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Jon Stewart: unaccountably stupid (about cartoons, anyway)
Stewart has repeatedly taken the view that it doesn't matter what people say/write/draw/etc., so long as they might argue that it was just a joke, just art, just pop culture, or whatever. So of course he criticizes people for getting all worked up about the New Yorker's Obama cartoon. "It's just a cartoon." "Only extremist Muslims get all worked up about cartoons." Inexplicable.
Hard to imagine Stewart -- who is clearly a smart guy -- could be so stupid on so basic a point. Forgive me for stating this explicitly. One doesn't expect that adults need to be told this: Yes, it matters what people say, whether they're joking or not, because what they say may affect people's opinions, and people's opinions affect what people do, and what people do can either make life better or make it worse. The effect gets scaled up or down depending on how widely distributed the speech/writing/painting/tv show/whatever is.
My apologies for leaping to the obvious, extreme example, but the Nazi cartoons of the brutish-looking, big-nosed Jewish vulture or jackal assaulting a virginal Arian were intended, in part, to be funny -- the big noses, the fangs, etc. And yet they mattered.
Hard to imagine Stewart -- who is clearly a smart guy -- could be so stupid on so basic a point. Forgive me for stating this explicitly. One doesn't expect that adults need to be told this: Yes, it matters what people say, whether they're joking or not, because what they say may affect people's opinions, and people's opinions affect what people do, and what people do can either make life better or make it worse. The effect gets scaled up or down depending on how widely distributed the speech/writing/painting/tv show/whatever is.
My apologies for leaping to the obvious, extreme example, but the Nazi cartoons of the brutish-looking, big-nosed Jewish vulture or jackal assaulting a virginal Arian were intended, in part, to be funny -- the big noses, the fangs, etc. And yet they mattered.
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the Nazi cartoons of the brutish-looking, big-nosed Jewish vulture or jackal assaulting a virginal Arian were intended, in part, to be funny
This would not seem to me to be an appropriate comparison.
Satire -- that is, a work that is obviously intended to poke fun at itself or the position it purports to represent -- is not even in the same county as viscious Nazi-like "humor" that is intended to demean an ethnic minority.
I hope you will accept this in the spirit in which it is intended: Calling someone "stupid" for understanding a concept that one does not comprehend does not speak well about one's powers of discernment.
July 17, 2008 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're making a distinction Stewart didn't make. For Stewart, the reason not to get worked up about the cartoon was not that it was an attempt at satire, but that it was a cartoon.
I agree that there are hugely important distinctions between the Nazi cartoons and the New Yorker cartoon. But for Stewart, the element that lifts a work about criticism is simply that it's a cartoon.
Perhaps I'm not reading his comments generously enough, but I've heard him take the view several times that one shouldn't get worked up about vile content in tv shows or video games, etc. -- simply because they are mere tv shows or video games. I think Stewart meant what he said, and I find it unaccountably stupid.
July 17, 2008 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
But for Stewart, the element that lifts a work about criticism is simply that it's a cartoon.
Without having seen the clip, I don't know. But knowing Stewart's work, I'd guess that he would accuse you of using his words too literally.
July 17, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, it matters what people say.
But context and irony also matter.
We could argue all day about the right and wrong of it, but here's the bottom line: writers and artists are not going to stop using irony because their political allies are afraid that the masses won't get it. We've had this tussle every year or two, pretty much since John Milton had it out with his fellow Puritans. Earth to sober-minded leftists: It's. Just. Not. Going. To. Happen. We're here, we like irony, get used to it.
Fortunately, American voters don't give a ****. With their usual selfishness, they're paying close attention to gas prices, mortgages, and the Dow. Also, which presidential candidate is sexier? The cover of the New Yorker may fascinate liberal bloggers and Rush Limbaugh, but for the rest of the country, it's a 48-hour humor story, rapidly forgotten, and very unlikely to swing the presidential election.
Unless it does so indirectly, by reminding the Left of a fight it's been having with itself since John frickin' Milton.
July 17, 2008 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
We could argue all day about the right and wrong of it, but here's the bottom line: writers and artists are not going to stop using irony because their political allies are afraid that the masses won't get it.
Bingo. I don't subscribe to the New Yorker, but found their cover to be an amusing skewering of the idiot paranoid ravings and racial anxieties of the right. I imagine 98.4% of new Yorker readers have similar sensibilities, and got the joke. And I can't accept the notion that the New Yorker is under a requirement to dumb down their covers to protect every boob who walks past the newsstand from misinterpreting their intention, and getting the wrong idea.
Stewart is 100% right.
And the increasing prevalence of blog-driven, hysterical group-think and toadyism among Democrats disgusts me. Sites like TPM Cafe now seem like little more than wacked-out, co-dependent echo chambers of the faithful. I sometimes feel like our entire culture is collapsing into a nuthouse riot of demented partisan fanaticism and ignorance.
July 17, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who is trying to put irony off limits? Or jokes? My point was simply that a work is not -- as Stewart seems to think -- lifted above criticism, is not rendered harmless, simply because it was meant as a joke or as satire or as art or as entertainment.
If your point is in part that we shouldn't bother criticizing things that are certain to continue, then .... I just don't get that attitude.
July 17, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm curious what the New Yorker readership numbers are. I can't find them on a quick search and don't really have time too look now, but what's blaringly obvious to me is that with all the hullabaloo over the cover, a lot more people have seen it this way than had there been no "outrage" and it would have gone by unnoticed by so many.
July 17, 2008 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
"It's just a cartoon."
I'm with Jon on this one. I think I'm also with Jed of the JedReport as well, if I'm remembering his takeaway on this correctly.
If I was the campaign and was gonna "put something out there" ... it'd be:
"You know what we Americans do when we see this stuff? We laugh. Not necessarily because it's funny, but because we're a gracious people who chuckle at even the worst jokes. Knowing how often we try and fail at various entrepreneurial endeavors, we're never keen to spend too much time pondering the ins-and-outs of why this or that attempt at humor failed or succeeded. We tend to pass on reading too much into anything, because it either works or it doesn't. And when it doesn't, we Americans have always been quick to forgive and forget, particularly when it comes to the inconsequential. Even if, as some might note, we've also been too slow in recent times to pay proper attention to what really matters. Pause. And no, that last sentence was not a reference to FISA. I'm referring to Rachel Maddow's lack of proper Lakoffian framing in her latest broadcast bloviations. It's not that I'm not Muslim, it's that I'm a full-bore Christian. Accentuate the positive, sweetie."
July 17, 2008 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
If further evidence was needed that I belong here and not in the Obama campaign, well, there you have it.
July 17, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I love the picture of Barack chiding Maddow about Lakoffian framing.
I think the reasoning behind the Obama campaign's reply was that they had to *seem* offended, whether they were or not. Because the man on the street probably isn't going to get the irony, after all, and you don't want the Right to be able to say that you *weren't* offended by being portrayed as acolytes of O. B. Laden.
They caught some heck from the left for being humorless, but that's all between friends.
July 17, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've never heard Stewart express that viewpoint - in fact, he's said the opposite, that there are limits in what is expressed.
July 17, 2008 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you missed Jon's point. The proper response is to say it is just a joke. How much more attention did this cartoon get because of outrage? The Obama campaign did step away from the outrage quickly. That is a good thing. Sen Obama cannot look like a sensitive guy who cannot take a joke. It is in bad taste but bad taste is protected speach.
Your comparing this to Nazzi cartoons if the cartoon was printed in a context where it was being used to promote rather than ridicule racism. The artist may have failed but there is no doubt that was his goal. I support Sen Obama but not efforts to place him above ridicule.
July 17, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Jon's point was that it was just a joke, and therefore nothing to get worked up about. And yes, the artist's goal was to ridicule -- not promote -- the slander of Obama.
But jokes or novels or tv shows or video games can be harmful because of their effect on how people think, feel, and act. Do folks here really disagree on that point?
July 17, 2008 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
No one disagrees on that point. I think what you're fundamentally missing is that Jon Stewart himself is a comedian. His job is not to provide an in-depth accounting of when humor is and is not acceptable. He hits the big points without going into detail. Big point: it's OK to make fun of your candidate. Detail: sure there are situations like x or y where people cross lines, but that's not usually when you're making fun of your candidate.
If he was attempting to write a thesis on the topic, however, and his whole point was that humor is always OK, you'd be spot on.
July 17, 2008 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jokes can be hurtfull and harmfull. They can also be inapropriate. The question is, what is the correct response to an inapropriate joke? The outrage was disproportinate to the offense. The correct response to a bad joke is ridicule not outrage. "What a crapy joke.", instead of, "What a moral outrage."
July 17, 2008 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe it was Jon Stewart who said, "It's okay to laugh at him."
Presidents have been subjected to "outrageous" cartoon humor ever since we invented the Presidency. It's going to be a long, dull eight years if no one is going to be allowed to make jokes about a President with the most ethnic sounding name since Van Buren (who as you all will recall, was also rumoured to be the bastard son of Aaron Burr, imagine that cartoon).
And as long as we're looking for "jokes" to be outraged by, have a look at a recently revealed bon mot from Mr. McCain
July 17, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tom Toles' cartoon from yesterday is on point:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html?name=Toles&date=07162008
July 17, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is one response. Since the cover was "just a cartoon", I think that it should be judged by it's peers.
Take a look.
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/8/C/2/contextual-cover-art.jpg
July 17, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some other Cartoonists weigh in on the New Yorker "cartoon".
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/7/C/2/national-review-cover-tmdho080715.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/5/C/2/new_yorker_fist_bump.jpg
July 17, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
look, whatever else the New Yorker was trying to do, it certainly wasn't trying to slander Barack Obama--every word they've ever written about him has been positive if not downright fawning.
I thought Jon Stewart's point was hilarious, spot on, and much needed.
basilisk and the Toles cartoon, however, hit on the real problem with the cartoon, and that is the constant undercurrent of "racism" in this campaign. let's man up and say it out loud: the reason it's not ok to make fun of Barack or Michelle is because they are black. pure and simple.
July 17, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink