Critic sees racism in poster of Obama as Heath Ledger Joker
Posters have been popping up around Los Angeles that depict President Barack Obama as the Heath Ledger version of the Joker in the movie “The Dark Knight.” Under the Obama as Joker image is the word “socialism.”
The poster campaign is being conducted anonymously, so its specific goal is unknown. But culture critic Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post thinks the campaign is racially motivated, drawing on fears of inner-city violence.(Before joining the Washington Post, Kennicott worked at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, serving as classical music critic and later as an editorial writer.)
Here’s part of Kennicott’s column, titled “Obama as The Joker: Racial Fear’s Ugly Face”
…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.
Kennicott’s position is disputed by others, including Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune:
Not surprisingly, the posters immediately sparked charges of racism, but let’s lighten up a little, people. Here’s a case in which I actually agree with conservative voices like this guy over at Fox News. He says the provocative cartoon is no big deal, considering how many times President George W. Bush was portrayed as the Joker–and worse!
Your thoughts on the poster? Is it racially motivated or fair political commentary?
(4 votes, average: 1 out of 5)
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Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
ANY criticism of Obama is seen as racist.
Looks like things are getting slow at the PD again….
If you’re looking for new material for this blog - instead of the ad-nauseum weekly ‘Now, is THIS criticism of Obama racist?’ feature - let’s see a posting on the individual (black man, conservative) who was taken to the hospital after he was pummelled last night and had racial epithets hurled at him, simply for handling out leaflets at a health-care townhall meeting involving Russ Carnahan.
Fair commentary and orders of magnitude milder than how liberals typically depict the people they hate. Kennicott is an idiot.
So are they supposed to put black make-up on a black man. Give it up with the racial crap.
Si Vis. . .Bellum, you snatched the words before I could type them. Depicting Obama as the Joker is no more “racist” than the many clown depictions of Bush that were rampant during his final years in office. The notion that any criticism or lampooning of Obama equals racism is exactly what prevented John McCain from going on offense at any time during the 2008 campaign. (Not that McCain would be doing a helluvalot better.)
This prez is a previous senator from Illinois as you know, which is widely known for its corrupt politicians, and obama as no exception to that opinion, giving his performance in the senate here! He is thought of as a corrupt phony that happens to be black - so, no, it is NOT racially motivated, but is motivated by a suggestion this guy is a crook and can’t be trusted! From his past performance here in Illinois he cannot be trusted at all! Bottom line! He is a glorified speech maker and a no performance politico!
Don’t forget John C that he was called a racial slur by another black man before he was jumped by that group of thugs. That sounds like a topic of discussion for this blog, does it not? Of course I mentioned this lat night in Kurt’s last blog and the post was deleted…
Si Vis has a good point. Anything like this is going to have someone level a charge of racism. Making Obama look like the Joker was a secret attempt to use “urban makeup”? That is a riot. “Urban makeup?” I have worked and socialized in the city all my life, and I have yet to see “urban makeup” anywhere. Making Obama look like the Joker seems to convey a pretty clear opinion to me. Obama the Joker. How is that so hard to miss?
Kennicot takes amazing leaps of logic to read all sorts of subliminal messages in this poster. Notice how the very readable “socialism” somehow escapes his attention?
The poster is fair political commentary. It is creative and blunt, and I think most people easily get the concept. This dribble by Kennicot most certainly is not fair commentary. It is not even intelligent commentary.
Or maybe it’s not racist and he is just a clown and a joker. There was a picture of Bush that was on the cover of Vanity Fair a couple of years ago and it was touted as a great piece of art, now the same thing is racist. I guess if all that you see is racism where ever you go, then you will find racism.
I hope that Kurt G and D Walker and some of the more liberal of the posters on these blogs take time to discuss this particular topic. I mean that sincerely because I am curious what folks on that side of the political spectrum think about this, if anything at all. My thanks.
I swear, who picks and chooses what articles appear in this blog? Can you get anymore juvenile?