenwald) cannot remind us of the press’s insularity too often.
July 16, 2008 at 9:05 am
Posted in: Politics
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Responses (13)
A.W. - July 16, 2008 at 11:20 am
Personally, I like the Clintonian touch of “we democrats are not bad, see… this is just us telling you what those evil republicans are going to do.”
This trope of “let’s fight dirty, because the republicans will be even more evil” has not exactly contributed to our national conversation. It allows your projection and stereotype of the other side to justify becoming a stereotype yourself.
The clearest example of that is with the lame and continual attempts on the left to “swiftboat” McCain. The reason why the swifties were so successful with Kerry, was 1) he demonstrably lied about his record in ‘nam, and 2) he undeniably defamed his “band of brothers” when he came back home. It didn’t help that to Kerry, it was all vietnam, all the time. no let up. he even turned a question about a bout with cancer into a story about vietnam. it was unseemly.
And as to my two points up there, first, yes he lied about his Christmas in Cambodia fantasy where on Christmas, 1968, he claimed to hear “President Nixon” on the radio declaring there were not troops in cambodia. Nixon was not president for several months and didn’t speak of cambodia until then. And no, that is not just an oversight. on the senate floor, kerry said that this moment was “seared, seared” into his memory as a moment he lost his innocence.
And as for point 2, Kerry was one of the people who did the most to cement our troops’ reputation as “baby killers.”
As for the rest, claiming that Kerry lied about other aspects of his service, that came down Kerry’s words agaisnt several others. Who knows what the truth is?
By comparison, there is no question factually about what happened to McCain, and no question he was heroic under pretty horrific circumstances. So in that case, the democrats who continually attack him do so thinking, well, it worked against Kerry, and its okay to do it unfairly because Kerry was unfairly attacked, too. Except Kerry wasn’t unfairly attacked; he deserved all of it. By contrast, McCain deserves none of it. But because the Dems are convinced in the myth of the swiftboat, they think they have licence to actually do what they think the swifies did: unfairly besmirch a heroic war records.
And all of this allows the democrats to pretend they are playing fair, when in fact they are not.
dave hoffman - July 16, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Frank, I don’t agree. I think Jon Stewart got it right: “”Really? You know what your [Obama's] response should’ve been? . . . Barack Obama is in no way upset about the cartoon that depicts him as a Muslim extremist. Because you know who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists! Of which Barack Obama is not. It’s just a [@#$] cartoon!”
JP - July 16, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I’m with Prof. Hoffman (and Jon Stewart).
Also, isn’t Prof. Troutt the one being elitist? His article seems to imply that you’ll only “get” the cartoon if you’re a Harvard educated New Yorker.
Deven - July 16, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Tangent: Sort of reminds me of parody in TM law. It tends to be the most obvious and unsubtle ones that are protected. If a court thinks that people do not get the parody, infringment looms. So here who knows who get it or not? And yes as soon as one goes into that question all sorts of problems arise regarding who perceives what.
Anyway do Republicans even read the New Yorker? (that was a joke folks).
Greg - July 16, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I don’t want the press to have to dumb down its commentary to the level where everyone will understand it.
Jason W. - July 16, 2008 at 1:35 pm
You left out the key part of Troutt’s “analysis”, which was his “four corners” reading of the cover. That’s an obviously incorrect way to read a piece of contemporary political satire, and it’s not the way 99% of the world reads anything. Nobody looking at this cover would read it solely on its face, but would bring in the outside material that the cover itself draws on: the right’s unfounded attacks on the Obamas’ patriotism and loyalty.
In this sense, then, Troutt’s statement that the satirist doesn’t come with the viewer to explain the cartoon is misleading: it doesn’t matter that the artist isn’t there. It does matter that the artist and the viewer share a common set of experiences — again, here, the relevant experience is “reading about the attacks on Obama.”
In that entire, endless piece, Troutt uses a lot of cute turns of phrase (erudition? or hipsterism?) but not a single fact. Not one.
Finally, couldn’t Troutt or his editors at least be bothered to spellcheck “Jon Stewart” (not Stuart) and “Keith Olbermann” (not Olberman)? It’s not credibility-enhancing to launch attacks on the insular white elitist media and then not actually get their names right.
Howard Wasserman - July 16, 2008 at 3:42 pm
My take on it here: http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/07/new-yorker-cove.html
I agree with Jon Stewart and everyone else in the “it’s a cartoon” camp. Although I think Frank (and Troutt) do have a point about the smug irony underlying the picture. But even acknowledging smug irony need not mean the same as “everyone else is not going to get this.”
Frank - July 16, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Howard, terrific analysis. and to the rest: i may well be taking it too seriously…having watched the Daily Show clip here:
http://www.radaronline.com/features/2008/07/new_yorker_obama_cover_full_court_press_01.php
but on the other hand, it’s important to realize that lots of the US gets its media from the MSM that Stewart’s mocking.
A.W. - July 17, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Jason
Yeah, why should anyone question his patriotism. I mean he only 1) refused for a long time to wear a flag pin, 2) then started wearing it when he made that stupid comment about small town people clinging to God and guns, 3) wants us to lose a war regardless of the facts on the ground. His wife comments, although they are his wife’s, only contribute to the problem.
Now look, maybe you could explain away all that behavior and prove he is a patriot among patriots, but don’t toss around words like “unfounded.” there is plenty of foundation supporting rational questions about his patriotism.
Anyway, all this is just silly distraction, manufactured by the Obama campaign. they are talking about that and how evil the republicans are, because they don’t want to talk about how Obama got the one major foreign policy issue on his plate in his 3 years wrong (the surge) and how he is determed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Ubertrout - July 17, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Honestly, I think the most idiotic aspect of this is how people are falling over themselves to call the cartoon idiotic and unfunny. I thought it was clever and sophisticated, and goes in a long tradition of New Yorker satire of media images of politicians. For another, see here.
Jon Garfunkel - July 17, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Blitt’s cover was boring because it didn’t go far *enough.* Why didn’t he have Obama wearing a turban nailing up Rev. Wright upon the cross?
Or, getting sized up for an American flag (to wear) in Brooks Brothers?
Or, somebody at Brooks Brothers fitting flip-flops on his feet? (and McCain’s as well…)
A.J. Sutter - July 17, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I agree with the many people who’ve pointed out the importance of context, and also with Jon Stewart’s take on the Islam + free speech aspects.
It strikes me that David Dante Troutt’s and maybe even Frank’s criticisms resonate with another cultural norm absorbed at Harvard, the one that, when someone casually asks “So where did you go to college?,” makes you say, “Um, in Massachusetts.” It’s a kind of prideful, noblesse oblige form of not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings. I do think both Frank and Troutt are generally correct about the smugness of their classmates in the media, but their hypersensitivity to it in this case may also have a Harvard etiology.
Maybe more recent alums are more direct, but among my cadre our first response in the Q&A was often vaguer: “New England.” But maybe it’s also a generational effect that makes me think the cartoon’s characterization of Michelle Obama is kind of positive and cool.
Frank - July 20, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Some thoughts from Lee Siegel (as an oblique response):
“The New Yorker represented the right-wing caricature of the Obamas while making the fatal error of not also caricaturing the right wing. It is as though Daumier had drawn figures besotted by stupidity and disfigured by genetic deficiencies — what might have been a corrupt 19th-century politician’s image of his victims — rather than the corrupt politicians themselves, whom he of course portrayed as swollen to ridiculous physical proportions by mendacity and greed.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/weekinreview/20seigel.html?pagewanted=print
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