Having smeared Eric’s photoshoppy goodness with my sodden literalism, I feel compelled to note that there are absolute rules governing satire, just as surely as there are rules governing the physical realm. Jon Swift agrees.
Via Scott Lemieux and B.
Recent comments
- 160serpentinegmailcom on An open letter from the populists of the 1890s to the populists of today
- 160serpentinegmailcom on Trumpism, local and global
- eric on A wreck by any other name: on the inadequacy of “Great Recession”
- Brad DeLong on A wreck by any other name: on the inadequacy of “Great Recession”
- Alex on Hitchens minor on the English and their history
- David in San Jose on Trump, populism, Hofstadter, Heer.
- eric on What does Paul Campos know that the Public Policy Institute of California does not?
- ari on What does Paul Campos know that the Public Policy Institute of California does not?
- eric on Keeping a finger on gold
- ari on Keeping a finger on gold
- kevin on “Eight schools account for half of all history professors.”
- eric on “Eight schools account for half of all history professors.”
- ari on “Eight schools account for half of all history professors.”
- eric on “Eight schools account for half of all history professors.”
- eric on A life well lived!
This is officially an award-winning blog
Archives
- September 2021
- July 2017
- April 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- November 2015
- August 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- January 2013
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- May 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
The Edge of the American West 
61 comments
July 18, 2008 at 8:31 am
Vance Maverick
So is there an acceptable basis on which to argue that the NYer cover didn’t work? The Tom Tomorrow panel, for example, gives clear internal clues (maybe crucially, verbal clues) that it is not to be taken at face value. I don’t think the same can be said for the black-power cover (but it can be said for Blitt’s Ahmedinejad cover).
July 18, 2008 at 8:34 am
Vance Maverick
Shorter VM: can “satire” fail? (Also: Ahmadinejad.)
July 18, 2008 at 8:47 am
eric
I think it’s self-evident that the NYer cover didn’t work. You can blame the audience for being stupid or lacking a sense of humor, but it clearly didn’t work.
July 18, 2008 at 8:52 am
ari
I really think, at some level, it goes back to this: Obama’s a very tough guy to send up, particularly if you want to use images that touch on his race and background.
July 18, 2008 at 8:53 am
Vance Maverick
I agree, Eric. And yet the people who attempt to say so, and explain why, are mocked. Saying it’s self-evident is true but unsatisfactory (which self?).
July 18, 2008 at 8:54 am
ari
Also, as Ezra Klein pointed out, Brian Blitt is responsible for a lot of great covers.
July 18, 2008 at 8:54 am
eric
are mocked
The mockers are superior to me, Vance. What can I say?
July 18, 2008 at 8:55 am
eric
Brian Blitt is responsible for a lot of great covers.
Barry, dude. But that’s ridiculous. Want to tell me about the merits of Honky-Tonk Man because you like Unforgiven?
July 18, 2008 at 8:59 am
SomeCallMeTim
It occurred to me the other day that the caricaturist ran into the same problem that Dave Chappelle claimed to have run into: if your audience exceeds your expectations, some people might be laughing at the wrong thing. As I recall, Chappelle claimed that one reason he no longer wanted to produce his show is that he noticed some random white guy on his crew laughing at the wrong things. And, indeed, the Obama cover parallels, in some ways, the great “Does Wayne Brady have to choke a bitch?” bit.
So I guess I think the cover worked–I thought it was funny–and didn’t work, and that the “didn’t work” might be sufficient reason not to do it. Sad but true. But, also, we never figure this stuff out without trying it first.
July 18, 2008 at 9:00 am
eric
Saying it’s self-evident is true but unsatisfactory (which self?)
Okay, poor word choice: what I mean is, it failed because look at the reaction from the kind of people who are supposed to like it. It doesn’t matter that a few super-clever kids like it. (And note, it ain’t the little old lady in Peoria who don’t like it, folks.) It failed. You can argue that it shouldn’t have failed, but it failed.
July 18, 2008 at 9:01 am
ari
Barry, dude.
Oops, I shouldn’t be commenting while also taking notes. But there you go. As for “ridiculous,” I wasn’t making the argument you seem to be ascribing to me. My point was that Blitt is is often very good at his job and stumbled in this case. Why he stumbled is the open question.
July 18, 2008 at 9:07 am
Vance Maverick
Why he stumbled is the open question.
I was trying to ask “how”, but as Eric implies, that may be beyond our reach.
On a personal level, of course, we’ve all had the experience of trying to make jokes that fell flat. So we don’t need an explanation for why Blitt had the idea for the cover — no doubt he sketches lots of ideas that don’t work out. But the cover went through a long editorial process and then (at least in the objective reception sense Eric emphasized) fell flat. Perhaps part of the problem is that the editorial process was mediated by verbal discussion of the joke, and that this is intrinsically hard — a form of dancing about architecture.
July 18, 2008 at 9:17 am
ben wolfson
One needn’t base one’s claim that the NYer cover failed on general rules regarding the behavior and proper composition of all satire everywhere.
July 18, 2008 at 9:45 am
Vance Maverick
Right, as Eric demonstrated. I’m worried about whether one can create an argument about why it failed. And maybe this isn’t the place.
July 18, 2008 at 9:56 am
Luke
Not sure it failed. Everyone is talking about the New Yorker this week. Remnick was on Charlie Rose. I bet more people read Ryan Lizza’s great piece of reporting because of this. I hope that more people also read this.
The cartoon might have been stronger had it placed the image in a thought bubble above some
cornhusker’sPennsyltuckian’sFox News aficionado’starget’s head. But, I heard Art Spiegelman reply to that suggestion with “well, that would have just been dumb.”I think one of the big problems is that we’re all worried he’s gonna lose.
July 18, 2008 at 10:00 am
ari
One needn’t base one’s claim that the NYer cover failed on general rules regarding the behavior and proper composition of all satire everywhere.
Is someone doing this?
And yes, Vance, I think it’s probably beyond us to figure out how or why the cover failed, though I agree, based on Eric’s definition of terms, that it did. On the other hand, it drew a lot of attention to the New Yorker, highlighted the issue of some of the most scurrilous rumors about Obama, and prompted a pretty broad-ranging discussion about satire and the public sphere. One might argue, if one accepts any or all of the above, that the cover is far more successful than most popular art. Also, I still think the failure, such as it is, is likely rooted in the culture’s lack of tools for public satire, rooted in the establishment, about race and ethnicity.
July 18, 2008 at 10:02 am
ari
Oh look, pwned by Luke. Now I’ve failed. Utterly and unequivocally.
July 18, 2008 at 10:03 am
drip
I’m a little confused. In order to understand the cover as satire you need to know that Barak Obama is not a muslim, does not have a picture of Osama over his mantle, is not married to Angela Davis, and that fist bumps are commonplace in America (who wants to shake hands with a potential negro, right?) The cover was well drawn and just realistic enough to suck you into the momentary “is this real” mode. Then you slap your forehead and shout, “Ahhhh! Fooled again! It’s satire! I have beliefs that are false and the are part of reality and shouldn’t be! What a stupid I am! But, (and here is where the reader/viewer must exercise his judgment) I am smarter than all those people who think that this is a real picture!” Then you get to make a little knowing sort of chuckle. That is what the panel of experts cited in the post(Jon Swift, Tom Tomorrow, Spike Lee) all noted.
What I am confused about is why you all didn’t laugh, at least a little. The satire is at least as good as the “get disappointed….” bumper sticker (of which I have acquired and given away 7). Ari, I think, said the sticker was pro-Obama, although that is not the way a lot of people view it. Is the cover too close to reality? Does the fact that 15% of Americans think he’s a muslim, make it not funny? They (and their media idols) are the butt of the joke. I mean twice as many people think that the world is 7,000 years old! Am I wrong to laugh, or, as in so many other things, am I just too far off in the weeds to get why the cover isn’t funny? Or do you think the cover is funny, but are writing satire. Maybe an agreed upon signal (a Phyllis Diller laugh track, for example) could let everyone know to be alert for a little satire. Then, maybe I wouldn’t be so confused.
July 18, 2008 at 10:06 am
drip
I still think the failure, such as it is, is likely rooted in the culture’s lack of tools for public satire, rooted in the establishment, about race and ethnicity. pwned by Ari but no longer confused — its the culture’s fault, not mine.
July 18, 2008 at 10:11 am
ari
drip, it may be that the one of the questions is, who’s the cover for? In other words, if it’s designed for the group of people who found it funny at first glance, including me, it succeeded. But if it’s supposed to reach a broader audience than that, and if the humor is supposed to last beyond that quick flash of “how clever” I experienced upon seeing it, I’m not sure it’s all that funny. Again, though, funny may only be one of the goals for a satirical cover of a major national magazine. So determining success and failure are pretty much entirely contingent on how one defines one’s terms.
July 18, 2008 at 10:11 am
ari
drip, it’s always the culture’s fault. We’re liberals, after all. Don’t you know anything?
July 18, 2008 at 10:12 am
eric
The satire is at least as good as the “get disappointed….” bumper sticker (of which I have acquired and given away 7). Ari, I think, said the sticker was pro-Obama, although that is not the way a lot of people view it.
(1) Thank you for your support, drip, and in due course the Obama campaign will want to thank you, too.
(2) We are not the New Yorker. If we say something that fails as satire, nobody cares.
(3) “Get Disappointed By Someone New” is not satire. It accurately reflects many supporters’ actual sentiments: Obama will, assuredly, disappoint. But it’s far better to be disappointed by someone of whom you have high expectations because they have promised new and better than to be shocked and appalled by someone who’s hell bent on underperforming your worst expectations.
July 18, 2008 at 10:14 am
eric
Not sure it failed. Everyone is talking about the New Yorker this week.
Success as a sales venture is not the same as success as satire.
July 18, 2008 at 10:16 am
ari
Success as a sales venture is not the same as success as satire.
So, that’s a bit pithier than everything I’ve written above. Nobody likes a show-off, Eric. (Actually, I kind of do.)
July 18, 2008 at 10:25 am
Luke
Success as a sales venture is not the same as success as satire.
Indeed. But I’m not even sure that “it failed because look at the reaction from the kind of people who are supposed to like it” is a valid definition of “successful satire.” I mean, I don’t “like” much of Lenny Bruce’s stuff… but I would never argue he was a failed satirist.
Anyway… this is all besides the point. Satire shouldn’t be judged on these terms. It should be judged on whether or not it provokes thought or sends up the powerful. I think the cover provoked maybe a little bit o thought, but, frankly, most thinking people already had that thought. It needed another layer.
July 18, 2008 at 10:38 am
TF Smith
Beyond satire?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071703161.html?hpid=topnews
Your Air Force At War! (cue stentorious music)
July 18, 2008 at 10:52 am
fafnir
The saddest thing about all this is all the regular New Yorker readers who were just lookin for the cartoon caption contest an got tricked into thinkin Obama’s a secret black muslim. For shame, David Remnick. For shame.
July 18, 2008 at 10:53 am
drip
You guys are miles ahead of most New Yorker readers and writers. Really. And people do care, at least I do. I also think a lot of people who will enjoy the bumper sticker are leftist detractors of Obama who will think of it as a send up of his message of change. (“Ha! Ha!” as Dave Barry would say, thus signaling what he called “humor”.)
Finally, the cover is to attract people do buy the magazine so that the publisher can sell advertising at higher rates to Bergdoff’s or whomever. He doesn’t care WTF the cover is as long as rich folks buy the product. That’s a little cynical, but remember, you media guys, your product is not your content, but your subscription (eyeballs) list.
July 18, 2008 at 10:56 am
drip
drip….Don’t you know anything?. What I know would fit in my grandmother’s thimble and leave room for her thumb.
July 18, 2008 at 11:02 am
eric
all the regular New Yorker readers who were just lookin for the cartoon caption contest
Funny, the all-purpose winning answer works for this one, too.
July 18, 2008 at 11:09 am
SomeCallMeTim
How great would it be if Remnick mirrored Kael and defended the magazine by saying, “Everyone I know thought it was funny”? Which might well be true.
July 18, 2008 at 11:42 am
Walt
That all-purpose winning answer is funnier than anything I’ve ever read in the New Yorker.
If the “Get Disappointed in Someone New” became a runaway success that threw the election to McCain, then I think we can all agree that it wasn’t such a good idea.
July 18, 2008 at 11:52 am
eric
If the “Get Disappointed in Someone New” became a runaway success that threw the election to McCain
Total sales, excluding the one to me: 76.
July 18, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Walt
You’re going to feel pretty bad when McCain wins by 75.
July 18, 2008 at 12:43 pm
eric
Honestly, I still fail to see how anyone could regard that as a pro-McCain message.
July 18, 2008 at 12:51 pm
SomeCallMeTim
Honestly, I still fail to see how anyone could regard that as a pro-McCain message.
I hear that some people are holding discussions of how humorous messages can go awry. Maybe you can get in that.
July 18, 2008 at 12:54 pm
eric
Dude, I can see how you’d regard it as an anti-Obama message. But essentially from the left. How do you get from there to pro-McCain?
July 18, 2008 at 12:57 pm
drip
Total sales, excluding the one to me: 76 Boy I know even less than I thought because I represent 10% of sales. Every time I show it to someone they want one. Of course I am the one who is buying, so why not?
To put Walt’s mind at rest, None of the 7 stickers I distributed went to anyone voting for McCain. My mother lives in a South Carolina precinct with so few democrats, my father would find out if she didn’t vote for the (D). My best friend from HS is a Kiwi, and the rest are voting for Nader ;-)
July 18, 2008 at 1:03 pm
SomeCallMeTim
Dude, I can see how you’d regard it as an anti-Obama message. But essentially from the left. How do you get from there to pro-McCain?
To be clear, I like the bumper sticker. It makes me laugh.
But I think the claim would be that it indicates Obama is a fairy tale, and perhaps might be read as mocking his whirly-eyed supporters. I don’t it has to be read as a left/right criticism, just an authentic/inauthentic criticism. And then, if I’m a Republican, I show you what just came in from the new War Hero line. And gawd knows that there’s nothing more authentic than five years in a box for your country, my friends.
July 18, 2008 at 1:19 pm
bitchphd
it failed because look at the reaction from the kind of people who are supposed to like it
? Are NYer readers supposed to like it? All of them? It got attention, and made the topic of Obama’s supposed Muslimness and America-hatred (and the falseness thereof) all over the news cycle.
I’m sort of reminded of the Bickerstaff papers. Partridge didn’t understand that Swift was satirizing him: but his response made Swift’s satire *even more* successful. This isn’t anywhere near that level of genius, obviously, but I don’t think that having a target or audience “not get it” means that the satire is a failure.
(Plus I still think the cover is funny.)
July 18, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Neddy Merrill
I go back and forth about the failure of the cover. I’m tempted by the line that it would have been a great success in another context, but that its failure in the actual context was pretty easy to predict. My second-string thought is that it is a comedic success but a moral (or maybe political) failure.
July 18, 2008 at 2:24 pm
eric
I think it would have been hilarious if they’d published it the week of President Obama’s inauguration.
July 18, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Walt
75 leftists are going to vote for McCain to “heighten the contradictions”, eric, and it’s all your fault.
July 18, 2008 at 2:34 pm
eric
Your assumptions are faulty. 75 ironic hipsters otherwise too cool to vote are now comfortable pulling the lever for Barry O.
July 18, 2008 at 3:15 pm
bitchphd
a comedic success but a moral (or maybe political) failure.
Political failure, yes. Moral, I don’t agree (or see why you’re saying that).
It’s true that it would have been a lot funnier the week of the inaguration.
July 18, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Neddy Merrill
Some people have argued that the cover is racist, and while I don’t think I buy this I don’t think it’s crazy. In fact I think you’re racist for disagreeing, B.
July 18, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Cala
But I think the claim would be that it indicates Obama is a fairy tale, and perhaps might be read as mocking his whirly-eyed supporters.
Actually, IIRC, as it came up, it was mocking the people who were insisting that anyone voting for Obama was a whirly-eyed supporter who would end up whipping themselves into a frenzy if Obama didn’t bring about the second coming, as in ‘hey, all we’re hoping for here is to get disappointed by someone new.’
I think the cover succeeds as a satire but, like all satires, depends on the audience getting it, and the trouble is that the New Yorker doesn’t have perfect control over the audience.
July 18, 2008 at 3:39 pm
bitchphd
1. Neddy: bite me.
2. Does any satirist have perfect control over the audience?
July 18, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Cala
No. But I figure it’s sort of like that Chris Rock routine about how black people hate niggers. It’s a funny routine, but it doesn’t survive well outside of the parameters of the original performance (iirc, majority black audience.) when white frat boys start citing it.
I don’t think that’s a failure of the routine, but I think that Rock was right to decide that he probably shouldn’t perform it. And I think it’s similar here. It’s satire, but it only works given a particular audience, and crucially here, outside the audience are people who really, really believe it.
July 18, 2008 at 4:00 pm
SomeCallMeTim
Pwnd. Though I used Chappelle.
July 18, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Cala
I stand pwned. (Uh, sorry, missed your comment completely.)
July 18, 2008 at 4:04 pm
bitchphd
The problem I have with that objection is that it could pretty much be used against *any* satire worthy of the name: good satire skewers sacred cows, and sacred cows that no one really, really believes in aren’t worth skewering.
July 18, 2008 at 4:22 pm
SomeCallMeTim
It’s difficult, I think. Satire usually kicks up, not down. The problem with Obama–as it might have been with Clinton–is that he is at the same time both up and down. His biggest problem is his race, and playing on that–most directly through his wife–feels a bit like kicking down. If you’re in on the joke, because you don’t think his race makes all the other things said about him possibly true, it’s not a very big deal and it’s fair game. But we’re pretty sure that not everyone is on the joke.
Maybe this is crazy, but I think the cover was a noble failure. It’s good that the New Yorker thought it was possible to make that joke.
July 18, 2008 at 4:28 pm
bitchphd
The “kicking up and down” point is a good one.
July 18, 2008 at 4:36 pm
eric
I am sitting here thinking, yes, that is a good point. Tim wins the thread! Let’s go home.
July 18, 2008 at 4:37 pm
bitchphd
No, no, we have to solve the line-jumping problem first.
July 18, 2008 at 4:43 pm
eric
Oh, that’s easy. Lance Arthur was acting rightly.
July 18, 2008 at 4:44 pm
bitchphd
W00t! As long as I win sometimes, I’m happy.
July 18, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Walt
But the cartoon doesn’t skewer anyone. If you think that Obama is too foreign, and his wife is too radical, then the cartoon works perfectly well as satire. If you are conservative, the fact that the New Yorker thinks you’re stupid for thinking it doesn’t weigh too heavily on you.
July 18, 2008 at 11:33 pm
andrew
The audience for New Yorker covers is not the same as the audience for the New Yorker. Although I’m sure that there are people who claim to look at the magazine only for the illustrations because they’re too embarrassed to admit to reading the articles.
July 19, 2008 at 8:58 am
Giblets
Does any satirist have perfect control over the audience?
YES. Dance for Giblets, audience! Dance for Giblets NOW!