So how, exactly, is it funny?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

RWers think that Obama is a muslim and radical black activist.

They also think black people eat watermelon and rape white women, that jews control the media, that homosexuals molest children, and so on.

Why does that strike your funny bone?

[tekisui]

1. None of that is funny.

But, putting the RW racist-smear-fear-mongering view into one cartoon can expose the simple mindedness of their base, and the fear of their opponent. Not funny. Not laugh out loud, but concise in the absurdity of what the RW has to offer.

[madura]

2. the hoplelessly stupid will not be doing any learning from this cover

it will just reaffirm what they already think is 'right'.

[tekisui]

4. Then, no change.

The hopelessly stupid are just that.

[madura]

7. why do we have to waster so much time on them tho?

by giving them this stupid shit to talk about all over the media.

and stupid people like dobbs keeps asking why Obama doesn't talk about issues
(which he does, but Lou is fucked in the head)
those issues aren't covered because stupid shit like this cover happens and takes over everything.

lets not feed the pigs, they are big and fat from all the years of this same old stuff. can't we ever learn anything?
same mistakes made over and over, same traps we fall into, same suckers over and over.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. People keep telling me it's funny.

"hilarious" even.

[madura]

5. my funny bone ain't tickled either. I guess i'm humorless debbie downer.

[EFerrari]

6. I don't know that it's funny. Satire doesn't always get a laugh.

But it piles on all the ridiculous bullshit that the phone spitters call into Washington Journal worried about. The only thing missing is Jeremiah Wright at the desk on the speed dial.

lol

[spoony]

10. True, just as often it stings, or makes

your eyeballs nearly fall out. Tell you what though, I would've definitely laughed if they'd worked in Wright like you said!

[JuniperLea]

8. Had the cartoon's title been there in large print...

It would have been the slap in the face to the ignorant that it was intended to be.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

9. not really funny as much as its satire. ironically satirizing the media

and level of debate in todays presidential elections.

[foo_bar]

11. was "Idiocracy" funny?

My sources say no (on multiple levels of unfunniness), but "extra BIG ASS fries" might have elicited a chuckle from test audiences. Was Ali G funny, even though his interview subjects didn't know he was a comedian? Same question for Borat, was "The Running of the Jews" innately anti-Semitic since decontextualized clips on youtube might appeal to skinheads? I think Colbert sums up the dilemma:

AVC: It's kind of a burlesque of that.

SC: Right. Sometimes I feel like maybe we should cut back on the burlesque, and really try to do that in a more sincere fashion, and it would really make it stronger. I find the branding that goes on in real news at times funnier than what I do. It's just so shocking to hear descriptions of Shepard Smith, you know: "Changing the world! He gives 110 percent!" Our problem is, there's no level of hyperbole that can be associated with me that hasn't at least been approached by the real thing.

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705

[JVS]

20. Idiocracy was fucking hilarious.

[Not the Only One]

12. The funny part is laughing at the inbred Faux News-watching idiots who think that way.

The main problem with this image is that the image doesn't communicate the message that was supposed to be communicated. You have no idea whether the image came from someone at the New Yorker trying to call out stupid white people who really think Obama is bin Laden's best friend or whether this came from the cover of some white supremacist magazine. The image works perfectly well on either magazine, and that's the problem. The New Yorker didn't communicate the spin they intended on the image within the image, like a good artist does. It's a lazy, half-assed job of comic artistry. The same image with other art around it could have communicated precisely the message intended by the New Yorker. This is just an epic fail job by the artist.

[EFerrari]

13. Have to disagree. The artist took an imagined cover of a white supremacist magazine

and took it right over the top.

[Forkboy]

14. Are we talking about Adam Sandler movies again?

[foo_bar]

15. funny, how?

[Forkboy]

17. Like Jim Robinson from FR, I'm stumped.

[EFerrari]

18. . . . .

:spank:

[Forkboy]

19. My friend got hit by a train last summer and lost his leg from the knee down.

I would have used him for the joke but no one would have gotten "Like my friend Johnny...".

And before anyone says I'm cold and mean, this is the same friend who called me Cancerboy within minutes of me telling him I had it. It's all good with us. :D

[EFerrari]

21. I love you guys.

:loveya:

[madura]

16. whatsamatta u? got no sense of humor?

:sarcasm:

some people are more concerned with being 'hip and hibrow intellectually ' rather than having plain common sense.

freedom of speech my hairy ass - that's been gone for a long time but not many notice.

[Raine]

22. It's NOT funny

and it's NOT clever either. It was just a big ole misfire by some eggheads who were "too smart by a half". :silly:

[joshcryer]

23. The same reason Colbert is funny.

If you are a dittohead perhaps it will be difficult to appreciate.

[Milo_Bloom]

24. Because idiotic stereotypes are funny.

And it is even funnier when they don't realize you are laughing at them.