Transcript
16.30 GMT-12:30 PM/EST
The latest New Yorker cover depicting Barack Obama as a Muslim US president knocking knuckles in the Oval Office with wife Michelle, who was toting an AK-47, sporting a military fatigue and afro hairstyle, fell short of humor with many Americans.
Sally: “I think it is racist, disgusting piece… reinforces stereotypes that are not true about him, reinforces lies about him.”
The liberal magazine’s editor, David Remnick, explains the rationale behind the cartoon he calls “The Politics of Fear.” Remnick says: “The cover takes a lot of distortions, lies, and misconceptions about the Obamas and puts a mirror up to them to show them for what they are.”
Washingtonian Anya Walker disagrees.
Anya Walker: “It is not really talking about the issue on the cover. It is talking about Obama’s issues in Chicago. He’s not a terrorist. That’s what people think of when they think of being a Muslim that you are a terrorist, and that’s the wrong perception about Muslims. Especially the Independents who don’t know Barack Obama and people just look at pictures, and they’re going to say: Oh, he is a Muslim and she is anti-American.”
The magazine’s lengthy article covers how Chicago politics shaped Obama. Nevertheless, the Obama camp said the cover was “tasteless and offensive.” His Republican competitor John McCain said it was “totally inappropriate and frankly I understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive.”
The New Yorker artist, Barry Blitt, completes the tableau with an American flag roasting in the fireplace and a framed portrait of Osama bin Laden looking down above the mantle piece in the Oval Office.
While some Washingtonians already see such images as sending extreme messages about Islam and the Obamas, others don’t find them offensive at all.
Andrea Herrera: “I am not angry or anything… I think it is a joke.”
Mathew Gallagher: “I believe it was done in good faith and for fun by the New Yorker.”
The New Yorker has a history of controversial political satire. Among the subjects of its cover last year was President Ahmadinejad. Soon after he claimed no gays existed in Iran, the magazine published this image of him, sitting in a toilet stall looking down at an approaching leg leaning in to signal a special kind of an invitation: gay sex by an American Senator from Idaho, who was caught around the same time soliciting sex in a public restroom.
Meanwhile, different groups vowed to boycott the magazine. However, from what we’ve seen, just two days after it hit the shelves, that issue of the New Yorker was nowhere to be found.
© IranVNC 2008. All rights reserved.
