“Is That A Pistol In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Glad To See Me?”* Gunslinger or American Idol—Caribou Barbie is Hot!

At the drop of a hat, no matter what the target, they both shoot: wolves, moose, friend and foe. Voilà, the VP hero à la Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin.


Who cares who the VP is anyway, as long as we get to keep our guns? From the point of view of the NRA, the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution—the right to bear arms—might even trump freedom of speech, assembly, religion and the press.

In “We Build America,” Gitlin identifies that the automobile is one of the most potent devices that advertisers use to exploit the American romance with power objects—metaphors for personal freedom, rugged individualism, and desirable social status. We create these icons all the time, even in politics, where they quickly become surrogates for critical thinking. As long as we wrap the particular political figure or organization in the American flag and other symbols of American virtue, we don’t have to think about what the politicians really represent—their political ideology, policies and agenda as well as their social values. An equally commanding power object is the gun, embodied in another staple American icon, the lone gunman who incarnates in many forms: the heroic hunter-explorer, the moralistic self-righteous cop, the Samurai gun slinger, and the lonesome cowboy or cowgirl. Politicians and political candidates are routinely packaged with stock symbols that connote a figure of strong moral character, a stalwart protector and defender, a self-sufficient and unshakable leader, and above all, a courageous patriot. “On the surface… commercials … manipulate the romance of freedom in order to sell automobiles” (Gitlin, 1986). The metaphor of the gun has been deeply embedded within the American psyche since the early years of our Republic and our aggressive Westward expansion.
Currently, both the Republican and Democratic candidates have adopted, as part of their public aura, particular class values that cut to the proletarian facet of the American persona. Every Joe six-pack and hockey mom can identify with these archetypes; and, in their present mode, they are all products of what Adorno recognized as the culture industry. But wait a minute, there might be a new sheriff in town!



Whether it’s the President or Vice-President, this militaristic vigilante type attitude affects the presidency and the country as a whole. Very few American Presidents have been successful who’ve held an anti-war, anti-violence position. Jimmy Carter ‘s lack of aggressiveness as “commander in chief” of the military was viewed by many as wimpy. Whether Democrat or Republican, it doesn’t seem to matter—if you are not ready to take up the gun, you are considered weak and un-American.

Palin was a nobody that no one remembered until she was recruited and coached by a Republican organization called GOPAC (“Preparing a New Generation of Republicans to Lead America”) for a political career in the same way that young, unknown wannabe entertainers are shaped and displayed on American Idol, creating the next blockbuster entertainment sensation—and you even get to vote! It’s an uncanny how similar American Idol is to the phenomenon of grooming politicians for elected office. First, a group of “experts” with a semblance of authority selects individuals they think are good material. Those who pass the audition are then appropriately tutored and presented to the public in well-scripted events, much like the coming out parties for debutantes. Finally, we the people get to cast our vote yea or nay. It’s all part of the art and science of marketing in which politicians are regarded in the same light as every other commercial product. Spending $150,000 on Governor Palin’s wardrobe and makeup is nothing new. Every politician with ambitions beyond municipal office must consent to be airbrushed by PR specialists in order to become consumer friendly—not only a clean and shiny package at the political check out counter, but a personage palatable to the culture makers: if the culture makers are displeased, the candidates—their public personas—will be shredded and sent back to the media makeover department.
Yes, icons of all stripes are now media products just like Madonna or Hannah Montana, with the potential for selling a variety of associated accessories conveniently included in the ideology box: guns, beer, identity, power. In the context of political marketing, it is definitely more important to spend $22,000 on Sarah’s hair and makeup, fashioning a faux feminist image, than educating her about foreign policy, the constitution, the law, social and domestic policy, history and how the federal government actually works.
Gitlin was speaking about car commercials, but the same methodology and technology are used to advertise politics and politicians. You begin with someone who is a “blank”, an unknown quantity, and turn them into an American idol, an archetype that embodies personal freedom, personal power, virtue and apple pie with all the trimmings. And one of the most enduringly popular archetypes is the gun slinging Dirty Harry
or Annie Oakley. Gramsci would probably ask us to decipher the meta-message: as long as you can keep your gun, you don’t need to worry about educating your children, health care, your job, teenage pregnancy or the poor. A comfortable, false sense of security quells your longing to rise up, protest and question the powers that be. What is being reinforced and rewarded is the attitude that it’s every man for himself: we don’t need solidarity if we can just look after ourselves.
As long as you feel a sense of personal power because you can own a lethal weapon, you don’t have to align yourself with others to improve your community or change the government. This is one of the traditional ways that the power elites have learned to divert the attention of the masses from thinking, speaking, discussing and acting together. Gramsci might acknowledge that the right to bear arms is indeed empowering, but only slightly. Even though every citizen has this right, it is a freedom that is exaggerated and romanticized to the point that it is felt to be the cornerstone of the foundation of our American democracy—as if all of our rights and freedoms are balanced on this singular one and, if we loose it, we will be at the mercy of the government and criminals. But in reality, what does this right confer upon us other than the power to kill an intruder, our neighbor, our boss or massacre our fellow workers, students and teachers.
The symbolic resonance of the gun ripples through our culture at every level and our political idols and leaders embrace it. A modern exemplar was Ronald Reagan, the iconic, modern, cowboy-actor President. With First Lady Nancy Reagan, they were the veritable Roy Rogers

and Dale Evans of the American Presidency. Now we have John McCain = soldier, a professional gun slinger in defense of flag and country; Sarah Palin = Amazon huntress, a Caribou Barbie ready to act and protect; and Dick Cheney = our supreme, predatory hawk, a true believer in the power of the big gun, the primacy of overwhelming military strength, the Bush administration’s primary strategy for driving a foreign policy whose goal is to maintain our global hegemony by any means necessary. Dick Cheney and his possible understudy, Sarah Palin, represent America’s number one sheriff.


Come to think of it, who should be the one with a finger on the button? Well, gosh, it ought to be someone who knows how to shoot and how to get the job done!
In his final days as President, Eisenhower gave a clear admonition that has gone unheeded—to reign in the military industrial complex. Socialists—not the Russian ones—have always warned against the consolidation of power between government, business and the military, and characterize it as the hallmark of totalitarianism.

Is it possible that we give way to a newfound hope on November 4th?




Got Gun ...Power or Crumb? (3rd assignment)
*(Mae West, “She Done Him Wrong” 1933)
Gitlin, T. (1986). We build Excitement: Car commercials and Miami Vice. Watching television: A Pantheon guide to popular culture. Pantheon Books
4th Assignment: The Pen is Mightier than the Gun