***
During this down-and-dirty election season: may a specific
group of people still adhere to a candidate’s views because “[...] they fit our
popular image as nonpolitical, limited people; an image we have internalized so
well that we may accept it as true of women as a group, even though we have
disproved it in our individual lives”(Steinem, 1972)? To what extent do
we—across demographics of gender and age, income and race—consider ourselves a
“nonpolitical, limited people,” willing to adopt one party’s set of political,
social, economic, and ethical beliefs?
And how might we gather such critical information? If
assumptions are to be made about any specific political demographic, evaluation
of the mass media and news networks’ portrayl of that group may be useful. Do
women vote differently than their husbands? I’d love to ask Roger Ailes,
longtime political strategist and creator of the ‘fair and balanced’ news
network: Ailes' ability to present political viewpoints as entertainment began
during the Nixon administration; beyond helping devise a plan to televise the
lighting of the White House Christmas tree, some allege the full conception of
FoxNews as a machine of propaganda and media control took place in the Oval
Office during the early 1970s. Ailes is important to a modern characterization
of women’s role in politics, as his network consistently beats all competitors
in monthly ratings. Ailes also claims Sarah Palin as his own creation: after
the former Governor’s unsuccessful Presidential campaign alongside John McCain,
Ailes’ network had a small studio installed in Palin's Wasilla, Alaska home.
Her tenure with the network did not last as long as some had hoped; in a recent
speech, Ailes admitted that he “hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got
ratings” (Ailes, as cited by Moore, 2011).
Steinem’s assessment of women as a voting bloc came at a
time when chauvenism was probably more acceptable, but also when the mass media
was in its infancy, and populations may have expected less interpretation of
events from their newscasters. One quote from Steinem’s essay rings with the
charged and staunch rhetoric of last week in Tampa: “Culturally, women tend to
think like conservers of life. Sometimes that makes us conservative in the
conventional sense, and sometimes it pushes us to the left, making us very
radical indeed” (Steinem, 1972). What modern political party seeks to be
“conservers of life,” and to what extent may this phrase be taken as an
idenfitication of viewpoint on Roe V.
Wade? Has our political language—the wearing out of terms and phrases,
including conservative—weakened our
abilities of political representation?
Actions may forever speak more loudly than words; according
to a number of accounts, the Republican National Committee surprised those
protesting their convention by providing boxed lunches to all those on the
sidewalk. Actions within realms of
creativity appear mutually exclusive to those of media and politics; while
Ailes’ criticism of his network news competition extends into aesthetic set design,
the artistry involved in the cover of Ms.
magazine may today be relegated to museums, over publications that reflect
national concerns and culture (a recent comparison of Time magazine European and American editions reflects poorly on our
national obsession with ourselves). But magazines, news networks, and political
parties are inclusive organizations; the potential for individuals to express
opinions and views, as artists, may still exist.
While Faith Ringgold’s 1988 story quilt “Tar Beach” extends an
“angry, critical reappraisal” (Spector, 2012) of urban life and the possibility
of experience through a vibrant, inviting and historic form, her 2000 project
“Racial Questions and Answers” may be one of the Internet’s first examples of
participatory asynchronous representation through art. While her history of
political activism fed her experience in quilting (the most famous result of
which hangs today in the Guggenheim), her website devoted to the collection of
demographic data and speculation on racial identity reads like the registration
page of an early social networking hub, as Ringgold’s collection of identifying
data is followed by prompts of individual reflection, on an assumed racial
identity: “Imagine Waking up One Morning Black in America!” reads part two, of
her “Questionnaire A for White People.” A separate questionnaire, for “all
people of color” proposes one wake up “One Morning White in America!”
(Ringgold, 2000). Ringgold’s latest
creative efforts include a host of childrens’ books, for which she has received
many accolades. How might Ringgold assess Steinem’s 1972 charge, that a
specific population may not be trusted, relied upon, to support a politician’s
set of values and social policies? Perhaps we may all strive to be like the
child in her “Tar Beach” quilt, mid-flight and hovering above the stoic symbols
of the most oppressive groups we know, together forging a voting bloc that is
unfixed and critical, and cannot be trusted. Roger Ailes’ characterization,
however, of the voting public’s likely behavior is probably honed in on
populations within a few ‘swing states,’ while maintaining a widespread support
for individuals’ participation as a “nonpolitical, limited people.”
Hale, C. (2012). “Masterpiece Activity: Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach.” Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/librarians/programs/tarbeach.htm
Gawker.com. (2012). “Roger Ailes' Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint
for FoxNews.” Retrieved from http://gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon+era-blueprint-for-fox-news
Moore, R. (October 5 2011). “Roger Ailes: I Hired Sarah
Palin Because She Was Hot and Got Ratings.”
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/roger-ailes-sarah-palin-fox-news_n_995691.html
Spector, N. (2012). “Guggenheim Collection Online.”
Retrieved from http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/piece/?search=Tar%20Beach%20%28Part%20I%20from%20the%20Woman%20on%20a%20Bridge%20series%29&page=&f=Title&object=88.3620
Steinem, G. (1972). “Women Voters Can’t Be Trusted.” Ms.
[magazine]. Retrieved from http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2002/steinem.asp
***
--Jerry Jeff
Walker, “Pissin’ In The Wind”
“How many
roads must a man walk down before he admits he is lost?”
--David Lee
Roth, from Strummin’ With the Devil: the
Southern Side of Van Halen
Two revisions of Bob Dylan’s famous lyric provides context for this
brief survey of social, political, and rhetorical statements, made within the
genre of popular and commercial song: since Dylan’s gravely-voiced premonitions
and dreams gave flight to all manner of recorded psychedelic statements in the
early 1960s, artists’ abilities to foster social and political movements within
music have come under scrutiny. How are songs of critique and protest received
by the public, and to what extent do record labels—themselves commercial
entities serving to preserve corporate interests—seek to control artists’
lyrical and rhetorical messages?
Tupac-Ressurection.com leads to Paramount Pictures’ main site, and
the parent company—Viacom—promotes Jersey Shore, a remake of the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles, and Comedy Central’s recent sweep of the Primetime Emmys,
garnering awards for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Futurama. Through the
Internet’s Wayback Machine, one may access ‘snapshots’ of what the
Web—including this site, promoting a 2003 MTV documentary about Shakur’s life,
the “only film made in collaboration with Shakur’s mother, former Black Panther
Afeni Shakur” (“TUPAC: Resurrection,” 2003). The film’s producer, Lauren Lazin,
has continued work for MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, as well as on films including The U.S. vs. John Lennon. The transitory
nature of fame, within genres of pop music, may create a difficult framework
for artists’ sustained work toward social justice: Lennon may have penned
“Imagine” and other notoriously popular anthems of change, but the extent to
which his political idealism has been embraced and lyrically ratified by the
succession of songwriters in his wake may actually illuminate a grim situation
of rhetorical representation on MTV, VH1, and other celebrity-obessed channels.
These networks are corporate, seek profits, and are interested in selling
entertainment, not inciting riots. Lady Gaga’s meat dress may represent an
individual’s unique embrace of their fame, and will no doubt be discussed as
part of her VH1 Behind the Music
documentary, but to what end? As Blake Wilson pondered in the New York Times,
reviewing Dorian Lynskey’s 33 Revolutions
Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, “can pop music change the world?”
(Wilson, 2011).
In seeking to define this relationship, between a performer and
their effect on the views and actions of a self-selected audience, one may
consider the actions of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation (tasf.org), its arts
education programs, and performing arts center, on the outskirts of Atlanta,
founded by Tupac’s mom: to what extent might popular musicians’ actions of
protest and justice promote a legacy of change, establishing new traditions of
community and music? Does the strategic placement of Creedence Clearwater
Revival’s “Fortunate Son” in all-too-many filmic depictions of the Vietnam War
and a domestic culture of protest elevate this pop-radio hit to a new level of
success? The slew of comments on the brief New York Times review of Lynskey’s
compendium to pop protest music may sum to characterize the fragmentation of a
previously-commoditized market: most of those choosing to comment on the review
seem to do so, in order to promote their own favorite protest song, from
artists we’ve never heard of, recordings that may or may not have been made
widely available for public sale. Is it by accident that Country Joe and the
Fish’s studio recording of their popular Woodstock sing-along “Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-to-Die-Rag”
has fallen off our informal map of cultural and musical history, half a century
after half a million people covered in mud all knew the words on a field in
upstate New York?
There is an absurdity to protest in pop music: to what extent may
one protest the system within which they work, or, as Sean Wilentz described in
his review of Lynskey’s book, where “simple outrage surpasses ideology”
(Wilentz, 2011). While CSNY’s song “Ohio” may represent one of the most
expedient and effective embraces of the genre of popular recorded music, Neil
Young’s work as a lyricist and songwriter extends far beyond his reaction to
the shootings of students at Kent State University in Ohio: promoting energy
efficiency and sustainability through his tour to support his 2005 Greendale album, Neil Young continues to
serve as an example of sustained inclusion of political and social lyrics
within the genre of popular music.
Like the situation described in Neil’s early 1980s lyrics, many
celebrities within popular recorded music have found it “better to burn
out/than it is to rust” (Young, 1983, “Hey Hey My My”): many rhetorical
heroes have expired all too soon,
including Tupac, Lennon, Hendrix, Morrison, and others, from dangerous mixtures
of idealism, substance use, and toxic interactions. The state of protest within
popular recorded music is, for all purposes, too transitive to define: the end
of commercialization, and the rise of downloadable product and musicians’
self-representation, may continue to characterize songwriters’ predicament. “Occupy
This Album,” a February 2012 compilation featuring tracks from over fifty
artists, was produced by an organization (Music For Occupy) that stands “in
solidarity with Occupy Wall Street” (“About,” 2012), and while these efforts
are noble in helping redefine the genre’s rhetorical abilities, I wonder if any
modern recording artist would dare to perform public relations antics like
renting hotel suites in Montreal and Amsterdam, and surrounding themselves with
comedians, musician friends and the press, and call the set of stunts a
“Bed-In” for Peace? John Lennon
explained himself to the press in 1969 as such: “It’s part of our policy not to
be taken seriously. Our opposition, whoever they may be, in all manifest forms,
don’t know how to handle humour. And we are humorous” (Wiener, J., 1991, as
cited by Wikipedia, 2012). Do we, consumers of recorded music, expect—or even
want—such humor from our entertainers and American idols?
Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation. (2012). “About TASF.” Retrieved from http://www.tasf.org/the-foundation/about-tasf/
Wilentz, S. (29 April 2011). “A History of Protest Songs.” New York
Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/books/review/book-review-33-revolutions-per-minute-by-dorian-lynskey.html?pagewanted=2&_r=4&src=rechp
Wilson, B. (27 April 2011). “Is The Protest Song Dead?” New York
Times. Retrieved from http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/is-the-protest-song-dead/?ref=review
***
The
rhetorical capacity of the camera has changed both the way social protest is
captured by onlookers, but has also helped to establish a means by which
statements of political, social, or economic activism may help determine its
efficacy—a new criteria was established during the twentieth century, of what
“looks good” for the television and still cameras. From red carpet celebrity
appearances to network television anchors to filmmakers and politicians, one’s
own appearance and voice transmitted across electronic means has become a new
and fluid form of rhetoric. When Nixon sweated and stammered his way through
televised, live, and unedited Presidential debates in 1960—and went on to lose
the race to Kennedy—he hired a young and aspiring production assistant to help
him “look good” on television, to present himself as newly calm and clear,
stern and thoughtful. Within a decade, Nixon had an effective public image, the
sum of the rhetoric crafted by a careful team (Joe McGinnis’ The Selling of the President 1968 is a
fantastic description of this transformative process)—and the young production
assistant, Roger Ailes, would go on to create and head Fox News, on behalf of
the Murdoch empire. How does the action of “looking good” take place today, in
films, news, and on the wild and wicked web?
Context
for Valerie Smith’s work regarding the contextualization of films that appeal
to specific racial groups is useful in understanding the lineage and evolution
of our collective on-camera rhetoric. Since the time of her writing, some of her
presumptions regarding the efficacy of documentary film may be challenged by
the popularity of artists like Michael Moore, and the continued and heightened
high regard for the works of Spike Lee. While “documentarians [still seem]
unlikely to achieve the popularity of directors of fiction films” (p. 62),
Smith’s (1992) assumptions about the commercial viability of “nonfiction films”
(p. 61) may have been unseated by a recent trend in nonfiction television, film
and culture: reality television, now clearly established as a genre of popular
entertainment, seeks the presentation—however awkwardly rendered—of
individuals’ narratives, without the façade sought by the rhetorical cameras of
the twentieth century. Do reality television programs, from Hoarders to Hardcore Pawn, represent the “intimate, if not contiguous, relation
to an externally verifiable reality” (p. 60) Smith identifies in the movies of
the early 1990s? If Andy Warhol was correct, that we may all be delivered our
requisite fifteen minutes of fame within the corporate portals of reality
television, are producers interested in making individuals and their narratives
‘look good?’ What is the “intimate [and] externally verifiable reality” that
can help define this emerging realm of nonfiction narrative?
If
Smith’s characterization of the import and reception of black feature films in
1992 was critical to the development of rhetoric and representation in film,
James Allen’s website Without Sanctuary
serves as contrast: without the expectations of a manufactured plot, a rising
action, and a benevolent resolution sandwiched between segments of corporate
commercials, Allen’s work in compiling images, and their presentation on a web
page, helps establish a genre technologically unavailable at the time of
Smith’s writing. Self-described ‘picker’ James Allen, narrating the
short film declared that, “in America, everything is for sale, even a national
shame” (2005). He describes how his collecting and presenting photographic
postcards of lynchings across the United States during the early 1900s has
“engendered” in him a fear of “the majority,” and how a specific “image layered
a pall of grief over my fears.” Those who peruse his site are witness to scenes
of horrific and public death; the viewer endures “the endless replay of
anguish,” as Allen ruminates and speculates about the motivations of those
depicted as watching the hangings and swaying bodies. Is such a website—a work
of visual rhetoric, devised specifically to represent moments when citizens
have looked far from ‘good’ but perhaps at their most reprehensible and
repugnant—effective, as an act of protest, of representation long after the
grave facts? Does the visual representation of individuals or groups looking
‘less-than-good’ at moments in history constitute an act of protest?
Websites may
have helped reinforce Allen’s notion that “in America, everything is for sale”;
a published collection of his images remains available, though their
representation online may have undermined his profits. Allen’s website includes
an active and public forum, in which comments on the lynching photographs from
educators, students, and web users at large have sought to make meaning of and
increase understanding of what Allen described in his short film as “the cold
steel trigger in the human heart”—what drove these crowds to these terrible
moments. Discussions found on the forum provided unique and fluid
contextualization for the collection. One participant, username ansar1013, posted on
August 11, 2011, under the “Where Was God?” thread on the Without Sanctuary website: “I am here to
establish a system of justice in this world and replace this current system of
injustice. These lynchings that were done can only be blamed on the cowards and
punks in the crowd that lacked the testicular fortitude to fight for right.
People know what is right from wrong. We just lack the balls to do something
about it. So instead of getting bogged down into some GOD talk we should
discuss strategies and tactics to completely destroy this current system of
injustice” (ansar1013, 2011). Theological arguments, pedagogical applications,
and individuals’ constructive criticism all aid in making sense of Allen’s
photographic documentary; perhaps the site remains proof that we, as a culture
and population, are still seeking full context for the rhetorical abilities of
the camera. The creative genre that accommodates the compilation and
distribution of images (of others, taken by others) may still be evolving.
Perhaps we are still trying to understand what it means to ‘look good’ on film,
and in the digital age. The choices in ‘looking good’ that are ours and in the
present-tense are not the same as the choices made by those in the past: be
them crowds gathered around trees for nefarious and horrific reasons during the
first decade of the last century, or the populations
represented by filmmakers twenty years ago.
Allen, J.
(2005). Without Sanctuary [film].
Retrieved from http://withoutsanctuary.org
Ansar1013.
(11 Aug. 2011). “Where Was God?” [forum post]. Retrieved from http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html
Smith,
V. “The Documentary Impulse in Contemporary African American Film.” In Black Popular Culture:
A Project by Michele Wallace, ed. Gina Dent. Seattle: Bay Press, 1992.
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