Will We Have to Cancel the Colbert Report If Obama's Elected?

[NashVegas]

Just when I was getting ready to write that I'd found a way to stop worrying and love Obama, along comes indication we'll all be expected to more or less have our brains out for the November election.

In response to the New Yorker cover lampooning the far right's irrational propagandizing against the Obama campaign, spokesman Bill Burton is quoted all over the press:

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

I think a) most readers will never pick up the New Yorker, b) if the uneducated masses should happen to pick it up, this will make a great "Obama teaching moment." And with all the attention the Obama campaign and its countless Volunteer Information-Stream Controllers are drawing to the cover, one would almost have to think they're planning to do just that. One would hope, anyway.

In the meantime, with the epic proportion of sturm und drang being parlayed around the interwebs demanding Barry Britt's blood and the New Yorker's ink, you'd think someone killed a puppy.

Pendagon writes, with no discernible trace of irony:

"Satire isn't funny when you have to explain it. The main problem with the image is that there’s absolutely no indication of satire involved."

If the typical Obama online supporter continues to imitate Dumas' Felton, I'm going to miss Stewart and Colbert, both.

http://imperialwitness.blogspot.com/

[jobycom]

1. Good words. nt

[Diamonique]

2. Unlike this cover, Colbert works because...

He is portraying a rabid rightwinger. It's the crazy rightwinger that we see on his show.

This cover was attempting to betray the crazy thoughts/beliefs of some rightwingers, but it left the rightwinger out of the equation. What we got was a caricature of the Obamas instead of a caricature of crazy rightwingers.

[KingFlorez]

4. Exactly

Some people don't seem to get this though.

[NanceGreggs]

8. Precisely. n/t

[grantcart]

25. as stated in another thread the satire is completely misdirected

[AllentownJake]

3. Colbert is funny

The New Yorker tries to be funny but isn't. I believe Seinfeld has devoted an entire episode into how unfunny the New Yorker is. When I want to read something funny...the last place I turn to is the New Yorker. There is a good article in most issues and some good analysis but I can't recall every really laughing at a New Yorker article or cartoon.

The cartoon offends me. I won't read them for a while. Sue me.

[bunnies]

5. What is this... asinine strawman day?

Its not on my calendar. :shrug:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

14. It's PUMA Day!

Oh wait, that's pretty much every day around here.

[bunnies]

17. No kidding.

Welcome to PumFreepa Underground. :banghead: Maybe they'll just get bored and go away. Yeah. Right.

[Peacetrain]

6. Well I look at it like this..

A person has a right to say anything they want (as long as they are not putting someones life in danger, ie.. yelling fire in a theater, ) but a person who is being "attacked" has a right to defend themselves.

:shrug:

[NashVegas]

9. So - Who's Being Attacked By the NY Cover?

Hint: it ain't Obama.

[LowerManhattanite]

7. Next. n/t

[Liberty Belle]

10. Exactly. The New Yorker could have made the satire apparent;

imagine for instance if they'd shown 2 images of Obama: 1 a Fox News viewer imaging the Obama depicted on the cover, and second a vision of Obama supporters -- perhaps Obama dressed as Superman flying in to lift up the poor and downtrodden. Then the humor/stereotyping would have been apparent, but as it is the effort failed miserably and in fact plays into the false stereotyping.

Just imagine the outpouring of disgust had the New Yorker run an image of a doddering McCain in a walker or a philandering McCain dumping his injured first wife to run off with his new honey.

[NashVegas]

16. The New Yorker Would Not Be Likely To Attack Dems Against McCain By Showing Him in a Walker

The National Review, on the other hand ...

[Eric J in MN]

11. "most readers" or the New Yorker won't see the cover? Huh? NT

NT

[NashVegas]

12. You Misquote / Mis-parse

Please don't do that.

Most of the people who have now seen the cover have only done so because of the brouhaha.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

13. Thanks for sharing your concern. nt

[NashVegas]

15. How Ironic

[frazzled]

18. What the bleep does Colbert have to do with a misfired attempt at satire at the NYer?

Look, satire is not under fire here. Everyone loves satire. What is at issue is a cover cartoon that failed to make its intended point and in doing so, reifying what a significant percentage of the nation already wrongly believes: that Obama is a Muslim, unpatriotic, a Manchurian candidate who is going to burn the flag in the Oval Office.

Since you claim to be having some trouble getting with the Obama campaign, let me suggest an alternative scenario for you to polnder.

Say the primaries had worked out differently and Hillary Clinton were our candidate. Cool. I could go with that and get behind it. Now say the New Yorker ran a cover that depicted Hillary in full bulldyke regalia, her hair buzzed, her eyes ablaze with "bitchiness," a gal pal at her side, with a switchblade in one hand aimed right at the groin region of a male aide, ready to castrate him ... and, oh yeah, a flag lies burned in the fireplace of the Oval Office and a picture of Ethel Rosenberg is framed above.

I bet you'd find that straightforward, hillarious satire, right?

[Alexander]

20. Yep, the PUMAbots think this is hilarious but would go nuts if it was done to Hillary...

[NYC_SKP]

19. Don't want to be deleted, so I'll just call this pure, utter "silliness". nt

[last_texas_dem]

21. No, but Colbert should definitely be run with a disclaimer explaining that it is satirical

because who knows *what* could happen if someone watched it and didn't "get" it?!?! (Who will think of the low-information voters? Will someone think of the LIV's?!?!!!1!)

[TheDonkey]

22. excactly, how is someone supposed to understand the cover as ironic or satiric in a vaccum?

There is no element of "reality" to help expose this picture as something hyperbolic and ridiculous like how in many political cartoons there is always a small character or something that helps alert readers of the satire in play. Right now this is just a smear and the article about Obama in the article does not even relate to the "satire" on the cover.

[Igel]

23. "Satire isn't funny when you have to explain it."

No, it's not. But that rather misses the point, and the assertion's misphrased.

Jonathan Swift is a tough read these days because the background, his allusions, are pretty obscure. Soviet satire is hilarious, once you know what it's satirizing. Same for Czech and Polish satire. Otherwise, satire isn't funny because you're eavesdropping from outside; satire relies on inside jokes, shared background knowledge, assumptions about how things are or what's said.

I had some students read some 1920s Soviet satire. It went right over their heads. I was laughing. Then, later, I had the same experience with some recent Russian stuff with satirical elements. They were eavesdropping on a series of inside jokes.

"Satire isn't funny when you have to explain it" might just be put wrongly. "Satire isn't funny to those who need it explained" hits the nail on the head because it can still be funny to its audience, and covers the cases where the audience misses it. Some fine satire isn't even noticeably satirical to those sufficiently not in the know. Satire is always risky. "Satire isn't funny when you have to explain it" can be true, but it's a special case. "Satire is never funny when you think it gores your ox" is nearly invariably true.

The 1920s Soviet stuff I gave "my kids" required more background than I could cover, probably more than a single text could ever cover. It's background I've built up over a long time. But when I read 1960s Soviet satire or current Russian satire, sometimes I still miss that it's satire, don't see who's lanced with the author's rapier wit. The censors were active in the 1960s, and some is so narrowly written, so convincingly saying A except for a small detail which points clearly to the text's *actually* only possibly saying "not A", that I miss it--I overlook the small detail which would have been obvious to somebody in the right Russian subculture. Not to me, an American. And, fortuitously, also not to the Russian censors. Same for a modern work that lampoons some current Russian businessman.

The important question probably can't be asked with the expectation of a valid answer: Did the New Yorker's subscription base mostly find the cover satirical or not? I found it strange; had I been shown the cover and asked if it was satire, I would have had to have said 'yes'. If asked, "Does it assert that the rumors are true?" I'd have laughed and said 'no'. It's a New Yorker cover, and completely over the top. Obviously satire or mocking the rumor-mongers. Replace "New Yorker" with "National Review", and, obviously, I'd have to change my answer (from 'yes' to 'maybe'). Were it on "Front Page", I'd have to answer "obviously not satire".

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. Go back to Capitalhill, you PUMA hack.

Disclaimer: This is satire of people who think you're a PUMA hack.