That silly little poster showing the president in Heath Ledger makeup and purporting to be seen around LA has finally evoked the necessary response: It’s racist.
The Obama Joker poster leaves you with the sense that it has said everything it has to say, and waits only for the media to endorse the message through the legitimizing process peculiar to our new age of rapid-response journalism: that we are talking about it because you are talking about it, which means it must be worth talking about.
So why the anonymity? Perhaps because the poster is ultimately a racially charged image. By using the “urban” makeup of the Heath Ledger Joker, instead of the urbane makeup of the Jack Nicholson character, the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can’t openly discuss. He is black and he is identified with the inner city, a source of political instability in the 1960s and ’70s, and a lingering bogeyman in political consciousness despite falling crime rates.
The Joker’s makeup in “Dark Knight” — the latest film in a long franchise that dramatizes fear of the urban world — emphasized the wounded nature of the villain, the sense that he was both a product and source of violence. Although Ledger was white, and the Joker is white, this equation of the wounded and the wounding mirrors basic racial typology in America. Urban blacks — the thinking goes — don’t just live in dangerous neighborhoods, they carry that danger with them like a virus…
It is an ugly idea, operating covertly in that gray area that is always supposed to be opened up to honest examination whenever America has one of its “we need to talk this through” episodes.
Well, the transracial candidate shark is well and truly jumped. Perhaps if Ledger’s joker character had been terrorizing broad swathes of Gotham City’s rural reaches, another iteration in the never-ending, tedious “all that racial stuff we’re too cowardly to talk about“ tub thumping could have been averted, what with its “yes, buts” on the topic of W’s joker portrayal and Heath Ledger’s inconvenient pallor.
You really do find yourself wondering how much wincing went into drafting, editing and publishing this poor piece of piffle.
Interesting. The leftists didn’t seem to mind too terribly much when W was given the exact same treatment. Funny how that whole reciprocity thing works.
The “race card” turned out to be a Joker. Is anyone surprised?
Here’s the link to which AW1 Tim refers.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/07/bush-as-joker.html
But that was racist too.
We all should take a lesson from the movie “The Battle of Algiers” and all get those things and plaster every-town end to end every night as fast as they tear ‘em down. If it worked for the FLN in getting rid of the French occupation it should work for us….
“Poor piece of piffle” is an apt description. Screaming “racist” at anyone who dares to criticize Obama is a favorite Democrat distraction. And it’s worked so well with the great proportion of decent Americans, who feel residual guilt, whether they or their ancestors ever owned a slave or not. But we’ve been suckered, my friends, into this ‘hands off because I’m a minority’ con. For goodness sakes, we’re not criticizing Obama for his race. Just for his ignorance and arrogance and unjustifiable interference in his fellow citizens’ lives.
During the run-up to the election, I frequently heard liberals call Sarah Palin racist. How absurd. She’s married to a man who is mixed race — Caucasian and Eskimo [Yu’pik} and all their children are thus minority status, but apparently that kind of mixed race is not politically correct.
Which says a lot more about prejudice on the part of liberals than it does about us.
Marianne
So why the anonymity? Perhaps because the poster is ultimately a racially charged image.
Perhaps because Himself and his cronies have no sense of humor.
or
Perhaps because even though they can’t be troubled to find out if prospective Cabinet Secretaries have been complying with the law, his cronies and supporters are ruthless, efficient, and undeterred by either public law or ethics when going after those who transgress against Himself.
This Post piece was easily the worst thing I’ve read in the MSM is god-knows how long. Pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Almost as bad was the Helen Kennedy’s NY Daily News article about Shepard Fairey’s new Obama portrait on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone. He’s the geurilla artist behond the iconic “Hope” posters. Apparently it wasn’t reverential enough for Ms. Kennedy, who says it “defiles” the President.
Judge for yourself:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/08/05/2009-08-05_president_obama_rolling_stone.html
Actually, it says “deifies”. Which might actually be scarier.
Great. Thanks to a typo, I’m going to end up on the “fishy” list. Just what I needed.
Not to worry, I’m pretty certain that the list contains the name of everyone NOT registered as a Democrat. Just in case…..