The Kicker
Beating a Dead, Misunderstood Horse, Part Deux
By Julia Ioffe Tue 22 Jul 2008 05:32 PMExcept the horse isn’t dead—and neither are our nation’s guerilla satirists! Not surprisingly, they’re hiding out, starved yet resolved, in the tropical caves of the Internets. Joshua David Stein, formerly of Gawker fame, slammed this week’s New Yorker cover as anti-Semitic:*
This week’s cover depicts a bunch of affluent whites carousing while their crustacean dinner escapes through the kitchen window with the aid of a red-and-white tablecloth. Clearly this is a veiled attack against the Jews. In this case, the humanoid character with the Semitic nose (on the right) is shown drinking some sort of red wine. Not only are lobsters a food no self-respecting Jew would eat (shellfish aren’t kosher) but this diner is shown with a glass of red wine in front of him. Red wine does not go with lobster.
And Vanity Fair, the neglected stepchild of the Condé Nast family, has finally gone public with its own incendiary cover, which explores “a different aspect of the Politics of Fear.” (Explanatory essay TK.)**
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*NB: He doesn’t mean it’s actually anti-Semitic! Don’t worry! The New Yorker’s editor is Jewish, as are some of his best friends, so it’s okay!
**NB: This is not an actual Vanity Fair cover! They’re only joking! We know this because it’s totally the wrong font!
CJR
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