July
2008
Blunder Cover
July 21, 2008Memo to those offended by the recent New Yorker cover portraying Barack Obama in Muslim garb and Michelle as a machine gun-toting revolutionary: A sense of humor is a terrible thing to waste.
(These days, the following disclaimer seems necessary:
* Yes, that was a parody of the old United Negro College Fund slogan.
* No, the reference was not meant to disparage Senator Obama’s race or intelligence.
* Yes, I am disparaging people who either can’t see the obvious satiric intent of the cartoon or claim that it wasn’t portrayed in the proper “context”. This latter group seems to be suggesting that Stephen Colbert stencil “I’m not being serious” on his forehead.)
Another group of the cover’s critics acknowledges the satire but insists that the cover is still dangerous because the masses will believe that Barack and Michelle plan to display a portrait of Osama bin Laden over the Oval Office fireplace. Right-wing bloggers have jumped on the complaint that Red Staters won’t get the joke to (perhaps justifiably this time) paint Obama and the left with the brush of elitism.
Perhaps the most aggravating aspect of this controversy is that it’s yet another event in the news media/political cycle which stages pseudo-conflict over nothing of real importance. So Obama can’t bowl and wanted to imitate John Kennedy by speaking at the Brandenburg Gate. So John McCain can’t send e-mails and sang “Bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys song. So what?
Events of this sort become significant because they distract the media from (or allow the media to avoid) reporting on issues of genuine significance. During the same week that a New Yorker cover was dominating the media’s time, the publication of an important book by a New Yorker investigative writer (The Dark Side by Jane Mayer) providing new detail about the government’s self-destructive use of torture as a weapon in the alleged war on terror. But a substantive debate stemming from this book about how the two presidential candidates view the ethics and practical wisdom of torture as an interrogation tool never had a chance to gain the national spotlight, possibly because cartoons and Jesse Jackson’s comments about Barack’s testicles were at the center of media attention.
There’s an aspect of the cover that actually deserves attention for how it reflects our society’s religious attitudes. Consider the various charges made against the Obamas (the real focus of the cover’s satire) and the forms of exaggeration used to attempt to make them funny:
* Michelle is an angry, dangerous woman: Dress her in camouflage leggings and give her an assault weapon.
* The Obamas hate America: Have them burn the American flag as kindling.
* Barack is a Muslim: Uh… put a turban on his head?
The latter joke falls flat because it’s not outrageous enough. Satire and other forms of humor are means by which we can comfortably express what we fear. But it appears that we as a society are not comfortable accepting that a follower of Islam could be the leader of our country.
This suggests a direction in which progressive Christians can build from the divisions spotlighted by the cover. We can point to our own interfaith experiences as a means of pointing out the obvious: that numerous leaders of character and skill in our country (including U.S. Congressmen Keith Ellison and Andre Carson) and in other Western-style democracies are followers of Islam.
We can even note that if, as many conservatives suggest, being a Muslim precludes a politician from leading a democratic nation, then why is such a belief by necessity at the center of the neo-con argument for turning Iraq into a Western-style democracy?
If a controversy over a magazine cover is going to be a key issue in a political campaign, let’s at least use the controversy to advance a worthwhile progressive idea.