Posted by Jed Lewison on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 10:18 AM Pacific

Context

If the New Yorker cover artist's point was to critique right-wing framing about Barack Obama (which I believe), the thing that was really missing from the cover was context. Imagine if he had taken the exact same drawing and placed it inside of a drawing a television set -- perhaps FOX News. Or maybe on a web browser -- perhaps LGF or The Free Republic. Even on the cover of another magazine like The Weekly Standard.

The way it is now, the question confronted by the viewer  is (a) is this caricature true and (b) if not, then who is spreading it. If the artist had placed it inside of some sort of context, (a) would have receded as an issue, and (b) would have been more clear. Given that I don't think the artist was trying to stir up a debate about (a) or (b), this is why I think it fell short.

Context

If the New Yorker cover artist's point was to critique right-wing framing about Barack Obama (which I believe), the thing that was really missing from the cover was context. Imagine if he had taken the exact same drawing and placed it inside of a drawing a television set -- perhaps FOX News. Or maybe on a web browser -- perhaps LGF or The Free Republic. Even on the cover of another magazine like The Weekly Standard.

The way it is now, the question confronted by the viewer  is (a) is this caricature true and (b) if not, then who is spreading it. If the artist had placed it inside of some sort of context, (a) would have receded as an issue, and (b) would have been more clear. Given that I don't think the artist was trying to stir up a debate about (a) or (b), this is why I think it fell short.

The Jed Report Home Page

© Jed Lewison