Electing Ourselves

DISCLAIMER: Even with just a vague knowledge of rhetoric, the following photos may become suddenly transparent, contrived, or lose their intended persuasive effect on some viewers. Proceed with insatiable curiosity.

"Hey, he owns tractors just like us. We should clap for him."

Obama: Bold. Discerning. Competent. This Rain Sucks.

Sitcom idea: Presidential hopeful and spunky blond toddler hitchhike across America and learn something about life, friendship, and themselves along the way.

Really looks like he's facing the wrong direction in this one.

Ahh...the simple joys of team spelling.

"Many cult supporters of Obama described him as being 'graced by a supernatural light,' as if 'the Messiah had descended once again to liberate the poor with promises of universal health care.'"

Romney supporters really showing them how to party on Game Day

What a wonderful day for eloquent speaking!

One of the few photos of Romney from Obama's website that just happened to catch him in a moment of obliviousness, unpreparedness, and generally scared shitlessness...

as opposed to Obama, who has only ever known that million dollar smile.

In a fashion and magnitude similar to celebrity tabloids, or frenzied paparazzi hoping to expose the dirty laundry on a cultural heavyweight, the lives of politicians are ruthlessly, and microscopically probed during the campaign season by a cultural spectatorship that is equally obsessed with picking apart the personal minutiae of its dignitaries and implanting its own preconceptions. This is a social environment that equates self-approval with a range of sanctioned behaviors and values, and then sensationalizes and ostracizes its eccentrics. So much so that voters identify themselves not just politically -- taking a stance on various issues -- but go so far as to superficially select a candidate whose particular lifestyle mirrors their own personal representation of values -- as if visual, material appearance and character are two interchangeable ideas.

Roland Barthes argues something similar in his essay Photography and Electoral Appeal where he looks at how the candidate engineers a mutual bond of trust and admiration between himself and the voter by turning his physical appearance into a statement, or representation, of an ideology. He states, "a photograph is a mirror, what we are asked to read is the familiar, the known; it offers to the voter his own likeness, but clarified, exalted, superbly elevated into a type...the voter is at once expressed and heroized, he is invited to elect himself." The effectiveness of constructing a visual ethos in today's political world boils down to the candidate's ability to transcend his own singular identity, and match one that is intensely personal, yet extensively national. 

To win over the hearts and minds of the majority there must be an appeal to a focus group that is versatile enough to attract a wide range of voters, but exclusive enough to suggest a common, domestic identity. The ideal candidate must display himself as the red-blooded every-man whose averageness is highlighted, yet not blinded, by his uniqueness. He must seem established enough in himself as to stand out and appear grounded, but amorphous enough as to be the blank face upon which voters project themselves. He must rationally poise himself on a web of ideological extremes so as to not seem too predisposed or biased to one system of action, yet not spread his image so thin as to appear ambiguous or flaky. This is the social rhetoric of politics that emphasizes the orthodox over the unusual, and one effective way to relay these subconscious messages to the voter is through the orchestrated craft of photography.

The social pressures that call for imitation of this kind are so strong that the candidate seems to undergo a process of depersonalization, where instead of representing himself as an individual, he becomes merely just a product or projection of his culture's values. When we see this happening in photography, Barthes argues that,

 "what is transmitted...are not his plans, but his deep motives, all his family, mental, even erotic circumstances, all this style of life which he is at once the product, the example, and the bait. It is obvious that what most of our candidates offer us through their likeness is a type of social setting, the spectacular comfort of family, legal and religious norms, the suggestion of innately owning such items of bourgeois property, as Sunday mass, xenophobia, steak and chips, cuckold jokes, in short, what we call an ideology."

Below are some  more official campaign photos taken from Obama's site as well as Romney's that I feel are of significant enough note to talk about in more detail. I want to take a look at how the different social contexts of these images construct the ethos of the candidate, and what we think about him (in terms of the above mentioned), subsequently touching on how pathos is often a vital component to the construction of ethos, as well. 

Exhibit A:

Looks like someone told a funny joke. Wish I could have been there!

"Oh...nothing. I was just chuckling to myself about that time we bet Ryan he couldn't put a Lego up his nose."

In these photos, we see a depiction of the husband and wife dynamic in a dining room setting that would be familiar to most Americans. Here, the implied premise is one of mutual respect toward the spouse, as well as a warm hospitality that invites the viewer to sit, chat, and stay a while in this friendly domestic setting. It is a humbling sort of admission for one with so much influence to say, "Hey, even though we may seem like big-wig Washington cronies, we're really just a normal family. We sit down around the table at the end of the day, put all our business aside, to eat dinner and talk -- just like you." The public especially admires this brand of humility because not only does it relieve them of the suspicion that wealthy aristocrats live much more luxuriously than they do, but it also forges a bond of trust when the socially elite can easily admit, without humiliation, "what a pleasure it really is" to freely mingle among the working class again. 

The subtleties of technique between these two photos are slightly different, though the ethos created in the couple is essentially the same. Mr. and Mrs. Romney's photo offers up to the voter, once again, the image of himself, down to its furthest, blurred peripheries. One sees typical appliances and items of "bourgeois property" (.mp3 player, kitchenette sets, coffee maker) which adds yet another layer of domesticity to the scene. At a more distinguished and clear distance we have Mitt resting against the bench seat, sleeves casually rolled up, with an arm around his wife. By placing himself in the background of the photo in this posture, a bodily position is suggested that portrays Mitt as the supportive husband who isn't always seeking to be in the spotlight while his wife disappears behind the scenes. Strategically speaking, this offers a harmonizing reassurance for Romney supporters since his platform has often been attacked as "anti-woman." Any wavering female voter might possibly gain some sense of internal security from this picture, for we have, finally, in the culmination and foreground of the image, a radiant breath of clarity that draws the viewer's eye immediately to the most important subject: Ann Romney. However, I'm not so sure how well this portrays her as an independent female, since the setting and background seem to accent the familiar items of a homemaker or housewife.

Obama's photo, on the other hand, seems to acknowledge no gender role or power dynamic between him and Michelle, and seems to rely on a separate set of traditions that can be described as altogether nostalgic: a plentiful, home-cooked meal that one might see in a Norman Rockwell painting. Instead of focusing on him and his wife's relationship, Obama emphasizes a "friendly neighbor" sort of appeal by portraying a decidedly active and social role in dinner conversation. He displays the sort of genteel wittiness that is charmingly naive to any apparent economic or class boundaries. He even leans forward in his chair in an extra effort to make definite eye contact with any potential votes that might slip through his fingers. An easily-humored demeanor has, for a long time, been employed as a technique to build charisma among one's peers. On his lecture about friendly feeling, Aristotle writes in his book On Rhetoric, that people are friendly to "those who are ready to make or receive a joke; for in both cases they are intent on the same thing as their neighbor, able to be kidded and kidding in good sport" (126).  

Exhibit B:

My, what a beautifully firm, masculine handshake you have

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: that-spells-Ry-an-and-Rom-ney

"Tortures Children in Spare Time to Relieve Campaign Stress." -- The Huffington Post 

Pleasantville must be pretty crowded, because there wasn't enough room for the obligatory apple pie in this shot. Otherwise I'm sure they would have tried to fit a slice or two in there somewhere.

Here we see the Romney campaign fully geared up for a specific audience: the conservatives and traditionally minded voters who want to see a restored balance between civic and familial duties and morals. As Barthes put it, "some candidates incidentally, beautifully manage to win on both counts, appearing for instance as a handsome hero (in uniform) on one side of the handout, and as a mature and virile citizen on the other, displaying his little family." But "little" is kind of ironic here. In the four photos as a whole there is an interesting parallel presented that assigns the viewer a specific ideology of how the male is supposed to be perceived in the context of his family, and the context of his country.

Specifically considering the paternal content of the last photo, what Romney is doing is promoting and sustaining patriarchal values in which the male father figure is the ruler and head authority over his "clan" or his lineage. Barthes was wise, however, in choosing the phrase "virile," as that it is exactly the quality of masculinity that Romney's approach to family requires. With the uniform dress, and matching color patterns in the youngest children, the viewer is also given a rigid, formal separation of gender identity and gender roles. It would not be much of a stretch to even argue that Romney seems to be representing an ideal family, or ideal individual to his voters that is a direct product of socially engineered youth. But where patriarchy is the dominant mode of familial organization, it is kind of appropriate that such a distinction in gender roles should be introduced at an early age.

There is an interesting contrast in the third photo where the viewer is introduced to a less organized household. Coming off as a stern dictatorial figure is definitely not an attractive quality to have, either. This photo still keeps the perspective on family, but this time he portrays himself as a more informal, fun-loving grandfather who the kids love, and who can still hang out, eat pizza, and watch movies with the best of them. After all, no one wants to vote for a hard ass who doesn't like kids. 

To complement his paternal appeal, Romney sheds the father figure shell and adopts the "handsome hero" archetype. While not in uniform, he is still displaying wearing a deep respect for the military by acknowledging and thanking those who served in it. The main thing I want to point out here is that Romney is, in both photos, making sure that he is seen with not just the greenhorns, but the old veterans, too. To span this age gap of young and old, while still giving and receiving respect throughout the whole gamut is an important quality to the every-man, especially in Romney's patriarchal appeal where respect for and from authority is such a vital value to have in your rhetorical tool belt.