For the satire challenged:

Are those least able to understand it.

He explains the problem very well. Check it out:

http://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2008/07/the-new-yorkers.html

He's got the room to develop it, as he said.

The satire doesn't fail. It goes over people's heads. I guarantee you there were people who thought his cartoon was serious. He even said that it developed controversy. so by your definition, it failed.

your point in the space you've got. Tom is correct when he says "Some more indicators should have been utilized in the cartoon in order to make the target of its satire clearer."

Blitt's illustration was supposed to be an indictment of those who actually think that all those things about the Obamas, as depicted, are true. But he gives no indication of it in the illo. Think about Jonathan Swift and A Modest Proposal. Swift was able to be understated in his satire because the concept of cannibalism as an economic solution was so patently absurd. But there is no similar universal understanding operating in the Obama situation; indeed, that's the whole painful point of the controversy—some people really do believe all those things.

Humor is subjective, and there's always going to be varied, different reactions by thoughtful and intelligent people to cartoons. But there's nothing in this cover that makes it stand alone as satiric commentary in the way it was probably intended. That understanding has to be supported by outside facts such as 'But the New Yorker is liberal', or 'Well, I know what the artist really intended from his other work.' Deconstructing humor is always treacherous, but cartoonists and other commentary-oriented illustrators are the ones who have to give it thought, because their success as communicators depends on it. Does Blitt's caricature say what it intended to say, all by itself? I think not.

All I can say is, it was immediately obvious to me. To try and "make it clearer" as people have been saying would have weakend it. For example, some have suggested that it should have included a caricature of rush Limbaugh, with the cartoon as a thought bubble. But that would actually be a satirazation of the left, because that would imply that we see Rush Limbaugh as a cartoon image terrified of Obama as a Muslim. At the time Swift wrote A Modest Proposal, there were numerous critics also saying that he was serious, and how dare he propose cannibalism. The real satirism there was in the hypocrisy of the English who were cannibalizing Ireland and at the same time acting self-righteous about the idea of truly cannibalizing Ireland. Since they were doing it anyway, why not just finish the job? is the point of the essay. Similarly, the real satire of the cover is in pointing out that the people screaming loudest that America is the freest and most egalitarian nation on earth are the same ones terrified of Obama as president simply because he is half-black. It is every bit as patently absurd as Swift's essay.

The context is in implication. I got it immediately, as did many others here. You are right that humor is suggestive, but I never saw it as humorous. Instead I saw it as ridicule of stupidity. That may be why it is that so many people din't get the context. You're not supposed to laugh at the picture; instead you're supposed to laugh at the assholes who say the picture is accurate. That's what The New Yorker is doing. And, if people really are concerned about those who don't get it being a joke, we need to and should relish making sure they know the joke's on them. that will end thier whisper campaign in a big hurry.

And humor is a large category, and it encompasses satire, caricature, wit & ridicule, as well as what you can't avoid calling, at the end of your post, a 'joke'.

I know full well what I was 'supposed to' laugh at. This school of thought I keep encountering on this topic, that anyone who finds fault with the illustration doesn't get it (implying that we just aren't as savvy as the people who get it), is very very tiresome. Congratulating yourself on your sophistication doesn't retire the argument. The test of true wit is in implication, of course. But the illustration does not imply anything, as it stands, on its own. It requires explanation, the sure death of any joke, and that is what ultimately weakens it as satire.

I didn't make any claims as to whether someone is more savvy based on whether they get what the cover is about. And the joke is not the cover, because the picture isn't funny. Prank would probably be a better word for it. Sarcasm quite often does require explanation to be seen; for example, A Modest Proposal is the subject of many high school and college English Lit lectures.

And that's what happened with the New Yorker. It's not satire, it's not NOT satire--it's a failed attempt at satire.

to understand it."

I'm with you on the point that there are some who yell "Prejudice" way WAY too soon and too often.

But the bigger part of The New Yorker issue is about how that cover is understood by "those least able to understand it."

agrees or disagrees with them.

But Rogers's cartoon IS a Satire, because it ridicules Joe Sixpack's bigotry. Satire has the element of saying something in effect "Look at how ridiculous this attitude/belief/idea is". The New Yorker cover, in and of itself, does NOT do that.

depict those who are of that attitude, or who believe _______, or think ____________. The New Yorker didn't do that, ergo, it's not Satire.

Satire or not, I'm not disputing The New Yorker's right to publish this. Let's just call it what it REALLY is, A Hit Job = I wonder who will sign up on additional advertising contracts with TNY in the next few months and whether that will represent any kind of change in what preceded this caricature.

Because then you end up satirizing the people who believe that people who believe ___. Let's say you add Rush Limbaugh thinking the drawing. Then the satire is aimed at the left, because the drawing is then saying "look how stupid those people who believe Rush Limbaugh thinks that are."

We think he acts, walks, and talks like a retarded chimp, but no one actually thinks he's a real chimpanzee.

The Obama cover is different because there are idiots who BELIEVE Obama is a terrorist.

both sides of its mouth, trying, through plausible deniability, to have its cake and eat it to with a certain spectrum of the public. And it doesn't matter that many of "those least able to understand" will never buy The New Yorker, the effect is there and influences their attitude indirectly at a minimum.

But that's not what makes me angry.

What DOES make me angry is precisely the point Rogers is making here. The "low information voter" who is inclined to be against Obama WILL NOT get the point.

Their misinformed anti-Obama opinions will be REINFORCED by this, not enlightened.

Now that is really funny.