This election has turned into a debacle and a sideshow, and there is no more obvious example of culture industry than Sarah Palin. Her candidacy for the Vice Presidency is completely manicured and calculated by the Republican party.
Remember Hillary Clinton?
Some people love her, many people hate her, but the fact of the matter is, she was very close to capturing the Democratic Presidential nomination. The fact that she’s a woman meant she excited the female voter base, many choosing to vote for her because she is a woman. With Clinton’s ultimate loss in the Democratic primary, many Democrats turned on Obama, refusing to vote for him for any number of reasons.
McCain won the Republican Primary easily and he had to choose a Vice Presidential candidate. But who? The Democrats had a black man and a woman – progressive! So why not cater to the progressive voters and try to get the disappointed Clinton supporters along the way? Let’s get a woman! But not just any woman, let’s get a pretty woman that no one’s ever heard of – who has no real political history to speak of and no built up bias after years in the public eye. Is there such a person out there? Why yes, yes there is.
She’s obviously qualified and very well informed about the job she’s going to be doing. It's refreshing to have someone so prepared and experienced with her eye on the White House.
The Republican party has been very careful to keep her away from interviewers, being very choosy about where she appears and what she
It’s not actually certain that she even knows how to read.
But the scariest part of all of this is that people are buying it hook, line and sinker. This transparent farce is working, as a large population of the country is not batting an eye, even as the wool is being pulled over it...er...them.
Assignment #3: Video critique.
Assignment #4: Video response.
3 comments:
Assignment 2: The Blog
Rockin’ blog girl. You begin with a succinct and well-written definition of Adorno’s most important observations about America—the birth of the “culture industry.” I am in full agreement with you concerning the notion that Sarah Palin is an exceptional example—i.e. products—of our nation’s culture industry. In fact, the “factory that produced” her as a political commodity is a Republican organization called GOPAC (“Preparing a New Generation of Republicans to Lead America”) that recruited and prepared Sarah (I use the term “prepared” loosely) for a political career.
“New on the part of the culture industry is the direct and undisguised primacy of a precisely and thoroughly calculated efficacy in its most typical products.”
The more dehumanized its methods of operation and content, the more diligently and successfully the culture industry propagates supposedly great personalities and operates with heart-throbs”. So Sarah!
(Adorno, 1991)
What was the rationale behind picking Palin? You give us several good reasons: she’s pretty, she’s a woman and she’s well-prepared (NOT!). We don’t know if she reads or knows how to; but apparently that’s of little consequence. The McCain campaign did its damndest to keep Sarah out of any “talking part” unless it required “a sense of humor,” like standing or sitting on the stage of SNL as herself or an impersonation of herself—which brings us to her best and most useful attribute: she’s a dead ringer for Tina Fey. Or is it vice versa? Regardless, SNL loves Sarah. She gave them with their highest ratings in years!
And how right you are…major wool over the eyes of ½ of the electorate; but this Party has been knitting a pretty big sweater (cover up?) for the past eight years!
Great use of clips starting with the splintered Democrats and moving right into making the myth—take it away Sarah!
Bravo Rimma!
Assignment 3: The Response (Just another big helping [spoon full] of good ole fashion media)
Your response to the SNL parody featuring Palin and McCain’s “special message” brings up some good questions. Why are we laughing at these two and what was Loren Michaels thinking? Has he fallen to a new low or is he laughing at us and them?
Loren is laughing for sure—you can bet on it. Fallen? I don’t think so. Why not make fun of the obvious and get in a few laughs? The SNL parodies only proved that McCain-Palin totally suck—unless they are on stage to entertain, ‘cause they certainly do not inform.
Yes, it’s all about selling stuff. Another example of the false consciousness that has prevailed over the last eight years and these two want it to stay that way. Remember what Bush pronounced after 9/11? “Shopping is Patriotic.”
A few more items came to my attention: they used the real McCain and the faux Palin, just as you mentioned earlier, keeping her out of the “talkies.” No wonder McCain looks so relaxed.
The writing is very considered—it’s painful to watch cause it’s them!
And, yeah, they are about as white as you can get—absolutely no diversity here but why do they admit it!! Cause it’s true?!
Some fun facts about QVC: it reaches over 107 million homes and 50 million customers. Its audience is 40% larger than Fox, with 3.536 billion in sales in 2000. Hardly the bottom of the barrel!
http://www.monaco-consulate.com/qvc/qvc.html
Assignment 4: The Project
I like your idea—introducing Palin and McCain as American icons, Barbie and Herbert, the pedophile from “Family Guy”…common people”—the people we should vote for ‘cause they are so regular, i.e. conventional. Is there any doubt that the epitome of the lowest common denominator is Bush?!
No diversity! No way! It’s all about “othering.” You don’t count if you’re not white, especially that black guy running for president or the hundreds of millions of you that are also part of the “othered” coalition. God forbid (pun intended since those white-ies are such good Christians) we consider you or your needs, but we will conveniently label ourselves as “super ordinary” guys and gals. Really, we are. Look at all of us—we’re so clean and white. Aren’t we just the greatest people?
The biggest statement that I see you making here in your blog is the idea of aesthetics and its role here in the election. You make mention of the idea of people voting based on the whether the candidate were male or female and then later on, black or white.
The Culture Industry "produces to pacify the masses." Of course, they're producing an image, especially with Sarah Palin-- this image will aid in helping the general public will embrace such an incompetent candidate.
Sarah Palin is the definition of what is aesthetically pleasing to the eye:
1) White
2) Attractive; former beauty queen pretty, mind you.
3) Female
4) Cutesy/kitsch
Yet, what separates Palin from Clinton? Perhaps the fact that Palin is far more endearing than Clinton. Not to mention the fact that Clinton was used as a springboard for Palin to be launched by the G.O.P as a Clinton replacement. If it had not been for Clinton's presence in the presidential race, Palin would not have been the GOP's final attempt at being progressive.
You assert that Palin is a sideshow. Correct. She was just a huge distraction from what was really at stake with this election period. The woman could not prove her knowledge as a politician, as an intellectual, nor as a citizen of the United States and yet, here she was, up for the second in command position.
The principle of aesthetics is made even more obvious in your Assignment 4 video, where you point out the fact that there were no Blacks, Hispanics, nor Asians in the McCain/Palin crowds. This is then solidified when you made a point of stating "so why would you want this?" in reference to "golden boy," Obama.
Assignment three says so much about the games being played by the Republican party. They saw the success (not to mention the mass attention) being received by Fey's spot on impersonation of Madam Governor Sarah Palin. Though their intention was to feed off the buzz of SNL's popularity, they failed miserably. If anything, that skit seemed to be a concession before the actual concession. Though McCain makes some pokes at his opponent-- with the 10 blank plates and the Joe Biden doll-- there is little effort made to beef up his candidacy.
So, all in all, is there much to be said about the culture industry if the masses aren't willing to swallow the products being fed to them?
I dunno, ask Palin and McCain.
Thank you, Rimma, for making Adorno accessible and comprehensible to me. I always feel like such a dumbass when I read abstract theory; so to see theory in motion in contemporary culture/society, and grasp what's going on is pretty satisfying. I agree with your arguments: that Palin was thrown into the campaign circus because the McCain camp figured people would fall for her based on her gender and looks; that Palin was simply a distraction from real issues, such as the dismal economic, environmental, etc. outlook the nation faced going into the elections; that Palin was folded into pop culture seamlessly because in the current era of reality TV, the people are willing to give any pretty face their 15 minutes of fame. Now ordinarily, my cynicism would lead me to say that Palin had a real chance at becoming our veep. I always say, "People are sheep", meaning that they run with the herd even if they're being misled. After all, the American people voted Dub-ya into the Oval Office-- twice! Turns out though, that the flock is changing direction at the behest of a more convincing shepherd. Your second and third projects in this series help illustrate some of the other reasons why Palin proved to be McCain's albatross. Palin is a punchline; while she satisfies hegemonic need to lull the people into a stupor by means of entertainment, she is insubstantial, inconsequential, forgettable, and laughable. In the end, Palin proved too vapid, too ephemeral, too anti-women's rights to be elected. A Republican working against the status quo? Now that's impressive!
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