Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, Aug. 6, 2009
Between Jack Nicholson’s 1989 portrayal of the Joker in “Batman” and Heath Ledger’s 2008 characterization in “The Dark Knight,” something sinister happened to the villain’s iconic makeup. What had been a mask, with the clearly delineated lines of a carnival character, became simply war paint, and not very well applied.
{snip}
It is the latter makeup job that has been superimposed over the face of President Obama in an anonymous Los Angeles poster campaign that is now the talk of the blogosphere, the airwaves and the 24/7 hermeneutical speculations of cable television. The image, which appears above the word “socialism,” delights and distresses people roughly on the lines of the usual political cleavage, with wide agreement that the as-yet-unrevealed artist certainly intends it to be disrespectful. But there is little consensus about whether it is effective as political messagemaking.
“Unpredictable and dangerous.”
Comparisons to Shepard Fairey’s Obama posters, which rendered the president’s face a boldly contrasted palette of red and blue above the blunt message “hope,” generally tend to favor Fairey’s artistry. The exhausted icon of last year’s political campaign, now falling off bumpers and fading on T-shirts, had both a subtlety the current poster lacks and a simplicity that it desperately needs. Fairey’s image included a clever visual play on red- and blue-state political values (a windmill rendered in red, a tank and dollar sign sketched in blue), but it required only one step of mental grammar: Obama is hope.
The new Obama poster has two basic thrusts. Obama is a socialist, or a crypto-socialist. And Obama is somehow like the Joker, unpredictable and dangerous. But joining these two messages together yields more questions and contradictions than good poster art can sustain.
{snip}
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. Scientific studies, which demonstrate the social consequences of living in neighborhoods with high rates of crime, get processed and misinterpreted in the popular unconscious, underscoring the idea. Violence breeds violence.
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. But it lingers, unspoken but powerful, leaving all too many people with the sense that exposure to crime creates an ineluctable propensity to crime.
Superimpose that idea, through the Joker’s makeup, onto Obama’s face, and you have subtly coded, highly effective racial and political argument. Forget socialism, this poster is another attempt to accomplish an association between Obama and the unpredictable, seeming danger of urban life. It is another effort to establish what failed to jell in the debate about Obama’s association with Chicago radical William Ayers and the controversy over the racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama, like the Joker and like the racial stereotype of the black man, carries within him an unknowable, volatile and dangerous marker of urban violence, which could erupt at any time. The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can’t be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he’s black.
Original article
(Posted on August 7, 2009)
Comments
The premise of this article is absurd: Obama has nothing to do with urban blacks anymore than Batman deals with modern urban themes. The tie into racial politics is slight if non-existant.
President Obama is black. That is something we didn’t know before this poster. It took this poster for us to find out that he is. Is that what the WaPo’s Philip Kennicott wants us to think?
This poster appeared in L.A., a very very blue city.
“Urban blacks—the thinking goes—don’t just live in dangerous neighborhoods, they carry that danger with them like a virus.”
What causes the danger, then, Phil? Is it not the people? Do the buildings mug people? Does the litter commit the rapes? Does the graffiti hold up the convenience stores? Why do the same types of dangers reappear in and around Section 8 units in safe white suburban communities when they are occupied by urban blacks?
Philip Kennicott is not a journalist. He is a neo-Marxist critical race theorist who could not find a job in academia where he obviously would prefer to be.
The same leftists who cynically and falsely claim the Obama-Joker poster is racist had nothing but praise when Vanity Fair made a similar painting of then-president Bush last year.
http://tinyurl.com/5mwhzs
Open letter to all the little Obamabots:
You see racists everywhere except in the mirror.
and a lingering bogeyman in political consciousness despite falling crime rates.
Falling crime rates? Compared to when? Last year? The year before that? Certainly not compared to the time that many people can tell you about, in which they could walk down the street at night without being in fear of their life.
This piece is just so much psychobabble for the most part, with the race card thrown in from time to time for good measure.
The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can’t be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he’s black.
Translation: whites aren’t allowed to criticize Obama, not because he’s right, but because he’s black.
So basically, an anonymous poster, that you can barely even tell is Obama even after being told, is supposed to be proof of America’s racism? Proof of an all too common, pervasive, racist undercurrent?
His assumption that violence leads to more violence isn’t completely true either. If it were, there would be a heck of a lot more white victims of black hate committing violence of their own.
Actually, I like the poster. I erased the “Socialism” part and mounted it on my car. Under it is written two quotes from the “Dark Knight” First Line is: “Why So Serious, America?” The Second line is: “It’s All part of THE PLAN…”
Liberals heads explode while I drive down the road. I am deeply happy.
It is astounding what the Obamaites can read into a poster. I wonder if the artist was thinking of all those subtle connotations when he was painting it? I think it is obvious what the poster means: Obama is a dangerous, socialist joker. No more, no less. I have seen all sorts of rude depictions of George Bush…that is what happens when you are President. As Harry Truman said “if you can’t take the heat…”.
It’s the PEOPLE in a neighborhood that make a neighborhood dangerous or safe nitwit. If you move those people elsewhere THAT neighborhood becomes more dangerous. Duh. Liberals are constantly trying to address the problem of urban violence by building new neighborhoods for the “people” in them so they can escape the violence and poverty of that neighborhood - I guess under the logic that The Amity House was evil, not the kid who committed the crimes in that house, eh? So, having built new housing, and moved the people into them from these “afflicted” neighborhoods - guess what? ALWAYS THAT neighborhood soon becomes a problem neighborhood and unsafe for anybody living there or passing through. It’s not racist to state the simple fact that predominantly black neighborhoods everywhere in the country are violent, dangerous crime ridden neighborhoods. Building new housing is just trying to spread the demographics of crime so the Liberals can say crime dropped in a given neighborhood. yeah. And it appeared in a neighborhood that never had crime before. You’re fooling nobody. Not even the blacks you shuffle around.
I’m not referring to the artist of this poster but the writer of this piece. Clearly he’s attempting to create a racial controversy through his critic.
“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.”
Seriously, who takes this prose seriously?
What was it that Fraud said, ‘sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’?
Of course, the REAL message we’re supposed to get is that anyone who criticizes the messiah is a racist.
When Vanity Fair did Bush as the Joker no one complained and many thought it was brilliant criticism through art.
When you turn the tables, liberals don’t think the joke is funny.
It’s this simple: Bush as The Joker, great political satire. Obama as The Joker, pure evil and racism.
Strangely, no such analyses were ever done of the innumerable negative caricatures of George W. Bush. Any criticism of a prominent black man is called racist, but you can always criticize a white man without being called a racist.
And no, Obama is not a “crypto-socialist”. He is a open socialist. After all he’s made the principle owners of General Motors the United States government and the unions. And he wants the government to run our health care system (the parts that it doesn’t already run). He recognizes no Constitutional constraints on what the federal government can do (unfortunately that is true of nearly every other politician other than Ron Paul). There is no part of his political policies that wouldn’t fit comfortably on any European Socialist party’s platform.
This has to be one of the most absurd articles I have ever read.
“It is another effort to establish what failed to jell in the debate about Obama’s association with Chicago radical William Ayers and the controversy over the racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.”
Funny he should mention his hero in conjunction with those two characters for no particular reason…
“Bush as The Joker, great political satire. Obama as The Joker, pure evil and racism.”
Also one was published in ‘Vanity Fair’ the other is an anonymous poster. Who actually is behind the poster? It would seem the one who stands the most to gain is the reporter here!
It Reminds me of the Willie Horton scandal someone brought up. Ive never actually seen the commercial, but I remember the whole nation talking about the ‘racism’ of the campaign commercial that aired in Massachusetts. The commercial pointed out that Michael Dukakis was ‘soft on crime’. It was a given that the commercial was racist. It was taken off the air. I might add, and not that Willie Horton was a racist or criminal. The subject never came up. No. The folks pointing out Horton was a criminal were the only ‘racists’. To this day I’ve never actually seen the commercial I just remember the controversy. Years later I read on a news site that the commercial never actually showed a picture of Horton. The commercial just said the name ‘convicted murdered Willie Horton’ (was let out of jail early and committed another crime was the gist of it). The media is beginning to show black criminals on their pages again.
Mr. Kennicott uses about four times too many words and too much space to tell us that he supports Obama and views his critics as “racists.” I got the artist’s meaning right away, my fellow journalist. It isn’t necessarily racial, but then again it might be. And if so, then it might be with ample reason.
Look at conviction rates by race for violent crimes in this country, and you’ll see that blacks are grossly over-represented. This is even after the usual sleight-of-hand that lumps Hispanics in with Whites to make the White conviction rate look worse than it actually is. Blacks are not just disproportionately “victims” of urban crime; they don’t just “live among” urban crime; they COMMIT far more than their share of it. There, Mr. Kennicott — I got my point across with a lot less words and in far less space than you did, and I think I did it more effectively.
You can watch the ad on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y
They do show a picture of Horton. What’s ‘racist’ about the ad is that it tells the truth about violent black crime. Telling the truth about race and crime is deemed ‘racist’. By their definition, telling the truth is ‘racist’.
I’ve got to hand it to those leftist wordsmiths. They sure are good at weaving an intricate web of nonsense using fancy, academic-sounding language. They know that the average guy on the street will give up trying to understand such an article after a paragraph or two, throw up his hands and say “I can’t figure out what he’s trying to say - but he sure sounds like he knows what he’s talking about!” However, upon further scrutiny, it turns out Mr. Kennicott really does NOT know what he’s talking about; he’s just good at rhetoric.
Of course this article is pure PsyWar against the American people. We are seeing this thread weave all through their propaganda lies: “racism” is behind any criticism of Obama at all.
I bet the guy who made that poster wishes he had copyrighted it. I’m seeing it EVERYWHERE!
Good. Anything that gets under a hard left Marxist’s skin (I refuse to say “liberal” or “leftist” anymore) is a good thing.
I think the Joker image is appropriate for Obama!
T.H.E. D.A.R.K. K.N.I.G.H.T. =
“Town Halls Expose Details A ‘Riding Knight’ Keeps Non-exposed In Government Healthcare Takeover!”
T.H.E. J.O.K.E.R.=
“Town Halls’ Elderly ‘Jousted’Obama’s Knighthood, Exposing Ruse!”
And Obama is somehow like the Joker, unpredictable and dangerous.
Half right. He’s perfectly predictable so far. Of course, we’ve yet to see what happens when things don’t always go his way and he becomes frustrated.
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…
Wow, that is really a stretch. How does one conclude that Ledger’s makeup is more “urban” than Nicholson’s? Has cutting open the sides of your mouth and painting yourself like a clown some new big city fad I’m unaware of? This whole article is a deep sea fishing expedition.
Urban blacks—the thinking goes—don’t just live in dangerous neighborhoods, they carry that danger with them like a virus.
Yup, all true. I’m pretty sure the thinking goes that way because because urban blacks make their neighborhoods dangerous, and every place to which they relocate quickly becomes infected with the same dangers. “Virus” is a good simile.
Obama, like the Joker and like the racial stereotype of the black man, carries within him an unknowable, volatile and dangerous marker of urban violence, which could erupt at any time. The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can’t be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he’s black.
How about because he’s a villain ? Black, white or otherwise, I’m pretty sure this is actually what the artist was going for.
And he really should have gone for a copyright as well. Sirius Radio’s Mike Church put it on a t-shirt, and the things are literally flying out the door faster than he can get them printed. Click below to check them out.
http://tinyurl.com/obamajokershirt
I must say, that I agree with almost every poster above, that indicates that Comrade Kennicott’s arguments extrapolate (or would manipulate be the better word?) from the grotesquely idiotic to the bizarrely abysmal, within the kaleidoscopic multicultural commode that passes for his “mind.” Swirling and spinning, and perhaps even flooding the floor, this fool projects his most secret anxieties onto the country as a whole.
Sincerely, he probably needs acute interventions from a sensitivity worker or diversity counselor; if you don’t believe me, just witness his coquettishly fretful simpering and sniveling for yourselves on this topic:
http://philipkennicott.com/
These posters are actually a perfect method of waging Psychological Warfare in the Media. Thousands of Americans should use their computers to make similar posters and post them secretly all over their towns and leave them at doctors offices, schools, etc.
23 John PM: I watched the video. Kennicott is a STYLE reporter. His interest is appearance, not substance. What will he make of it when this image appears, as did Richard Nixon’s, on toilet paper?
To Schoolteacher, regarding:
“23 John PM: I watched the video. Kennicott is a STYLE reporter. His interest is appearance, not substance. What will he make of it when this image appears, as did Richard Nixon’s, on toilet paper?”
A cogent and also humorous point!
I would guess, that Comrade Kennicott would sincerely enjoy having his visage imprinted onto toilet paper, if that tissue:
1.) was of high quality and stylish;
2.) and also, that it was used only to clean large black and brown male buttocks.
All the best Schoolteacher,
John PM!
