Liked the powerful speeches -- particularly the you-go-girl optics -- given by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Secretary of State Condi Rice and New Mexico Gov. Susan Martinez. Regardless of one's political stripes, you've got to admire strong women who hold or have held executive positions who delivered talks containing substantive material that wasn't confined to mom & apple pie issues.
Ann Romney, fulfilling one of the toughest jobs assigned to much put-upon political spouses, rendered a heartfelt speech reflecting her experience being the wife of the GOP candidate for decades as she cared for their five sons and battled MS.
The Massachusetts parents who credited fellow parishioner Mitt Romney with kindly and thoughtfully attending to their dying son David were authentically emotional and raw. "The true measure of a man is revealed in his actions during times of trouble, the quiet hospital room of a dying boy, with no cameras and no reporters," Ted Oparowsky told the convention-goers. "This is the time to make that assessment."
The Romney biographical video (this normally cynical news junkie is truly a sucker for these kinds of videos, regardless of political party), the sight of Mitt Romney tearing up, then choking up as he spoke about his parents and his wife delivered the message that was intended: There's a genuine heartbeat thing goin' on beneath that pressed suit.
The Bad & The (Surreal) Ugly
Good Lord Dirty Harry.
What.
The.
Heck?!
I was so enamored of your the US-can-get-up-off-the-mat-and-not-be-a-million-dollar-baby Super Bowl ad that I was intensely curious about what you were going to say on that stage in Tampa.
I spent the past week on a Cape Cod family vacation where I swam, biked (rode a bike for the first time in many, many years), enjoyed sunsets, fresh seafood and got thoroughly and embarrassingly crushed on a farm-themed mini-golf course. (My 10-year-old handily kicked my behind.)
But when we weren't scanning the seas for seals, the favorite snack of sharks -- we were a few miles away from that Cape beach where a shark chased a kayaker -- I was gorging on the heaps of reading material I brought along (an academic book and Lord of the Rings, both for a research project I'm working on, along with a bunch of periodicals). Here's what kept me entertained:
New Yorker: For a Boston area resident, I was rather sickeningly Gotham-centric this past week. I got substantial sunscreen and sand all over the July 9/16 issue of The New Yorker and enjoyed the long review of Douglas Brinkley's new Walter Cronkite biography by Louis Menand which included a fascinating debate over whether a Cronkite comment, coupled with the anchor's pessimistic view about American success in Vietnam, prompted LBJ not to run for a second term.
An article that sparked a beach-side conversation was by James Surowiecki about businesses that aren't hiring new employees because, the article asserts, employers are being too picky despite ample options:
"When companies complain that they can't find people with the right 'skills,' they often just mean that they can't find people with the right experience . . . Thanks in part to the sheer number of applications, screening of applicants is automated, with computers evaluating resumes according to pre-set criteria. Fail to meet one of those standards, and your application gets tossed, even if a good H.R. director might have spotted your potential."
How depressing.
Speaking of depressing . . . I was also riveted by "The Hunger Diaries," excerpts from American writer Mavis Gallant's journals written in 1952 when Gallant was literally starving for her art while living in Spain.
New York Magazine: The July 9 cover story, "Does Money Make You Mean?" ignited another lively debate with its provocative accompanying art. Citing various work by researchers who are delving into whether money causes people to be less humane and whether people who seek money share those same traits or whether the entire "less humane" question is bogus baloney, writer Lisa Miller worded her central query this way: "How does living in an environment defined by individual achievement -- measured by money, privilege and status -- alter a person's mental machinery to the point where he beings to see the people around him only as aids or obstacles to his own ambitions?"
New York Times: In between the pages of the Old Gray Lady, I greatly related to a Sunday Styles section meditation, "Friends of a Certain Age," about the challenge of making and keeping friends as we get older:
"In your 30s and 40s, plenty of new people enter your life, through work, children's play dates and, of course, Facebook. But actual close friends -- the kind you make in college, the kind you call in a crisis -- those are in shorter supply.
As people approach midlife, the days of youthful exploration, when life felt like one big blind date, are fading. Schedules compress, priorities change and people often become pickier in what they want in their friends."
In the same section, I found a scary story by Lee Siegel who accidentally sent Linked In friend invitations to all 974 contacts in his address book including deceased people, "lawyers, landscapers, accountants, literary agents, babysitters, window-installers, art dealers, ex-girlfriends, the ex-boyfriend of an ex-girlfriend . . . obstetricians, dentists, ophthalmologists, gastroenterologists, urologists, psychologists, pediatricians, billing offices for all of the preceding . . . my ex-wife [and] two litigious former landlords."
The Newsroom: As for TV, I saw the latest two episodes of Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama The Newsroom which, I've decided, has officially hooked me with its cutting dissection of contemporary cable TV news. Yes, it can be preachy, annoyingly preachy and smugly sanctimonious as well. The second episode irritated me with its relentless focus on two of the female staffers falling to pieces over their love lives. But by the fourth episode -- "I'll Try to Fix You," which I reviewed here -- that got me.
Political Animals:
I also caught the first installment of USA's mini-series (the network is calling it a "limited series event") Political Animals where Sigourney Weaver plays Elaine Barrish, otherwise known as Hillary Clinton had Clinton dumped Bill right after she lost her 2008 presidential bid. It also features a tough reporter, who wrote nasty pieces about Barrish's ex, shadowing Secretary of State Barrish around for a week for a story. The show felt crisp, the relationship between the reporter and Barrish is promising and the political manipulations entertaining (better than the boring, real life presidential race we've got goin' on right now). Looking forward to seeing more of this "limited" event.
In the recent documentary Miss Representation -- which criticized American culture and the media for its negative impact on women and girls -- child advocate Marian Wright Edelman lamented the scarcity of American women politicians saying that, "You can't be what you can't see." Given the latest uptick in the number of fictional female pols appearing on television, the vision of all those women politicians in their red, white and blue clothing ought to give Wright Edelman something to cheer about.
Female characters seeking or occupying elected office have been popping up on a number of shows across primetime from the new Shonda Rhimes drama Scandaland the dark HBO comedy Veep, to lighter comedies like Parks and Recreation and Modern Family. Alongside the strong, brainy women, there are a fair number of female pols who are occasionally depicted as tone deaf, goofy or a bit off, but the other male pols with whom they share the screen aren't exactly Nobel Prize winning brain trusts either.
Take, for example, the soapy, D.C.-based Rhimes show Scandal. In addition to the main character -- a powerful, savvy, whip-smart D.C. scandal fixer Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) who has a team of what she calls "gladiators in suits" who worship her -- there's a female vice president, Sally Langston (Kate Burton). And Vice President Langston is no slouch. She attempted to take quick political advantage of a situation when the president was caught doing something he shouldn't have. And while she didn't succeed in her maneuver, the viewers saw her as just as much a political player as her colleagues.
On the sardonic HBO comedy Veep, there's another female vice president who is also depicted as the "first" woman to hold that office. However while Julia Louis-Dreyfus' vice president Selina Meyer, a former senator, is intelligent and ruthless, she's very awkward, similar to the way in which Joe Biden can be awkward. She can be commanding when she wants to be, but isn't entirely convincing when she tries to smooth out political waves, largely of her own making. The latest plot twist -- the first female vice president was impregnated by her boyfriend and she's unmarried -- could've been ground-breaking, as I can't recall seeing a pregnant politician on a TV show. But having Meyer suffer a miscarriage, thus disposing of a potentially thorny plotline, left the vice president looking for a scapegoat to stave off the rumors of her pregnancy. Who took the fall? Meyer's quick-thinking chief of staff Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky) who claimed that she'd been the one who was pregnant, not the vice president.
Veep has also featured a powerful female senator, Barbara Hallowes (also played by Burton, the vice president from Scandal), who politically tussled with Louis-Dreyfus' Meyer on a few occasions. Burton's really good at the politician thing, perhaps even better than she was as Meredith Grey's mother Ellis on Grey's Anatomy.
One TV pol who shares some of Meyer's politician DNA but is painfully earnest (in contrast to the uber-cynical Vice President Meyer) is Parks and Recreation's Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) who spent the past season campaigning for a seat on the Pawnee City Council after taking a leave of absence from her post in the Parks and Recreation Department. Knope, a clever and big-hearted candidate, had to match wits with her moronic chief opponent's professional campaign consultant -- another knowledgeable woman -- who played very, very dirty. Knope held her own throughout the season as her campaign had little cash and a tiny volunteer staff, but Knope kicked some serious behind during the big debate, even bested her opponent after he threatened that his father would shut down the big Pawnee candy factory and throw a bunch of people out of work if Knope won. In the end, Knope squeezed out the victory.
Not so lucky was Modern Family's Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen) who also campaigned for a spot on the Town Council but had an utterly disastrous debate performance, mostly due to the idiocy of her husband Phil and a Valentine's Day surprise that went terribly awry. The refusal of Town Councilman Duane Bailey to erect a stop sign at a dangerous intersection -- after Dunphy had collected all the necessary signatures from concerned citizens and made an impassioned argument for the sign -- was the catalyst for Dunphy's first bid for elected office. Although Dunphy lost, at least, in the end, her opponent gave her the stop sign she wanted.
As disappointing as it is to learn that all of these programs won't be airing new installments until the fall (or later in the case of Veep), there's at least one new summer show that will make the case that women can flourish in the political realm (or at least stumble around as well as the men do). USA Network's Political Animals will be premiering next month featuring Signourney Weaver as the U.S. Secretary of State and the former wife of a U.S. president who had difficulty keeping his fly zipped. With the exception of the "former" wife part, does the premise ring any bells, right down to her denial that she'll ever run for president . . . again?
Image credits: Carol Kaelson/ABC, TVLine/NBC and Peter "Hopper" Stone/ABC.
How sad is it, the fact that the U.S. Secretary of State appeared in public without cosmetics having been applied to her face (she wore lipstick) is considered big news? That it was a lead story on Drudge? That the internet was all abuzz about it?
While I absolutely love that Hillary Clinton said she has no interest in what people are saying about her decision not to wear makeup (except for lipstick) -- and hope that young women take note of how she doesn't care -- the fact that it's news at all, never mind prominently so, is disturbing.
Where are the news stories intelligently parsing what she was in Bangladesh to speak about, because it certainly wasn't about the multi-million-dollar American cosmetics industry? I haven't heard a whole lot about why she was over there in the first place, only that she did so wearing glasses (The scandal!) and let people see that she has freckles (The horror!).
I take umbrage at how some folks are responding to the photos, with some saying she looked like a "schoolgirl" (Girl? Really? When are male pols referred to as "boys?") and others maligning her as looking "tired and withdrawn."
I don't care about any of that. Just tell me what she was there to discuss, will you please? I don't want to read about speculation as to whether she has a stylist. After some rooting around online, I learned that Clinton was discussing microlending to the poor, expressing her hope that such efforts wouldn't be "undermined by government actions" in Bangladesh, CNN reported. Additionally, Clinton called for the end of politically-motivated violence and for "further cooperation between the United States and Bangladesh on counter-terrorism, environmental, health, food security and educational issues," the Los Angeles Times reported. But the focus of the bulk of the coverage? Her looks.
Erin Gloria Ryan at the blog Jezebel likewise had a strong reaction to this no make-up flap, saying:
"For a society that produces ads and photo spreads so airbrushed that they're technically cartoons, we're oddly obsessed with seeing women without airbrushing for various reasons: to satisfy our own curiosities (and insecurities) or so that we can mock them for being human or praise them for bucking tradition, especially if they're women in power, and double extra especially if they're polarizing women in power. But even entering the conversation is unnecessary and dangerous."
I really liked Jennifer Westfeldt's new film, Friends With Kids about two best pals who decide to have a baby together, a movie in which Westfeldt starred, as well as wrote and directed.
In my review of the movie -- which also stars Adam Scott from Parks & Recreation and features Bridesmaids alums Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm and Chris O'Dowd-- I compared it to When Harry Met Sally, only with a whole lot more profanity and a bunch of kids running around. This comparison is a good thing because a) I love When Harry Met Sally and b) When Harry Met Sally is a classic. An excerpt of the review on CliqueClack Flicks:
"Friends With Kids is a sharp indie which offers insight, humor, heart and a really nasty Jon Hamm scene without ever veering into garden variety, rom-com slop territory. It's a film that sincerely dramatizes how parenting can alter a relationship and how wading through the happy, maddening and messy moments of child-rearing can make or break a couple.
. . . Amidst the occasional ugliness and bouts of heartbreak, Friends With Kids actually winds up delivering a charming message about parenting, romance and the joys of sharing a life with someone, even when your kid gets explosive diarrhea all over you and the wall. The parenting experience can forge a bond between partners . . . or send the fleeing in the opposite direction. It also puts to the test Billy Crystal's famous When Harry Met Sally adage, 'Men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.'"
If you're in the mood for a funny and poignant film that takes a hard look at the impact of parenting on romance and relationships, this film is for you.
Meanwhile, HBO is premiering its original film Game Change this weekend. Your opinion of this rendition of Sarah Palin's selection as John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign will depend upon your political leanings. If you're a Democrat and don't like Palin, you'll cackle throughout the film and have a blast watching her make gaffe after gaffe (oh, that Katie Couric interview) and see her admit that she didn't know why the United States had troops in Afghanistan. If you're a Republican and like Palin, though there are a few moments featuring the positives Palin brought to McCain's ticket (stupendous convention speech, solid debate performance, increased donations and huge bump in attendance at rallies), it's hard to overlook the film's meta-message that Game Change pounds home in between a handful of sympathetic Palin scenes: Palin had no business being picked; she was incompetent, emotionally unstable and, at times, imperious.
I've lamented on this blog on a number of occasions the negativity and condescension to which political women are subjected in the media and this movie is no exception to this unfortunate trend. But the fault lies in the source material, Game Change the book which villainized all the women in the book from Palin to Hillary Clinton, from Cindy McCain to Elizabeth Edwards. Only Michelle Obama emerged from that bestseller relatively unscathed.
That being said, Game Change's acting was top-notch. Julianne Moore was perfection and I didn't know Woody Harrelson had it in him to make me forget that it was Woody playing a high-powered political consultant. No matter your political leanings, Game Change is an entertaining ride, though if you're of the Republican/Palin fan ilk, you'll likely be indignantly fired up the movie's end. If you're of the mind that female politicians get a raw deal in the media, you may well be as fired up as the Republicans. My review of the film can be found here.
Did Ya See That Lady in White (She Happens to be a Presidential Candidate)
Hey, Michele Bachmann wore white at the GOP debate the other night. Oh, and she had pretty, manicured nails. The other people on the panel, all men . . . who cares what they were wearing, right? Who cares what Bachmann was saying because her an interesting ensemble and nails spoke for her!
Based on media coverage of Bachmann’s appearance – and the conspicuous lack of similar attention to her male counterparts’ appearances – the anti-sexism advocacy group Name It Change It has called the media folks out on their treatment of the congresswoman:
“The fact that her clothing, face and nails continue to be called ‘distracting’ underscores a more insidious desire: for her to just stop distracting everyone with her problematic body and go away. That’s sexism.”
Speaking of media sexism, the outstanding documentary Miss Representation will be premiering tonight on the OWN Network (Oprah Winfrey Network) at 9 p.m. DVR it. Watch it live. Whatever you do, just make some time to see it. It’s powerful and important, especially if you a) Are a woman and/or b) Are raising children in this media-saturated climate.
The collective power of all the statistics the film offers about women in media and politics, as well as the voices of the women interviewed in the documentary leaves a lasting impression. By the end, you'll see the way in which females are treated by the media quite differently than you did before. I waxed all things positive about this documentary and on the impact of culturally accepted media sexism on kids in my Pop Culture and Politics column here.
Dolled Up For School
As if on cue, an article in today’s Style section of the New York Times drives home points made by Miss Representation. The piece sends the message to mothers (pointedly not to fathers) that when they drop their kids off at school, they’d better be dressed to impress lest they prompt people to lament their obvious lack of fashion sense and self esteem.
The article profiled New York City mothers who show up to their children's schools in what appears to be mandatory high heels (or expensive ballet flats), pricey couture and fully done hair and makeup so that they won’t embarrass their offspring and, in the process, make a good impression on their peers. “Outside many of the schools’ buildings, parents wait in line to enter with their children,” the article said, “a configuration that lends itself to label-gazing.”
The article quoted a mother of two who writes a fashion blog as saying, “The first day of school, at drop-off, is the big sort of kickoff. Everyone looks amazing . . . [Later in the school year] it’s okay to look like an unmade bed at drop-off. But by pick-up, if that woman is still in her yoga pants, we keep counseling the woman to put something else on, at least for pick-up.” Because school is about a mommy fashion show, not children’s education, right?
It’s worth noting that it was in this same section of the newspaper that only two weeks ago advised women that if they want to climb the career ladder, they’d best don lipstick, mascara, blush, facial powder and eyeliner. “Want more respect, trust and affection from your co-workers?” an article asked. “Wearing makeup -- but not gobs of Gaga-conspicuous makeup – apparently can help. It increases people’s perceptions of a woman’s likability, her competence and (provided she does not overdo it) her trustworthiness, according to a new study, which also confirmed what is obvious: that cosmetics boost a woman’s attractiveness.”
I repeat: You should REALLY see (or record) Miss Representation about how women are indeed judged superficially and not by the content of their character.
I recently saw a screener of the documentary Miss Representation – slated to air on the OWN (Oprah) Network in October and currently being shown in limited screenings around the country -- and it reminded a great deal of a documentary I saw way back in the Stone Ages when I was sitting in a university sociology class as a student watching Dr. Jean Kilbourne’sStill Killing Us Softly documentary (there have since been more versions made)about how advertising depicts women as things, as sexual objects and creates a feeling among women that they can never, ever be good enough to compete with the phony, inhuman versions of femininity peddled by the advertising world that commodifies them and their bodies and debases their intelligence. Later, a UMass-Amherst Communications professor, Sut Jhally produced the first of many documentaries about how music videos transformed women into purely sexual, mindless objects for men to possess, consume and master.
Now, two decades later, these problems that I first pondered as a university student have only worsened.
And along came Miss Representation, the documentary which demonstrates how the degrading, oversexualized, trivializing depiction of women in the media and pop culture affects women and girls, as well as what negative impact the media’s messages have on women’s attempts to climb into the upper echelons of political and business power. From contemporary advertising and reality TV shows making women look like sex on two legs, to the news media’s treatment of women politicians and business leaders, Miss Representation piles example after example on top of each other, creating layers of angst, hatred and marginalization which, when consumed by the female half of the species, does tremendous damage.
An assortment of some of horrifying bits from this documentary:
53 percent of 13-year-old girls say they are unhappy with their bodies. When those girls reach age 17, 78 percent are unhappy with them.
“Girls seen as objects by other people, they learn to see themselves as objects.”
Seven-year-olds say they want to become president in roughly the same numbers among boys and girls. But by the time they reach age 15, the number of girls who wants to be president drops off precipitously. “Women are discouraged from pursuing ambitious positions.”
In pop culture, these messages are driven home. Hard. Only 16 percent of protagonists are female. “Mainstream movies are mostly stories about men’s lives.” Of the so-called “chick flicks,” the documentary filmmaker said that many of those movies revolve around a woman getting a man or being taken down a peg, or humiliated in some way.
On TV and in film, if a woman is depicted as powerful, she’s typically a “bitch” or has sacrificed love and family for her career. One Oscar winning male screenwriter said that woman are portrayed by Hollywood as “cartoons, not complex human beings.”
When women are “empowered” in pop culture, that generally translates into them flaunting ample skin and body parts, being thoroughly sexed up, in other words, objectified, existing, as one commentator said, “for the male viewer.”
The people who call the shots in Hollywood in terms of TV and movies are nearly all male, with women comprising a paltry 16 percent of all writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and editors.
Female TV journalists face pressure to get Botox, wear sexy clothing, lots of makeup and act in a sexual manner, while female politicians face demeaning insults and inquiries about their looks, sexuality, clothing, sexual proclivities, voices, maternity and their hormones. “A woman in power is often seen as a negative thing,” one commentator said.
While Condoleezza Rice said when she heard people questioning if Hillary Clinton was tough enough to be president in 2008, she thought, “I’ve known plenty of men who weren’t tough enough to be commander in chief, but they weren’t asked that question.” Meanwhile Sarah Palin was “pornified” by the national media in 2008 with some calling her a ditz and one man on a TV talk show saying she’s “masturbation material.” News photographers took photos of members of the audience at Palin’s events as seen through Palin’s legs.
The average number of news stories about women and girls is less than 20 percent.
This doesn’t seem to end. Just this past week I eviscerated JCPenney’s ill-fated, ragingly sexist T-shirt, aimed at elementary school girls which said, “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” Though the retailer pulled the shirt off their web site after people protested, in my Mommy Tracked column this week I made the point that things like this only reinforce the assertions made in Miss Representation.
Throw in the fact that I’d recently read an article in the New York Times telling women like me that I should start worrying about getting “cleavage wrinkles,” to my observation that after the Women’s Pro Soccer league had its final in New York and there wasn’t a full news story about the championship in the New York Times Sports section, and to seeing GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann mocked for wearing what one web site felt was “ugly shoes” and it’s enough to really, really make me steamed, frustrated and ready for a change, ready to say, “No mas.”
While filling in for the vacationing Bill O’Reilly on The O’Reilly Factor last week, pundit Laura Ingraham was grilling Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel by lobbing a series of tough, rapid-fire questions his way, many of which went off the original topic. Rep. Rangel’s response, after he said Ingraham was simply issuing “mini-speeches” instead of questioning him, was to say this: “Bill O’Reilly told me he had a secret weapon. I didn’t know it was just a pretty girl that they’d bring in.” At the tail-end of the interview, he “apologized” by saying, “I’m sorry I said you were attractive.”
This was just last week. In the year 2011.
Just.
A.
Pretty.
Girl.
Sexism Hurts Female Politicians
If you scroll down on the Mediaite web site, where I first read about Rangel’s comments to Ingraham, you’ll see that many of the comments degenerated from discussing the actual content of Rangel and Ingraham’s words, to Ingraham’s looks (both positive and negative), comparing her appearance to those of other political women, calling her sexual slurs and suggesting that she had sex with another famous TV pundit.
It’s comments like the ones directed at Ingraham based on her gender that, when directed at female politicians, actually have a measurable negative impact on those women’s chances of getting elected, even if those comments are flattering, like calling someone “pretty” or “hot.” That’s the centerpiece of my pop culture and politics column this week, that even when people call Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann attractive, or put Bachmann on the cover of Newsweek looking crazy after a pundit had asked her if she was a “flake” not too long ago, or when a fashion “guru” criticizes Hillary Clinton’s clothing selections using gender-specific language, that type of commentary erodes people’s confidence in the female candidates:
“Last fall, a study conducted by the Women’s Media Center, the WCF Foundation and Political Parity found that demeaning female political candidates with sexist language and images ‘undercuts her political standing,’USA Today reported. The Democratic pollster who ran the survey told the newspaper, ‘I was stunned at the magnitude of the effect of even mild sexism.’ What kind of effect? The survey found that in a hypothetical campaign between a male and a female and the female was criticized or depicted in a sexist way: ‘The female candidate lost twice as much support when even the mild sexist language was added to the attack’ and ‘the sexist language undermined favorable perceptions of the female candidate, leading voters to view her as less empathetic, trustworthy and effective,’ USA Today said.”
This is why, while I was researching this piece, I was happy to come across the web site Name It. Change It. whose sole goal it to point out and speak up when they see women candidates, of all political stripes, assailed by misogynistic remarks in the media. They do not let it lie. And neither should we.
The 2012 presidential race isn’t off to such a great start, as far as sexism and the media are concerned. Let’s hope the folks at Name It. Change It. can help improve matters.
Pining for Hillary
Are those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary suffering from buyer’s remorse? That’s what Rebecca Traister suggested in her column in the New York Times Magazine this past weekend in a piece entitled, “If Hillary Were President.”
“Three years after that intense and acrimonious time, in a period of liberal disillusionment, some on the left are engaging in an inverse fantasy,” she said. “Almost unbelievably, they are now daydreaming of how much better a Hillary Clinton administration might have represented them.”
And Traister wants those who are idealizing the could-have-been Hillary Clinton administration to cut it out: “. . . [T]o say it [that they wish Clinton had been elected] – much less to bray it – is small, mean, divisive and frankly dishonest. None of us know what would have happened with Hillary Clinton as president, no matter how many rounds of W.W.H.H.D. (What Would Hillary Have Done) we play.”
More Backlash on the Loony Newsweek Bachmann Cover Photo
The folks at Newsweek have attempted to make excuses for why they thought it was appropriate to select a photo for its cover that makes a politician look like an escapee from a mental institution while bestowing upon her the moniker the “Queen of Rage.” However, given the many, many photos from which they had to choose, the one they selected is clearly designed to make GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann look unhinged, not to reflect her “intensity” as the Newsweek folks bogusly claimed.
That's why the former journalism instructor in me adored the rebuttal by Tommy Christopher in Mediaite where he took the publication to task and calling “bull&%$#” on the rationale its staff have offered.
“In three years of covering the White House, I have accumulated hundreds of rapid-fire shots of President Obama, for example, and there are lots of them that freeze odd-looking moments (a cough, a blink) that look jarring out of context,” Christopher wrote. “I’m sure all news photographs do. That’s why they take so many shots, so they (or their editors) can select the one that best conveys the truth of the moment.”
“Whatever the intent of the Newsweek cover, it was a specific choice, not some process of elimination,” Christopher continued. “The same is true of the outtakes [that Newsweek put on its web site], all of which have been selected from dozens of nearly-identical, but subtly different, shots.”
Additionally, I was very heartened to learn that the National Organization for Women has weighed in on the matter as well, calling the cover “sexist.” (They typically leave conservative women high and dry.
“The main reason why we would stand up for Michele Bachmann and defend her against these kind) of misogynistic attacks is we want women to run for office,” the president of NOW, Terry O’Neill told The Daily Caller. “Of course my job is to defeat Michele Bachmann and I intend to do so. But good women will not run for office if Newsweek magazine can do this to such a prominent politician and get away with it.”
‘This is Gordon Gekko’s America.’
Conservative pundit and former congressman Joe Scarborough wrote a scathing commentary for Politico, decrying how the yawning gap between those on the middle and low ends of the economic scale and those at the very top is plunging a knife through the beating heart that is what's left of the American dream. Putting the current horrendous string of economic bad news into historic context, the Morning Joe co-host said:
“Since 1970, executive pay has increased 430 percent while workers’ wages have crept up at a pace that barely kept up with inflation. The average executive’s pay has jumped over that time period to 158 times that of the average worker’s pay in those companies. It’s no wonder that the top 0.1 percent of income earners get richer by the day while millions of Americans are seeing their situations get worse.”
“This is not John Wayne’s America,” Scarborough lamented. “This is Gordon Gekko’s America. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if the Duke faced one of these CEOs in a John Ford film, he’d kick some ass and force the leech to start treating workers fair. And you can bet that my Republican father would be cheering him on from the front row of the theater.”
And as I read Michael Goldfarb’s GlobalPost piece in Salon today about the sudden, horrifically violent riots in London -- with Goldfarb suggesting that “youth unemployment” is a chief “underlying cause of the rioting,” adding that “as the government’s austerity measures begin to bite here, it’s not likely to get better any time soon” -- I start to worry. Throw in a diminished U.S. credit rating, a stock market with drops powerful enough to give the nation collective motion sickness, and a former Republican congressman, who entered Congress as part of the Contract with America class of lawmakers, calling this a “greed is good” America, and I'm more than a little unnerved.
In November 2009, Newsweek put former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on its cover. But this wasn’t any ordinary cover. It featured Palin in short, shorts next to the headline, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?” The photo, it turns out, was a photo that originally appeared in Runner's World, where folks wear running stuff, duds not normally seen on the campaign trail.
Newsweek justifiably was on the receiving end of all manner of attack for being sexist and attempting to mock a female pol by trying to pigeon-hole her as a mindless bimbo.
Now comes this week’s cover, and another, attractive GOP woman is on the cover next to a snotty headline, “The Queen of Rage: Michele Bachmann on God, the Tea Party and the Evils of Government.”
It’s not the headline with which I take issue, it’s the photo which intentionally makes Bachmann look like a bug-eyed crazy woman. Meanwhile the actual article called her “petite and prim” with “the earnestness of a preacher.”
What’s Newsweek’s issue with high profile, conservative women pols that they need to be depicted on their covered in ways that make caricature them?
Sure, Sarah Palin has appeared on Newsweek more recently while wearing a form fitting hooded sweatshirt with the headline, "I Can Win," but the cover had this quality to it that made it seem more about sex than about policy and whether Palin would make a run for the presidency.
Given my previous blog entry about the documentary Miss Representation, which examines how women are depicted in the media and the impact of seeing very few women in leadership positions on the gender composition of our elected leadership, this new "teaser" trailer for the film The Iron Lady, starring the fantastic Meryl Streep is right on the money.
In this short peek, Streep's Margaret Thatcher is being told that her hat, her pearls and her voice are all strikes against her if she were going to seriously run for office. Love her push-back.
Not only do I want to see this film, Miss Representation – a 2011 Sundance official film festival selection – because I write and am interested in the intersection of pop culture and politics, but because I’m the mother of an impressionable 12, almost 13-year-old girl who’s soaking all of this in and trying to figure out where she fits in in the world of today’s girls.
As the mother of two boys – one age 12, almost 13, and another almost 10 – I wonder about the messages that they receive about girls’ and women’s roles in the world.
For example, after the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup and there was a celebratory parade in Boston – which my 9-year-old son and my husband attended – my daughter asked me whether there’ve been any parades for female athletes and if not, why not. She’s lived through Boston parades for the Red Sox (twice), the Patriots and the Celtics, all of which we watched on TV or attended.
I had no answer for her, none that would be satisfactory.
Though we’ve all, as a family, been watching the Women’s World Cup games, it’s hard for me to justify or explain to her why the women receive precious little coverage in the sports pages of the newspaper as compared to when the USA men’s team was in contention.
And while the kiddos, The Spouse and I enjoyed ourselves in spite of frequent rain – and despite the fact that an employee at the Three Broomsticks restaurant in the Wizarding World told me that it was “against the law” to serve me (a person with a dairy allergy) the non-dairy Butterbeer drink sans the dairy topping (??!!) . . . I partook of a delightful Pumpkin Fizz instead – I, a political junkie, was sad to have missed a boatload of news:
As my family was making its way to the airport last week, one of the top 10 Most Wanted criminals in the nation, Whitey Bulger who hails from Boston, was arrested after 16 years on the lam, in California and, from what I could gather via Twitter, it was a veritable media circus as he was taken into custody and transported to Massachusetts, topped off with a $14,000 helicopter ride yesterday taking him from Plymouth to his court date in Boston via the air. I guess my family members weren't the only ones going on pricey rides this past week.
As I was busy riding on Universal Studios’ Men in Black ride multiple times (always accruing the least amount of points compared to everyone else), news came down about the Blagojevich conviction which the Chicago Tribune described thusly: “A federal jury Monday convicted Rod Blagojevich of sweeping corruption, putting an end to a tragicomic legal and political drama that brought down Illinois’ showy and would-be populist former governor. In its 10th day of deliberations, the 11-woman, one-man jury convicted Blagojevich of several shakedown attempts, including allegations that he brazenly tried to sell President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat in 2008.” I kept thinking about the kooky Rod “The Hair” Blago going to prison as we headed over to the Simpsons’ ride, featuring one of America’s most dysfunctional families.
I was packing my suitcase to leave for Orlando when the president made his snoozy address about our troops in Afghanistan but I didn’t get a chance to indulge myself and imbibe copious amounts of follow-up news analysis. I did, however, later take my 9-year-old through the Marvel comics sections of Universal Studios park where the good guys always win and always seem confident. Hmmm . . .
As the political hubbub about U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential run escalated (from her being called a “flake” by a TV newsman and people mocking her for messing up Revolution era history, to the media’s discomfort as they once again grapple with locating the correct language to use when talking about a female presidential candidate, as one political pundit likened the media attacks on “conservative women” to “near-gynecological exams”), I was introducing my kiddos to the works of an award-winning actress named Lucille Ball. (FYI -- While I agree that all women, especially conservative ones, are savaged by the media, invoking gynecology is just . . . well . . . the male pundit shouldn’t have gone there. Seriously.)
But despite the fact that my news came mainly from my Twitter feed during the past week, I made up for the fact that I was in a family vacation bubble and wanted more news by reveling in spending way too many hours in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (buying "magical" wands for the kids, among other souvenirs), riding only the tamest of rides (I’m not an amusement ride kinda gal) and being accosted all over the place for wearing my Boston Red Sox baseball cap, mostly positively accosted . . . even when confronted (playfully) by Yankees fans.
If only the three Chocolate Frogs we bought (they're Potter-themed candy) hadn't gotten somewhat mangled by the time we got home. See how nice they looked BEFORE we attempted to keep them cool in ice as we traveled to the airport, then packed them up in a suitcase?
