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Fueling Misonceptions

Now that the New Yorker cover cartoon is a week old, I think cooler heads are prevailing. Here's Roger Simon on the Idiot's Veto:

[T]his was the main line of attack that critics of the magazine took. Sure, the ultra-sophisticated readers of the New Yorker will understand that the cover is a satire, the critics said, but many people will not. Many people, they argue, will take the cover seriously and believe that the Obamas revere Osama bin Laden, hate the American flag, carry assault rifles and are dangerous Islamic radicals.

And, the argument goes, the New Yorker should not have run the cover for that reason.

But this is what is called the Idiot?s Veto: If a single person might not get a joke, then you should not tell the joke. All humor (and everything else) should be reduced to the lowest common denominator just to make sure nobody misunderstands anything.

This would, of course, remove a lot of the humor from life. Shows like ?The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? and ?The Colbert Report,? both of which are almost pure satire, would have to go off the air. And the late-night comics would have to shut up. And many writers would have to stop writing. All in order to have an idiot-proof society.

To the extent that any arguments were over this (and Obama himself claimed that the cover fueled misconceptions about him), I agree with Roger Simon.

On the other hand, there was a distinct argument apart from the fueling misconceptions tack that Obama took--the tasteless aspect of the cartoon. I, of course, disagreed, thinking it was well within the wheelhouse of tastefulness that the New Yorker could print (but a cartoon of Obama flying a plane into the Twin Towers would have been over the line, even if satire).

Still, as the days move along from the original release of the cover, I think most people have realized that the actual impact of the cartoon has been pretty minor.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on July 20, 2008 (boomark / email).