... what the hell is wrong with white people? And I'm white! It's easy for white folks to say "Oh, it's satiric! See, this is actually making fun of what some ignorant people think about the Obamas" but what this really does is play into those ignorant people's prejudices and, most of all, it offends black people. If The New Yorker did a cover of John McCain in a Nazi uniform, I'm sure most white people would be offended -- and rightly so. So how is this different? Hmm?
But how is a cartoon of John McCain in a Nazi uniform satiric? What stereotypes and ignorant fears does that play on? The New Yorker cartoon of Obama is brilliant on the level the New Yorker's cover 2 years ago of the Brokeback Mountain poster with George Bush and Dick Cheney, who was blowing on the tip of his smoking rifle, was brilliant. It's culturally relevant in a way only a weekly magazine with a highly attuned sense of irony can be, right?
ReplyDeleteThe fact is controversy sells.
ReplyDeleteWithout this cover, it would just be yet another specialist magazine. With this cover, they have sold a copy to millions who would never have bothered to buy one.
It's just straight economics.
Nothing that William Randolph Hearst wouldn't understand.