New Yorker Cover Art Grotesque

I enjoy the New Yorker in the way one finds amusement in overhearing the left-wing students at the table next to yours in a coffee shop talking about public transportation, social issues, and capitalism while sipping breves. A turn through the magazine’s pages offers views I understand in an abstract, academic sense but cannot fathom sharing. Political and cultural voyeurism — maybe that’s the best way to describe my relationship with the New Yorker. That said, the cover art for the October 17 issue is genuinely repulsive.

Depicting a darkened classroom with a shut door, the cover shows a teacher and young children huddled along the wall under the blackboard. The unseen menace of a school shooter is implied in the glaring white light pressing into the room from the hallway. An American flag hangs limply while the abandoned desks show drawings of flowers, trees, a house — things of life. There is naught but fear and yet acceptance in the body language of the students and teacher. The kids look downward with eyes closed, and the teacher looks to the door. The concept is as objectionable as it is indicative of the Left’s wonted assumption of helplessness regarding the rare but nationally traumatic atrocities of school shootings.

I enjoy the New Yorker in the way one finds amusement in overhearing the left-wing students at the table next to yours in a coffee shop talking about public transportation, social issues, and capitalism while sipping breves. A turn through the magazine’s pages offers views I understand in an abstract, academic sense but cannot fathom sharing. Political and cultural voyeurism — maybe that’s the best way to describe my relationship with the New Yorker. That said, the cover art for the October 17 issue is genuinely repulsive.

Depicting a darkened classroom with a shut door, the cover shows a teacher and young children huddled along the wall under the blackboard. The unseen menace of a school shooter is implied in the glaring white light pressing into the room from the hallway. An American flag hangs limply while the abandoned desks show drawings of flowers, trees, a house — things of life. There is naught but fear and yet acceptance in the body language of the students and teacher. The kids look downward with eyes closed, and the teacher looks to the door. The concept is as objectionable as it is indicative of the Left’s wonted assumption of helplessness regarding the rare but nationally traumatic atrocities of school shootings.