Irony Misses the Mark

Amanda Marcotte has again found herself the center of controversy. This time it's with her new book, It's a Jungle Out There. More specifically, it's with some of the illustrations which precede certain chapters that are in a retro style. Here's an example of one of the offending pictures:



Marcotte's initial response:

I think nowadays retro imagery used by avowed liberals can safely be assumed to be at least an attempt at coy irony. I’m not committing to whether it’s successful or not. I think it’s a fool’s errand to lay claim to definitive interpretations of archly ironic imagery.

The whole heroic-white-people-defeating-the-savage-brown-people thing didn't trip the irony meter of many blogging women who have more melanin in their skin than Marcotte. You can read up on the brouhaha at Dear White Feminists.

This comes less than a year after fellow white feminist blogger Jessica Valenti saw the cover of her debut tome, Full Frontal Feminism, stir up a shitstorm of its own.

In a similar vein, we have this lovely Cubs shirt:



Kosuke Fukudome left Japan for a baseball career with the Cubs and this is how he's greeted. The Sun-Times has the story.