Breaking: Marty Moss-Coane Wraps Up Excruciating Hour Dedicated To People Too Stupid To Understand Obama New Yorker Cover
First up, for the record, we thought this New Yorker cover was a dead-on, and brilliant, satire dedicated to being the worst nightmare of every asshole who ever forwarded the Obama-Wants-To-Eat-Jew-Babies email. Secondly, anyone who believed this cover was actually depicting FACTS is too stupid to vote Barry anyway. Just leave these fuckers in McCain column, they’re dead to us, and just get to registering as many younger voters as possible, right? Thirdly, we have a hard time believing that any recognizably sizable group of people took this thing at face value in the first place. Rather, the whole flap is a media fabrication designed to push hot buttons and get people to say the words “Obama,” “Muslim,” “terrorist,” and so on in the same sentence as often as possible; because the media is too chickenshit to just come out and SAY that McCain is A FUCKING JOKE AND TRAVESTY, so this is the natural guilty response for giving Obama so much love over the past year. Yes, the American media has the same emotional makeup as an insecure, bulimic teenage girl.
Marty didn’t talk about any of this. Instead, she let a panel debate the nature of satire and other things that are as obvious as air, for a whole hour. It was awful. It was excruciating. I’ve never been so disappointed in Marty Moss-Coane in my life.
WHYY: The No-Actual-Thinking-Just-Repeating-What-We-Learned-In-Grad-School Zone
July 16th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Thank you! Of course, Marty’s just following Talk of the Nation’s (and Larry King’s, and etc., etc.’s) lead from yesterday. To be honest, her hour came off less batty than the stuff I heard yesterday on “national” NPR.
Still, and this may hurt those of us crushing on the Obama revolution, but part of this is the Obama camp’s fault for taking a CBS correspondent’s bait. If O stuck with the response to this bullshit he used at AIPAC (well, if he worked on his delivery of that response a bit) instead of denouncing the cover as “tasteless and offensive” I don’t think this shitstorm would have brewed.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Good article in yesterday’s Times on how the late night shows have shown a complete inability to write jokes about Barry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/politics/15humor.html
July 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Good article in yesterday’s Times about the late night shows not being able to figure out how to write jokes about Barry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/politics/15humor.html
July 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Having worked on many campaigns, the problem is not only getting them to register, it’s getting them off the damn computer and in the voting booth. Instead of taking the senior citizens to the polling place this time we should scour the coffee shops and parks and drag their ass to the booth.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
For quite a few patrons of the bars I drink at in Port Richmond, this cover is not satire but fact. But then I’m not there to talk politics, just drink the inexpensive pints of beer.
Also, think this cover fails as satire. Perhaps if they had tagged it a fox news exclusive it might have been more on target.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
i’ve been thinking a lot about this i was wondering when you guys were going to get to it. i agree with thinking “anyone who believed this cover was actually depicting FACTS is too stupid to vote Barry anyway.” well, in truth, i agree entirely with your sentiments regarding the fact that this is a brilliant piece of satire.
i will say, however, that this illustration is a bit acerbic, even for the seasoned subscribers. sometimes, new yorker covers are without question taken literally (read: when the slant goes the other way). knowing the new yorker’s style makes this illustration easily understood. it is possible though, if you were from a different culture and you saw this, that it could be construed as confusing. if eminem was on the cover of VIBE wearing a KKK outfit, people might get confused, however simple it is to figure out that it is satire. all i’m saying is that perhaps this new yorker piece, given our position in history and the importance of this campaign and race, might have gone too far.
and perhaps it’s not that “the American media has the same emotional makeup as an insecure, bulimic teenage girl,” but that it has the same emotional makeup as an insecure, zit-faced, late-blooming boy who ate way too much sugar. it’s more that the conveyed opinion (bought, sold, or otherwise) is merely glanced over without question than it is that the message is harped upon.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I don’t think I can go along with calling it brilliant satire. Satire should make its target look ridiculous. There’s nothing in this more ridiculous or over the top than the actual right-wing memes going around about Obama.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I think there are a lot of not so brilliant people in Montana or Louisianna that might think it’s a prediction of things to come if they don’t do something about it.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Way to perpetuate this non-issue. Echo chambers and such.
Nader, Bitches.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Satire should be controversial. In that they succeeded.Will certain folks take it as reality? Yes.
In two weeks, no one will remember it ever happened.
So I rate it a non-event