People really, really don’t understand satire
One of the countless addled comments floating in the tubes concerning the New Yorker cover:
The cartoonist should have drawn a picture of Obama with the word “N****r” written in bold over it, then explained he was only trying to make the racists look rediculous, and that it was only satire. hows that for satire.
Okay, that would be a no, Bob.
Psychologists say that satire is the last form of humor a person develops, with most folks not really getting a handle on it until late adolescence. And a significant percentage of the population never gets it at all. Think of the people who believe Landover Baptist is real. I had the same problem here with my genuine fake news articles, which altogether too many people took seriously. I guess it’s like asking a color-blind person to tell the difference between red and green.
Granted, there are people out there who do appreciate satire but nonetheless find the New Yorker cover objectionable or just unfunny. But I’m starting to wonder if they’re the minority. As I swim through the righteous effluvience of the tubes, a lot of the comments I see are exactly like this bit from Jon Swift (who, by the way, is a fucking satirist):
I don’t even understand the point of satire. If the editors of the New Yorker actually believe that Barack Obama is not a Muslim, Michelle Obama is not a dangerous revolutionary and that they do not actually burn American flags, as Remnick now claims, couldn’t they have just said that? Wouldn’t it have been simpler and clearer to run the illustration with a big X over it so that we knew what they were trying to say? We are not mind readers. It doesn’t make much sense to say the opposite of what you mean and then attack people for being unsophisticated because they thought you were sincere. Do New Yorkers always say the opposite of what they mean and then expect you to understand?
Of course, if most people really don’t understand satire, then the possible damage this cover could inflict on our irony-poor population could be significant. Perhaps it all boils down to how many swing voters look at the New Yorker. Did you know that in my county, the New Yorker isn’t even on sale? You have to drive to the nearest city and go to a fancy-ass bookstore with a coffee bar to even see the fricking New Yorker, all perched up there in a faux-wood rack like it’s literature or something. For chrissake, it’s not the kind of thing that’s on the checkout stand at Rite-Aid.
19 Responses to “People really, really don’t understand satire”
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Briar says:
I suspect this is a cultural thing. The UK is used to really cruel cartoons. Its reaction to the uproar over the cartoon can be summed up by this headline from the Independent: “Obama fails to see the funny side of cartoon satirising American fears”. (Note, Brits like a politician to display a sense of humour about humour.) The article also comments on the possible motive for all this outrage - distracting attention from the rather revealing article inside concerning Obama’s political roots in Chicago. As a long observer of politicians and their scenes, I have found the cynical explanation is almost always the correct one. My money is on that one today, too.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:22 am EST -
orlando says:
What is profoundly offensive is that guy thinking he has the right to call himself Jon Swift.
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Ugsome says:
I saw Aline Kominsky-Crumb at a book signing at Quimby’s in Chicago. During the Q&A, Kominsky, who lives in France with her husband, cartoonist Robert Crumb, noted that in Europe people get satire.
French papers publish cartoons that would curl Americans’ hair. Charlie Hebdo dishes up a heaping pile of rude cartoons every week and no one gets excited.
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Ciccina says:
One thing I’ve noticed from grazing on the gazillion comments posted about the N Yorker cover:
so many people, ostensibly good progressive or liberal people, make the argument that this election is Just Too Important to risk any kind of communication that might be misunderstood…
… in other words, we’re at war and the N Yorker is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. At this time, we all need to come together and rally around the flag. You’d better watch what you say. And so on.
Obama must have some kind of dog whistle that only purported lefties with authoritarian tendencies can hear.
Now Obama says the cover wasn’t offensive to him per se - he’s offended because the cover was offensive to Muslims. This from the man who has treated the term Muslim as if its the ultimate slur.
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Delphyne says:
Violet, having just found you in the past few months, I didn’t know you wrote the genuine fake news - are you going to do it again? They were hilarious! The one about the Pope made me spit out my tea!
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grayslady says:
I appreciate clever satire as much as the next person (at least among those of us who appreciate satire). I am also someone who has not (he’s one of my senators) and will not vote for Obama, even though I used to be a staunch Democrat (prior to May 31, 2008). However, even though I can’t stand Obama, I thought the New Yorker cover was tasteless, as well as being poorly timed. To be effective, IMO, satire needs to be timely, and, based on the current news about Obama, his association with former domestic terrorists doesn’t top the list of people’s concerns about the man as a candidate.
Now, if the cover had shown Obama as a puppet, with the strings being pulled by Chicago Machine politicians, or various members of the DNC and so-called “party leadership”, it would have more accurately reflected current negative opinion about Obama. It also would have tied in more appropriately to the story line within the magazine. But to manufacture an absurd scenario, rather than focusing on any of the numerous, and more legitimate, concerns about Obama, is to abuse the effective role of satire. It just creates another type of situation in which all of us who don’t support Obama are being accused of racism or cultural bigotry instead of focusing on our genuine concerns that the man is inexperienced, incompetent and lacking core values.
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GRL says:
Two new stories…..
More Bilge from Obama–Another Empty Fundraising Letter (Which I Reflect Upon with Help from Charlie Chan)
http://preview.tinyurl.com/63jvmyBreaking: Tory Leader David Cameron “Hearts” Obama, Talks about “Progessive Goals” Achieved by “Conservative Means”
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5uouh8The latter one is rather scary!! The ultimate fusion of the parties??
Both are the current leads at http://insightanalytical.wordpress.com
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sister of ye says:
Maybe it’s partly another of those age-gap things. I grew up on satire - Mad Magazine, Rocky & Bullwinkle, old Warner Brothers cartoons. Did Strawberry Shortcake, the Care Bears and the Smurfs ruin the world after all?
Although I find the Smurfs hilarious, not to mention rather perverse. I’m afraid I follow the Tom Lehrer philosophy: “When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.”
Or perhaps boomers like me were irremediably warped by all those duck-and-cover drills. You had to learn to see the absurd and slightly twisted side of life. Kind of like Weird Al’s Christmas At Ground Zero.
Laughing at people for skin color, gender, sexual orientation and the culture they grew up in is mean. But the follies, absurdities and venality they embrace as adults is quite another matter. That’s why politiicians, especially Republicans, are so amusing - at least until you have to weep over the people their words and actions harm in the real world.
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Sinyet says:
I expected some pushback (that never came) to a New Yorker cover of a few years back. It showed a strap-hanging Osama bin Laden, in full regalia, in a crowded NYC subway car, craning his neck to puzzle out exactly where on the subway map he was. The rest of the people on the train pay him no mind, as the read, listen to their iPods, snooze, or gaze off into the nonexistent distance. It was a hilarious cover, but I imagined the possible objections: How dare you put an armed Osama on a New York subway? How dare you insult New Yorkers for not noticing O. on a N. Y. s.? The only people who can complain about the Obama cover now should have been complaining about the Osama one back then.
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Shane says:
The response to this cartoon is pretty interesting. Its as if even satirists mocking the ways Obama is perceived (because unlike any other politician, you’re currently not allowed to actually satirise him) has become too much to handle now. The only acceptable humor is that used to defend him and/or attack his opponents (or mock Michelle Obama–that’s OK so long as you stay away from her hopespirational husband)–its kinda sad seeing political satire circumscribed in such a way.
It also vaguely reminds me of a passage in The Feminine Mystique with a magazine editor stating that his magazines only run ‘gentle humor’, because women supposedly don’t ‘get’ satire. I suppose progress is such that this applies to either gender now. ;)
Of course, the more serious issue is that this is also a convenient way of being able to distract from valid political criticisms, of which there are many. Rather than trying to address those or come to terms with the fact that Obama has serious failings (and thats putting it mildly) its simpler to imagine that all criticism of Obama is because people are just being racist. (’you only say that about him cause you’re racist’ is the new ‘you only say that about him cause you hate America’) So if the conversation can get turned to that and the implication given that the only way to avoid being racist is to support Obama, as it has over and over again this year, any real discussion can be shut down very effectively. I think its a very cynical manipulation.
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octogalore says:
I love the fact that NOW is up in arms about this, in light of the muted (to put it kindly) reaction to the Clinton TNR cover: http://www.msmagazine.com/news.....p?ID=11144. There are arguable issues with the presentation of MO on the cover, but sexism isn’t one of them. Are we basically cleanup for the other lefty movements at this point?
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gob says:
“a lot of the comments I see are exactly like this bit from Jon Swift (who, by the way, is a fucking satirist)”
– I assume this is satire raised to the third power….
Thanks for the pointer - and, as always, for channeling Violet.
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vbonnaire says:
It may have been satire but it made its point, as all art is only a reflection of cultural perception.
Actually? This is EXACTLY how they have come across, and your post below really talks about that need they have to be protected, no?
Personally, I didn’t think racism existed until I did a little research into Wright and the whole Black Lib. Theology gig. Apparently, it has existed this whole time, only we weren’t doing it!
I’ve got a fab read for you! I was pretty surprised myself…! There is a larger dialogue that the O’s need to be having with the American Public and they aren’t. P.S. Newsweek has a really great piece up on how he got his start–tandem to the New Yorker piece. Usery? That’s huge in that camp…Spin? ditto!
Yuck.
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apostate says:
Orlando - Jon Swift (the blogger) is a frickin’ genius. He can call himself anything he likes as long as he keeps delivering the kind of unmatched unrelieved satire he’s been writing for us for free.
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myiq2xu says:
The problem for Obama and his followers is that he is a fad, and once a fad becomes the target of satire and ridicule it is no longer cool and hip.
Laughter is like kryptonite to a fad.
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myiq2xu says:
From Molly Ivins:
“There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity — like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule — that’s what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel — it’s vulgar.”
RIP Molly
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Perry Logan says:
What we see in our Obamite friends is anger–one of the Five Stages of Realizing Your Candidate Sucks.
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Anna Belle says:
Grayslady, I respect your opinion, but I have to chuckle. They had an editor from the NY’er on Talk of the Nation on Tuesday defending the cover, and he made a comment that I see the truth of all over the Intertubes, including in your comment: (paraphrase) “What we’re seeing is a lot of frustrated amateur art directors out there saying things like, ‘if only they had done this, or that.’”
That said, the reaction to this cover is borne of two things, in my opinion. First is black cultural paranoia. You see this all the time in the rush to condemn something as racist that isn’t really in the least racist, just because some opportunistic “Civil rights leader” jumps on a bandwagon. There’s a whole group of people, many of whom have now rushed to Obama’s side, who make a living on faux racial outrage. As a result of these people holding the reigns of power for so long, regular black folks are now extremely paranoid about racism, and it makes for some interesting cultural dynamics both within and without the black culture.
The second is the Stockholm effect on so-called liberals and progressives after 8 long years of authoritarian rule. They now accept and adopt the same tactics, even as they rail against them, because they have been slowly brainwashed to accept them, and because they have no actual principles or values other than consumption, fucking, and fighting. I and many others warned about this back in 2000, but Nader voters wouldn’t listen. Now they will have to learn this lesson themselves, except that Obama isn’t in any way anything like the great Gore. He’s actually less than Bush in terms of quality. While not in any way the purpose of my break with the Democratic Party, it is a pretty satisfying afterthought that they will get their just desserts, even if I have to continue to suffer. Don’t blame me, I voted for Hillary.
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ea says:
for Anna Belle
Enough with the blame Nader. He did not cost anyone an election. I, and other non-Democrats, owe no allegiance whatsoever to a party of which I am not now and have never been a member.
If you are upset that George W. Bush was made President by the Supreme Court, take it up with the Court. If you are upset that Gore decided not to pursue a state-wide recount in Florida, which he would have WON, take it up with Gore. If you are upset that so many people voted for George W. Bush that the election between Gore and Bush was so close, take it up with the PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR BUSH!
