On Misdirected Satire
I still owe the blog a couple of essays on my overall thoughts about the Obama campaign, but I gotta get my two cents in on the New Yorker cover. The idea of the cover is supposedly to satire the various e-mail smears and rumor-attacks directed at both Barack and Michelle Obama and point out how ridiculous they are. And certainly I don’t think anyone who gives serious thought to the cover thinks it’s a literal depiction of anything that goes on in the Obama home. But the thing that gets me is, satire usually exaggerates the thing that it’s mocking. It’s almost the entire stock in trade of editorial cartoons. And there’s nothing in the cover image that exaggerates or distorts the people who spread/believe these rumors. There’s just a ridiculous caricature of the Obamas. So why wouldn’t a reasonable person believe that the purpose of all the exaggerated satire is to mock the Obamas and thus to support the underlying claims of those smears? It’s not simply the use of racially charged imagery that makes this a bad cover – it’s the poor design that left out the intended target.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.