Splicetoday

Politics & Media
Jul 16, 2008, 05:38AM

Coming Up Short

Judging The New Yorker’s recent attempt at satire using Dr. Phil Medley’s Silliness Threshold, they don’t come out looking good.

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Photo by realjameso16

I’ve decided to share my opinion on the recent New Yorker cover controversy. While it may be true that none of you know/care who I am, I like to think of myself as an amateur satirist, and thus my opinion on this matter should be regarded highly and maybe even taught in schools.

Now, I struggled with what to think about the illustration. Part of me disagreed with the negative reaction because satire is an important part of a healthy democracy. It’s pretty easy to just make jokes poking fun at something, much like what Jon Stewart does on The Daily Show, but I think it’s much more difficult and valuable to make satirical jokes which cause the listener or reader to think “Are they being serious?” much like what Stephen Colbert does on The Colbert Report. The latter exercise forces the recipient to examine the context of the joke and actually think about the issues surrounding it.

Having said that, satire is not easy, and it often falls flat on its face. I don’t know a clear and easily applicable rule for what makes satire succeed or fail, but it seems to me that the success often depends on how far removed the joke is from the reality it is professing to imitate. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but there’s a subtle difference between satirizing a thing versus simply depicting or duplicating it. I often feel that there is a certain threshold of silliness beyond which something becomes satirical. After all, the goal of satire is to make people think about how silly and ridiculous something is. I don’t mean to keep harping on The Colbert Report, but it’s probably the best example of successful satire in popular culture today: when Colbert introduces a guest and then jumps up and proceeds to bask in the applause which is not intended for him, or when Colbert, citing his inability to recognize skin color due to his transcendence of racial sensitivities, asks an African American guest if he/she is in fact black, it’s silly enough that anyone with half a brain cell will understand that he’s joking.

Let me give you some real life examples of satire crossing and/or falling short of what I am now referring to as Dr. Phil Medley’s Silliness Threshold (copyright pending): If a good friend of mine who is black is telling me a story and ends it with the phrase “God, I hate white people,” that’s silly enough for me to find it hilarious. On the other hand, if I turn to a stranger on the metro and say, “God, I hate black people,” that may seem silly to me, but not to the very angry gentleman sitting next to me who has no idea who I am or what Klan chapter I belong to. I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

This is why I think The New Yorker blew it—they didn’t cross the silliness threshold. Obviously, the joke they’re trying to make is that a lot of people incorrectly hold the opinion that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are scary, anti-American, Black Panther Muslims. It doesn’t work, just like my hypothetical joke on the metro.

Some of you may have seen recently that an American company was selling Obama “sock monkey” dolls. Maybe the people who run that enterprise and the people who bought their shit are not racist at all and are satirizing the racist depiction of African Americans as monkeys, but without such insight, the way it appears to any normal person is that this company and its customers are purely racist. When it really boils down to it, The New Yorker cover requires that you know for a fact that the Obamas are not scary, anti-American, Black Panther Muslims, and unfortunately many people are still on the fence about that and could be pushed to believe it by a depiction such as this one. Of course, we could talk about whether or not these people are retarded, but that’s for another article.

Discussion
  • Medley's one of the best Splice writers, but this piece "comes up short." One, Colbert is better than the unctuous Jon Stewart, but his act is wearing thin. Two, with all the ruckus The New Yorker cover has caused, it seems to me it was quite successful. After the initial blast by elitist left-wing bloggers, the tide is turning, as shown by editorials today in The Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun.

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  • Yeah, but the thing everybody is saying is "Relax, people - it was satire!" Of course it's satire; my point is that it wasn't good satire because it didn't completely get the point across. I think I saw a similar blurb about this on Splice a few days ago, where somebody pointed out that all the New Yorker had to do was put the image inside a thought bubble of somebody like Rush Limbaugh, and it would have made more sense.

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  • Phil, I don't think New Yorker editor David Remnick is saying people should relax. Rather, his intention was to make people THINK about the absurd stereotypes about Obama and his wife Michelle. Besides, John McCain can only wish he could get so much attention.

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  • You probably shouldn't use the word successful unless you are willing to share your definition. If by successful you mean creating a lot of buzz and selling a lot of copies, sure it's successful; but that doesn't mean it's good satire. Bill O'Reilly gets a lot of people to watch his show and creates buzz by saying crazy things, but that doesn't mean he is a credible analyst. He's more like someone who drops out of Design School because he learned how to do a couple things in Photoshop so he figured he was set.

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  • I agree that Bill O'Reilly's an unwatchable loudmouth. As is Sean Hannity. As is Chris Matthews. As is Keith Olbermann. And certainly Rush Limbaugh. I doubt The New Yorker was trying for "buzz" or "selling copies." They don't need to do that. The ridiculous notion that Obama is a Muslim—which is believed by too many people, most of whom won't vote for him anyway—was a legitimate topic for satire, and I thought it worked.

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  • I understand that. Obviously, that's where we differ in opinion. I think the cover did less to destroy the rumors than it did to perpetuate them.

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  • The rumors were perpetuated in people who want to believe them, who in no way would've voted for Obama anyway. If Obama had kept a cool hand through this, nodded toward the First Amendment and just stayed out, then this all would have been a lot calmer. This whole "issue" is simply a scream-fest with little to no bearing on the reality at hand: we're in the middle of the summer and damn! we want something to scream about.

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  • I think Obama's reaction is proof that the joke wasn't made clearly enough. He's sick of these rumors and has made it clear that he will respond swiftly and forcefully to them. Also, it's not a 1st Amendment issue b/c no one is saying the New Yorker didn't have a right to do this even if they were serious. I still maintain that all you need to add to the cover is the 'thought bubble' idea or even text saying "This is what stupid people think" and I think Obama would not have reacted to it.

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  • But the "thought bubble idea" is too simplistic. You're right, it's not a First Amendment issue, thankfully. But I don't think the Obama campaign responded "forcefully." After all, The New Yorker is in his camp. If it was a Swift Boat attack that would be different.

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  • A thought bubble wouldn't have changed this one wit (it'd be also less satirical and more literal). The liberal uproar created a news cycle with this cover, and would have done so regardless if there was a caption or not. The left is so sensitive to this stuff that it will be buried and forgotten as soon as something else comes up.

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  • AS: On that note, how do you think the left, and the Obama campaign, will react when GOP inevitably does some REALLY nasty stuff. How can they top the reaction to a friendly magazine? It could be a case of the boy crying wolf.

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  • In my opinion, there are actually two ways to look at this cover: 1.) It doesn't, as Phil claims, do anything satirical but rather visualizes claims being made and doesn't work to poke fun, or 2.) It is SO satirical that is over almost everyone's head who doesn't already get it, and still not being as effective as it could have been. I personally know people that think there are merit the these claims and they would not think this cover is poking fun at the idea of the Obama's being Muslim. But, then again, I guess you could say that the cover is sort of poking fun at them, too.

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  • Timothy: I don't know how well I can answer your question without eliminating my political/personal biases. The New Yorker, I think we can agree, is liberal in its politics (though in the issue at hand there was a piece on Obama flip-flopping). So, what would happen if the National Review had a caricature of McCain (in the same, no-stereotype-left-unturned tone) on its cover? Personally and politically, I think it would actually have a negative effect since McCain is fighting his stereotypes in very real terms—middle voters will actually need to be convince that he's not too old/out of touch/senile/not in control. I don't think it's too baldly partisan to say Obama's stereotypes are much more "fringe" in their support. Like I said before, the only ones taking the cover at face value are those who wouldn't vote for Obama anyway. Now, Timothy, to actually answer your question, if the National Review had ran the same cover as the New Yorker, then is it a double standard to say, "that's a straight up attack piece egregiously and deliberately furthering offensive stereotypes..."? It was glib of me to throw in the First Amendment line a few comments above, and no one would say the National Review couldn't run the cover, but given the pub's ideological bent (and hey, does it run a lot of cartoons inside its cover?), it wouldn't be perceived as satire AT ALL. I'm not trying to get into a corner where only left-leaning pubs can satirize leftist politicians and vice-versa (certainly not the case), but in terms of analyzing outcry and reaction, the National Review would be castigated for perpetuating racist stereotypes for their direct readership, whereas the New Yorker has been castigated for possibly/maybe perpetuating stereotypes outside of those held by its actual readership. Both pubs can run the cover, but the respective public reactions would be decidedly different.

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  • Good points, AS. Thing is, National Review would never run a similar cover to The New Yorker precisely because they're not supporting Obama. You may not agree with their politics--and I think their stance on immigration is despicable--but the editors aren't dumb by any means. As for McCain, during the primaries they threw everything they could at him--they were for Romney, talking about flip-floppers--and McCain still got the nomination. They're now half-heartedly backing McCain as the lesser of two evils.

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  • It's easy to make the blanket statement that the people who could be convinced by the rumors of Obama weren't going to vote for him anyone, but I read an alarming article on msnbc.com about this topic which centered around an interview of a man who lived in a small town in Ohio and hadn't decided for whom he was going to vote (maybe he was just paying lip service, but without more information you have to take him at his word). He recognized that people on TV were reiterating that these rumors about Obama weren't true, but he admitted to the interviewer that he wasn't sure what to think since so many people were perpetuating the rumors. Hopefully, the interviewer told him "Yes, it is possible for a large amount of people to be wrong about something," but regardless, this is a very simple man who would look at the New Yorker cover or see it on TV and go "It's true." And yes, he is an idiot for doing that, but he's also going to vote. I don't care about the people who won't be dissuaded from believing these crazy things about the Obamas, but it's not always so cut and dry.

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  • That may be true, Phil, but I think a larger problem for Obama (although I think he'll win handily) is that people, when race is involved, don't necessarily tell pollsters the truth. People say we're in a post-racial world, but I don't believe it. A lot of people will vote differently in private. That said, I think Obama's superior vote registration efforts will win the election for him. That and the fact he doesn't look and sound as old as Robert Byrd.

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  • Sadly, there are a few real Clinton supporters sucked into the PUMA tragedy—they'll vote for McCain to satisfy a deep-rooted vindictiveness. Will they predicate any significant shift in voting? Doesn't look like it. Sadly, there will be some people out there totally dumbstruck by this controversy and will perhaps lean toward accepting the cover's stereotypes as real. Will they predicate any real shift in voting? I highly, highly doubt it.

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  • I'd be very surprised if more than an extremely low percentage--Nader-like percentage--of Clinton backers voted for McCain or even stayed home. Now, Bill Clinton might vote for McCain out of spite, but he'll keep that to himself.

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  • I don't think you can ever say if something satirical or humorous ultimately, "fails." There will always be those who get it and those who don't. And I HATE white people!

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  • But don't jokes fail all the time? It doesn't mean that there is absolutely no one on Earth who would laugh at it, it just means that not enough people in the crowd got it.

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  • that NYer cover is ridiculous. satire or not, it's going to hit the silly racist people who believe that The Blacks are going to overturn the helm. and every clinton supporter who vows not to vote for obama out of spite ought to be shipped out. but honestly, folks, mccain cant be president: he's old, and prolly has a wrinkly penis. you know he does. your leader has to be hot and sexy! just look at nicholas sarkozy and carla bruni!

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  • PoMoMad, intentionally, or not, has a good spin on how silly this debate over the New Yorker cover has become. PoMo makes a dumb joke about McCain, which is fine. Much better than scolds like Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, who wrote this weekend that The New Yorker (she doesn't mention that that magazine features the writing of Seymour Hersh, Hendrik Hertzberg, Jane Mayer and George Packer, whose often-excellent pieces have been far more probing and critical of the Bush administration that anything Newsweek has published) ought to be ashamed of itself, For good measure, Clift says The New Yorker should've run headline above the cover illustration saying something along the likes of "This is Satire." Absurd.

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