Is this poster racist?

[Teuthida]

Just skimmed thread. The Hope picture was made independently by the artist Shepard Fairy (a lot of his paintings have the sort of imagery), not by or for the Obama campaign team.

Because the Hope poster had been "perpetuated illegally" and independently by the street artist, the Obama campaign could not risk any direct affiliation with it.

http://obeygiant.com/fine-art


What really bothers me about that Joker pic is it's not centered.

[The Germanator]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

Just skimmed thread. The Hope picture was made independently by the artist Shepard Fairy (a lot of his paintings have the sort of imagery), not by or for the Obama campaign team.



http://obeygiant.com/fine-art

I have some video of him doing one of those pieces in Austin, TX on a huge mural wall when we were at SXSW. It was very cool watching him do his work knowing he did the Obama picture.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

Just skimmed thread. The Hope picture was made independently by the artist Shepard Fairy (a lot of his paintings have the sort of imagery), not by or for the Obama campaign team.



http://obeygiant.com/fine-art

Interesting. Maybe I am confusing some pop art with official campaign posters. I still believe the two posters share striking resemblances and the HOPE poster in question was inspired by propaganda, but I'll remove my claim that the Obama campaign itself used communist and Nazi-style propaganda techniques because at this point I can't confidently determine what is official and what was an artist's tribute.

I still stand by my belief that they did, in fact, use Bauhaus inspiration for the German poster, as evil/racist/biased as that may make me

[manasecret]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

Just skimmed thread. The Hope picture was made independently by the artist Shepard Fairy (a lot of his paintings have the sort of imagery), not by or for the Obama campaign team.



http://obeygiant.com/fine-art


What really bothers me about that Joker pic is it's not centered.

An interesting letter from someone that I found on that website:

Subject: On the topic of U.S. Socialism

The city and area where I live has a socialized police department, a socialized fire department (that uses our socialized fire hydrants), socialized water treatment facilities, a socialized public works department that cares for the socialized trees planted in our socialized roadway medians, a socialized zoo, a socialized convention hotel, socialized sports arenas, socialized hiking trails, biking trails, soccer fields, tennis courts, football fields and basketball courts for those who want to do more than just watch socialized sporting events, a socialized pound for the animals who overuse our socialized dog parks, a socialized streets system with socialized traffic lights and socialized stop signs, a socialized public transportation system, a socialized sanitation department that delivers garbage to our socialized trash dump and socialized recycling sorting facility, several socialized airports, a smattering of socialized water reservoirs (we call them socialized lakes, stocked with socialized fish), a socialized homeless center, socialized housing, a socialized public school system, socialized children’s meals programs, a socialized library system, more than five socialized campuses for higher education, a socialized jobs training center, a socialized civil courts system, a socialized criminal courts system that sentences people to one of several socialized jails, a socialized arts program, a socialized parks department that maintains more than a dozen socialized swimming pools, a socialized CNG filling station for the benefit of our socialized fleet of cars, and it provides socialized loans to small businesses while socialized electrical lines help keep the lights on for those working inside.

We even have a socialized yearly Fourth of July fireworks display.

Thank God we’ve held the line on not giving 50 million uninsured people a public health insurance option just for the sake of staying as far away from the socialist boogeyman as possible.

Chin up on the Obama illustration hate mail; the fight’s a good one and completely worth it. –M.

EDIT: I guess I should give the context. This was a apparently an email sent to the artist at the website for moral support. Fairey, the artist, did an Obama image for a Rolling Stone cover and got tons of admittedly typical (for the internet) hate responses, along the lines of he and Obama are socialist/Nazi/the Antichrist and he must have sucked Obama's cock, etc., which made Fairey a sad bear. He posted about 20 of said hate comments, and then I suppose got that letter (above) as moral support, and then posted it as well below the hate comments. So it's more a respone to the hateful wing-nuts than the legitimate arguments against a public healthcare option.

I'm trying to retrace my steps but for some reason I don't remember how I got to that page. It appeared to be his blog.

EDIT2: Oh, duh, it's right there at the bottom of his main page.