It’s a JOKE folks. I don’t care if it goes over peoples’ heads. I don’t care if it happens to conveniently summarize an ugly current running under this election (wasn’t that the point?) for the opposition’s use. It’s a joke, and jokes, unlike rumors, are vitally important.
In case you haven’t heard, the New Yorker, a pretentious magazine if there ever was one published a rawther humorous illustration depicting the more junior United States Senator of the great state of Illinois engaging in what Fox News recently dubbed a "terrorist fist jab" in a drole send-up of that network’s alarmist tendencies! And they were costumed as a terrorist and militant minority revolutionary, respectively! And there was a portrait of known terrorist Osama bin Laden hanging in the West Wing’s Oval Office! And they were jokingly depicted as enjoying a warm fire fueled by an American flag! Guffaw! Pinkies out.
See, but it wasn’t read like that. For some reason beyond my faculties, the left (including the Obama campaign, not including myself) has taken up arms against this cartoon (yes, like a Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles CARTOON), calling it, and I quote, "tasteless and offensive" and that it remains so even after their patently obviously correct assertion that it was a joke.
I’ll leave the analogies to Islam’s violent and over-the-top reaction to the cartoon depicting Mohammed that was published in Norway (Sweeden? Whatever stupid country it was – doesn’t matter.) and get directly to the heart of the matter: satire is SUPPOSED to be offensive. And yes, satire is SUPPOSED to be tasteless. Satire that’s appropriate and tasteful is called a pun.
Was "A Modest Proposal" tasteless? Sure. Were George Carlin’s "Seven Words" offensive? Darn skippy. That’s why they operate as satire. It’s the job of the funny people to make us look twice at the ridiculous things that we do. If they don’t do their job, we forget that we’re ridiculous. And when we look at our own ridiculousness, we get offended. Then we get over the offense (hopefully … with time … and persistence … and luck) and change. And grow. People are less afraid of the f-word than they were before George Carlin took the stage. The well-off care more about the poor than they did before Jonathan Swift put pen to paper. The satirist isn’t the engine of change in him- or her-self, but he is the impetus to turn the key. He’s what makes us realize that we’re out of milk and we’ve gotta now schlep to the grocery store.
But here’s where this becomes interesting. The people that are complaining about this particular satire aren’t the ridiculous ones, or, at least, they weren’t until all too recently. No, the ones that are offended are the VICTIMS of the ridiculousness, ostensibly the ones the satirist was trying to protect; the poor, the undervalued users of vulgar language or, perhaps, the dry bowls of cereal.
This isn’t an accusation of ungratefulness. Rather, it’s an accusation of short-sightedness. We supporters of Barack Obama are, I should hope, well aware of the paranoia and apprehension that are standing in the way of our candidate getting elected. Rather than get all uppity when somebody consolidates this fear to illustrate its mindlessness, we should celebrate that somebody had the courage and wherewithal (and pretentiousness) to lay our national inanity out in full view. It’s easier to get smart if you can see how stupid you’ve been.
So why the victim complex? I (as an ill-informed white boy) suspect a number of things, chief among them a fear on behalf of the "cereal" that, rather than realize the need for milk, an illustration of the fact that the cereal is dry will cause our driver to vilify the object of his own irrationality rather than his own irrational self. I suppose that this fear is eminently understandable; why expect the closed-minded to change their ways merely because you’ve demonstrated their own closed-mindedness to them? But wasn’t this campaign about hope? Faith in the power of people to change? Confidence that the country is finally ready to accept what it had done wrong and strive for what’s better? Belief in the inherent competence and goodness of the American people? I understand that it’s easy to lose faith from time to time, but let’s keep our eyes on the prize, shall we?
Furthermore, our lack of faith in the satirist’s targets isn’t really the point. If this cartoon changes one mind, rouses one bemused and slightly ashamed grin out of one hesitant voter, then it’s done its job. "OF COURSE Barack Obama won’t burn flags in White House fireplaces. OF COURSE his wife won’t run a Black Panther chapter out of the West Wing. OF COURSE Barack Obama isn’t a secret Muslim," he will think to himself. Then his mind will turn to the issues, and the process will finally begin for him.
But that it moves that one voter isn’t the point either. The point is that we’re mature enough to examine ourselves. To jab at ourselves. To prod and scrutinize and then to giggle when we see the bottom of our collective stupidity. We deserve a Stephen Colbert Tip of the Hat for being so mature, yet here we are, wagging our fingers furiously at the humorist, who was, let’s face it, just doing his job. Not only did he do a good job this time around, but we need him (his name, for the record, is Barry Blitt) down the road just like we need Mr. Colbert and Jon Stewart and Bill Maher and … that those guys are all liberals is uncanny. And, I must say, a bit depressing. Come on, conservatives! I mean, Rush Limbaugh is funny, but he’s not trying to be. Zing.
Anyway, I return to my original point; this was a joke. To ban jokes about a topic as "inappropriate" is to render it sacrosanct. As soon something becomes sacrosanct, that thing becomes untouchable. Has bigotry really become untouchable? Because that’s what this uproar is implying. "You cannot make fun of bigots because their target is somebody’s race." That makes NO sense.
And don’t come back with "this was an inappropriate way to do it." Bull pies. There is almost NEVER such a thing as inappropriate satire. I thought (and do think) that the cover was very funny. I don’t care that it might not change minds. I don’t care that it might inflame some people. Those people were already gone. I care that we’re able to print that cartoon. Freedom of speech! Of the press! Tolerance! Pinkies out!
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