The teeny tiny illustration community is coming to the defense of Barry Blitt for his controversial New Yorker Cover that just came out. Being a member of this community, allow me to jump into the fray. I know Barry Blitt. He was actually my thesis advisor at the School of Visual Arts. He's a heck of a good illustrator and a very funny guy. I've looked around on the blogs and it seems that some fellow illustrators feel that the great unwashed masses are too stupid to understand the brilliance of this image. That this is satire in its purest form. I would love to hear from anyone out there who might be reading this. Opinions?One thing I will say is that I hope Barry doesn't have too hard a time as a result of this. At worst, it's a joke that didn't work. Comedy is hard! Write in. I want to know your opinions.
5 comments:
I think Barry Blitt should parlay this into some TV interviews or something. I can't believe the airtime his picture is getting--there's no such thing as bad publicity!
This was big. Over here in Germany it made the front pages of some papers. The gist of it was that this was a joke that bombed mainly because Obama is so hard to make fun of, that Blitt overreached a bit. Especially subverting rightwing demagoguery on a not so subtle level. I'd say Blitt just became world famous. Nothing wrong with that.
The cover is confusing and here's why: we're not sure who is being skewered: the Obamas or the Obama-haters. We know it's the latter group based on the magazine's politics, but that simply isn't clear from the drawing. We need CONTEXT. We need to see that these images are coming out of the heads of those voters who have paranoid delusions about Obama. Don't get me wrong, I love Blitt. He's top dog. But this one went awry a bit.
I feel it was in poor taste. Maybe my sense of humor is not centered?
I think it's missing a layer. If this cartoon appeared in something besides the New Yorker, the intention would be in question. It seems kind of presumptive to me that they didn't feel the need to hint at what the cover was really poking fun at, members of the media that circulate bizarre "facts" about Obama that are championed by the uninformed.
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