The recent New Yorker cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama in radical drag, as it were, hasn't been discussed here on viz. It deserves a mention, since the nature and definition of satire has been discussed on the site before.
In my opinion, it fails utterly as satire. First of all, anytime anything requires extensive explanation AS SATIRE, it probably isn't the most adept or polished attempt. This week's New York Times "Week in Review" piece, written by Lee Siegel, agrees. In it, Siegel concludes that "By presenting a mad or contemptible partisan sentiment as a mainstream one, by accurately reproducing it and by neglecting to position the target of a slur — the Obamas — in relation to the producers of the slur, The New Yorker seems to have unwittingly reiterated the misconception it meant to lampoon."
I agree, and not because I think the Obamas are off-limits as targets for satire, or that they themselves think they are off-limits (a conclusion I've heard on cable news from some on the "lunatic fringe" Siegel mentions). To me, the so-called satire of the piece fails because, rather than seeming to satirize the intellectual laziness, the total divorce from reality, required to hold the views depicted here, it seems to satirize the Obamas themselves for producing those views, instead of those who maintain and perpetuate them. The message is confused, the execution, confusing. Grade: F.
Comments
Satire and audience
I disagree; I think the cover is quite humorous.
What Siegel and many other commentators seem to have missed is any discussion of audience. In the quote above, Seigel repeats one of the major complaints about the cover, namely that it is going to reinforce these stereotypes of the Obamas. But I find this claim ridiculous. What reader of The New Yorker would think that an image as exaggerated as this one is meant to be taken seriously? It is pure hyperbole. The New Yorker regularly contains sophisticated humor, something that its readers could be reasonably expected to be aware of and prepared for. I would be very surprised if any sizable number of the magazine’s readers needed to have the satirical intent of this cover explained to them.
That is not to say that everybody gets it. Of course there are going to be people who would misunderstand this joke. (And in this group I’m not including those who have no sense of humor.)
Further, I would say that all satire wittingly reproduces whatever slur or misconception it targets for the express purpose of demonstrating that said slur or misconception is ludicrous, an emperor with no clothes. Without repeating the slur—usually in a slightly modified form—it wouldn’t be satire at all.
As you point out, there is a lack of context on the cover. However, I believe the magazine and its audience provides the necessary context for understanding the intent and target of the joke. I think you would be hard pressed to demonstrate what it is in the image that is satirizing the Obama’s themselves, rather than satirizing the rumors and lies that have been spread about them online. The reason I think this is the case is that the image only mocks what others have said about them, not any of their own foibles.
Counterargument
For a more incendiary, and therefore to my mind more interesting, take on the cover, see this analysis.
Respectfully, John, I disagree with almost all your points. First, even if I thought this was effectively satirical, I don't find it humorous at all; I find it just a little obvious (and thus I'm surprised to see it described as "sophisticated.") But I recognize that senses of humor, maybe unlike definitions of effective satire, are more subjective.
The most troublesome part of your response, to me, is the implication that those who take issue with the cover simply "don't get it" or "misunderstand" it. On the contrary, I think it's possible to understand both the cover, as well as the intentions behind it, perfectly well, and even so still to find fault with it.
Finally, with regard to your point about audience, first, I find that reasoning a little circular: the New Yorker knows good satire, and its audience knows good satire, and therefore this is good satire, Q.E.D. I feel like there are some assumptions going on there not everyone will share (including the blogger cited above).
Secondly, imagine that I walked up to a total stranger on the street and screamed, in a fit of performance art, "I hate your fat, ugly face!" Doubtless, this person, their friends, and any onlookers would probably be slightly miffed. Would their reactions change if I explained, in all sincerity, that my true intention was to satirize a culture that places supreme importance on physical appearance and good looks? Should they change? Furthermore, it seems likely that they would not be any more mollified if I patiently explained that they simply didn't understand the sophistication of my humor. And that I wasn't really talking to them anyway, but to the gaggle of my followers behind me.
This is obviously a *ridiculously* simplified example, but in all honesty I think the cover in question is about this nuanced. This is why I think the cover fails in its execution: rather than prompting a healthy discussion about why people continue to believe and spread the things supposedly satirized here, we're talking about the definition of satire. Not that that's a bad conversation to be having, but to me this deflection stems from the ineptitude of the cover. It just doesn't work.
And (and maybe this is the humorless part of me coming out) I do think there is a stake of the ethical here that should be discussed. In "serious satire," or maybe I should say, satire with a social purpose of the kind the editors of the magazine wanted to attach to this cover, there is often a sense of real social outrage. One thinks of Swift's "A Modest Proposal": funny as that piece is, it's hard not to miss the very serious feelings of anger that must have prompted it. What is missing from this piece for me is any real sense of context, as you put it. There's no outrage here, only a (poorly conceived) joke. But in order for the cover to have heft, I think there should be outrage, or at least some serious stock-taking going on, particularly about the way mass media and the Internet have changed the nature of slander and the art of the smear. In my opinion, the media plays a part in these rumor mills, even if it is not ultimately responsible for them. This would include, now, the New Yorker. But I don't expect to hear them (or anyone else in the media) accept that responsibility.
Explanation
Tim,
I continue to not agree with your overall position (I’ll try to explain why below), but I think you have pointed out a number of places where my argument is in need of more nuance.
First, when I called the cover “sophisticated” I believe I meant that its lack of context signaled the assumption of a certain sophistication on the part of the viewer, i.e. the cover would be received as satire, therefore it wasn’t necessary to provide a frame signaling it as such. This is quite different from saying that the joke itself is sophisticated. I agree with you that it is not. (That crudity is, I think, largely the reason I find it funny.)
Second, it seems I gave the impression that anyone who dares criticize the piece is humorless and dour, unable to pick out the most basic points of the joke. That would be a ridiculous generalization and was not what I intended. I apologize if that is how I came across.
Instead, I meant to indicate that the criticisms of the cover that I have heard seem to be excessively narrow. To return to Lee Siegel’s comment in your original post: he complains that the cover repeats untruths about the Obamas, thus making it bad lampoonery. This statement suggests that he doesn’t understand what it means to lampoon something, or that he thinks that the only lampoons that are okay are those that deal with “mainstream” sentiments and which “position the target of a slur . . . in relation to the producers of the slur” (whatever that might mean). Would the cover be greatly improved in his eyes if the image was depicted emanating from the mind of a little old lady sitting in front of her computer? To do so would, I think, diminish its impact as a fever dream of ultra right wing ridiculousness.
I think Siegel’s definition of satire is incorrect, and, as such, I think he is missing something essential about the nature of satire in a world where the genre is dominated by shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (if you disagree, I would challenge you to subject an episode of one of these programs to an analysis based on Siegel’s definition and see how well it holds up). By Siegel’s measure, Colbert is also a failure because it reproduces ideas from a non-respectable space (Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor) in another more “respectable” one (whatever that might mean) without accompanying commentary, presumably some equivalent of a giant sign that says “I didn’t mean it.”
This idea seems behind the curve to me. Perhaps I misspoke in characterizing that lag as missing the joke.
Third, the point I was trying to make about audience (however inept) was that most who are familiar with The New Yorker would perceive the cover as being satirical. Would everyone in the world share this perception? No. But the audience of The New Yorker is not everyone in the world, so criticizing the magazine for failing to appease this audience seems a bit unfair to me.
I guess I don’t follow your example, possibly because the social norms governing the two situations (what it’s ok for a magazine to do, and what it’s okay for strangers on the street to do) are so different. I would disagree with your implication that the goal of satire is “to promote healthy discussion,” however, as well as your suggestion that the only acceptable emotions prompting satire are those that are “serious.” I would say that the cover’s is more indebted to The Daily Show than to “A Modest Proposal,” and that this connection gives it more freedom than to merely be serious. Why does this cover have to have “heft”? Maybe this would make it more important, but the lack surely in itself doesn’t make the whole offensive.