LatinaLista — The editor of The New Yorker magazine has been making the rounds of talk shows – morning, noon and night — to explain that people just don’t get his magazine’s satire (translation: people aren’t smart enough to understand their kind of satire that only The New Yorker can draw up) of the issue showing Obama dressed in Muslim gear and his wife sporting an Afro and gun.
Even nationally syndicated columnists have opined that those of us who don’t like or are offended by the magazine’s cover are nothing more than a bunch of “yahoos.”
Who has ever said that all satire is good? Just because satire highlights what’s wrong with a particular topic, and in the process, pokes fun at it, we’re supposed to still believe there’s something wrong with us because we don’t laugh?
Well, maybe the reason is that while the drawing is nicely done, the satire it is trying to invoke just isn’t that good.
It has nothing to do with the readership of The New Yorker and the assumption that people of different socio-economic classes are bound to get the satire more than others.
True satire, like cartoons, should be universally understood without the need for translations or apologies.
It could be true that our sensibilities have evolved and that what is labeled satire by some is nothing more than an unfunny caricature of a deeper problem that is reflected back at us through the looking-glass of our media.
And when the picture is unflattering, nobody likes to look.
No, the editors at The New Yorker should have taken a few hints from the Internet kings of political satire, JibJab.
These guys know not only how to make their message universally understood but also how to make people laugh.
Can’t quite remember but they may utter a few “yahoos” in their films too.
