Obama as Joker: Anti-Propaganda

What are we to make of this poster that is now making its rounds in Los Angeles? It seems to me that it is a graphic expression of irony. Irony is the use of of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. Images can also do the same. So what we have in this image of Obama-- a black man with white face and of a man who seldom smiles with a sardonic grin. On top of that is th word "socialism". If that word is consistent with the irony of the grapic, then it would have to be taken as its opposite-- capitalism, say. It's possible that the artist who designed this poster had no love for Obama. But the ironic image dilutes the "socialism" tag-line so as to make it a complementary image of Obama. Whatever the case, it is effective anti-propaganda.

A world without irony is a world without freedom. It is no surprise that the most totaliterian nations embrace a romanticized literalism in their art. And the purpose of that is to break in the mind of those who see those images nothing more or less than what the image is. However, verbal or graphical irony fosters subversive thought because it allows layers of interpretation that is exactly contrary to what is manifested on the surface.

And now you also have Bush and Sarah as jokers.

"Irony has always been a primary tool the under-powered use to tear at the over-powered in our culture. But now irony has become the bait that media corporations use to appeal to educated consumers. . . . It's almost an ultimate irony that those who say they don't like TV will sit and watch TV as long as the hosts of their favorite shows act like they don't like TV, either. Somewhere in this swirl of droll poses and pseudo-insights, irony itself becomes a kind of mass therapy for a politically confused culture. It offers a comfortable space where complicity doesn't feel like complicity. It makes you feel like you are counter-cultural while never requiring you to leave the mainstream culture it has so much fun teasing. We are happy enough with this therapy that we feel no need to enact social change."

(Dan French, review of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 2001)