There’s a big hoo-hah today about that New Yorker cover drawing by artist Barry Blitt that depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as a Muslim terrorist and a militant Black Panther. The Obama and McCain campaigns have expressed outrage, and there’s much sputtering and indignation nationally. The New Yorker magazine said in a statement that the satirical cartoon “combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are.”
As an editorial cartoonist, I have to say that I love it. Every time a piece of graphic satire gets a lot of attention like this, it underscores the power of the visual image. Images can short-circuit our emotions like few other things can do. That’s why some of us are so drawn (no pun intended) to them.
Of course, with edgy satire there’s always the chance that the literally minded will miss the irony and the artist will lose his balance, tumbling into the canyon like Wile E. Coyote as his cry gradually diminishes to nothingness, a small silence and then a tiny puff of smoke signaling his flattened countenance against the boulders of literalness. But, hey! It’s cartoonland! He’ll be back in the next panel, good as new!
What say you, gentle blog persons? When does a cartoon go to far? Or is that even possible?
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