Covid Ain't Over Til' The Fat Lady Sings

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    The New Yorker Magazine, a magazine that is well known for its political articles and short stories, offers the public many illustrated covers that tackle current events in an intriguing way. The covers offer us almost-hidden information that’d need to be looked at carefully, in a more in-depth way, to understand the creator’s message.

    As all of us know, twenty-twenty was a year plagued by a pandemic, which made it hard for people all around the world to work and participate in social gatherings or activities. Performers of all kinds, such as athletes, singers, musicians, etc, had everything they’ve made of and for themselves halted within a blink of an eye. After the first surge of Covid-19, accommodations were made for these activities to start again to get people back onto their feet - with an exception. Live audiences were not permitted at this time. Performing without an audience seemed strange, though; it felt too different. Fake crowds were created to keep the feeling and hope of normality still around. 


    Illustrator Barry Blitt created a cover for The New Yorker in August of 2020, called "Packed House" that displays this issue that many had to face. The setting of this cover is in an opera house. As told by the cover’s title, the opera house is a packed house, meaning that all the viewer seats are full. The packed crowd consists of fake cut-outs that resemble people. Their stone-cold, emotionless faces show viewers how strange our reality has become. The audience, in their similar formal attire, surround the woman on stage, outnumbering her by many. Through these subtle, but heavy details we wonder if Blitt feels as though we’ll never be the same. Covid-19’s repercussions overwhelm us all, surrounding us more and more, day by day. Coronavirus has been around for a lot longer than any of us had anticipated. Are we too far into this pandemic to ever go back to normal? Will these restrictions and fake crowds become the new norm? Taking a closer look, we can come to the realization that no, Blitt does not feel this way; he's rather sure that we can and will go back to normal. 

     In this cover, a heavy-set woman sings to the crowd. This is a reference to the phrase "it ain't over til' the fat lady sings". The phrase means that you shouldn't think that you know the outcome to something when it is still ongoing. This phrase is often used when the event that is happening is coming to an end. Blitt is telling us that we might not know exactly how things will be in the end of Covid's wake, but the fat lady is indeed singing and everything along with Covid will come to end, too. We will not be stuck in this pandemic, and the restrictions will come to a close as well. Blitt believes that normality will return, and all of us will be ready for it when that day comes.

 


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