Firstly, the election has as much to do with the beach as it does with anything else. Politics is happening around us all the time. The mundane and everyday encounters with politics and the spectacle of governance are important.

I agree with you that the images are certainly a result of the choices people make but I think that we have a tendency in Sociology and related disciplines to make a lot of assumptions about what those choices do to people (through media effects) or what they necessarily mean.

The reason that I love this blog is that it is a forum for pulling these images out of their ‘natural’ environment, defamiliarizing them and in turn subjecting them to a critical gaze. There is a tendency, though, toward abbreviated and sometimes trite commentary that can miss the point of the critique and moves too quickly to contain and explain (away) the meaning of the image.

Pulling it out and critiquing it is only the first step. We need to encourage a greater degree of inquiry that doesn’t do violence to the multiple, hybrid, and shifting gazes that animate these images in society.

Of course we also need to be able to put these images up, sometimes quickly and without a lot of analysis. The quick and dirtiness of the medium is one of the things that makes it so exciting.

Those are adequate qualifications these days, and certain to be an improvement. We need as many ‘differently-normalled’ people as we can get since the ‘normal’ (I’d prefer to say ‘typical’) crop of presidential candidates for the past 230 years or so make me seriously reconsider the theory that we’re secretly ruled by reptilian shape-shifting Space-Bankers who live deep within our hollow Earth.

Besides, we need a president with six-pack abs to stand up against that totally hunky and still-calling-the-shots Putin (everybody knows Medvedev is a sock-puppet). Check out the pics of him posing as the rugged outdoorsman, not much different than when Bush puts on his cowboy costume (except Bush leaves his shirt on; the only good decision he’s made in 8 years). http://ohhmylord.blogspot.com/2007/08/president-vladmir-putin-photo-gallery.html

At least this picture was ‘shopped, unlike many incidents of world leader cosplay.

Secondly, why can’t don’t we assume that the photographer/magazine might be making a comment on public perception of these figures (rather than creating public perception of these figures — that line is never clearly drawn out, and never will be. I think Douglas Rushkof called it a feed back loop). In other words this photograph could work as a commentary on the public persona/celebrity of these figures. Through humour it is drawing our attention to the image of these men.

Personally I’m not interested in a media and in art that only portrays what is ‘necessary.’ Basing a critique on that is dangerous (not least of all for the question of what gets to count as necessary).

The rest of what is said here makes sense to me though, esp. concerning the sexualization of Obama (or the Grandfatherliness of McCain). Looking at this we may ask if we want a sexy, youthful president or a sage elderly statesman…

I agree I also have a problem with sexualizing Obama in this way. It’s one thing to say he is good-looking, it’s another thing to have him bare-torsed stark-contrasted with mccain. Unnecessary.

Also ditto on the “fist bump”. I love how everyone’s doing this now:) From politicians to talk show hosts. A totally spontaneous gesture has become a cultural tidbit and aided along by the ridiculous-ness that is FOX. It’s just very cool.

If you understand that the election will be decided primarily by independent white voters in the suburbs and exurbs of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and the like, then one has to wonder who this photo benefits (I’d say McCain).

But since no one in those states subscribe to New York magazine, I guess it doesn’t really make a difference. lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_vmQrTi3aM