By now, you've all heard about the controversial latest cover of the New Yorker, with Barack and Michelle Obama in the white house, he dressed up in a turban and she wearing a machine gun slung across her back, while they "terrorist fist jabbed" with an American flag burning in the fireplace and what looked like a pic of Osama Bin Laden hanging from the wall. I'm not going to write a great big editorial on it. Enough others have done that and apparently it's offensive to a lot of people. If it offends you, that's your prerogative. I actually think it's kind of ingenious: so totally over the top obviously fake in that it brings out every ridiculous, hyperbolic fear of some neo-conservatives as to what Obama stands for, and pretty laugh out loud funny too.
But just to placate those who are offended, here's a happy-themed Obama link. Truly silly, but fun. (Call out to Journey Mama's site, where I initially found the link while reading her archived entries...)
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4 comments:
Brilliance.
My favourite take on this whole controversy is here:
http://thismodernworld.com/4402
HILARIOUS K! I love it.
Sometimes I find it really hard to relate to American political issues. I don’t know why since we’re so closely connected to everything that happens there. This cartoon, for instance – I can’t imagine it even raising an eyebrow if it had been done in Canada on one of our politicos.
XUP, I think part of it is that they take everything so seriously. There's this certain sense that you just can't jest or poke fun at all sorts of stuff, this sort of defensiveness, if you will. I think Canadians, being the "Not Superpower", are just a lot more comfortable with laughing at ourselves and our politicians, and just don't see our politicians as so sacred, or so crucial to our Canadian identity.
I'm generalizing of course, but this is the general impression I get.
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