This man, Donny Deutsch, host of CNBC’s Big Idea, helpfully tells the rest of us what the “new feminist ideal” is. Hillary Clinton’s problem, he explains, is that she “didn’t put [on] a skirt.” Enjoy:
Also in women can be anything they want as long as they’re hot: The Nerd Girls.
Found at Feministing.
In a comment to another post, Max S. pointed out this video of a question-and-answer session where, when asked about policy toward Iran, John McCain makes a joke about the Beach Boys having a song called “Bomb Iran” and sings “bomb bomb bomb” to the tune of “Barbara Ann”:
I’m probably the only person left on earth who hadn’t already sseen it, but anyway. It might be useful for a discussion of militarization and/or foreign policy, or the ways in which we obscure the reality of war such that the idea of bombing “Iran” is separated from any acknowledgement that you’re talking about bombing actual people.
Thanks, Max!
UPDATE: In a comment, thoughtcounts z said that this was probably a reference to the Capital Steps‘ parody of the Beach Boys, which it very well may be–I’m apparently horribly out of touch with…well, everything. McCain said The Beach Boys, so I just took him at his word.
Robin D. sent in this image of Vladimir Putin on the cover of The Week (found here):
I tried to find a larger version but haven’t been able to. Anyway, it’s an interesting example of the conflation of male sexual prowess with military aggression and power. Given the image, the title “Russia, rising” could have, um, other meanings besides the idea of rising political or military power.
Thanks, Robin!
In a comment to another post, Umlud provided a link to this post from Thoughts from Kansas about the following joke allegedly told by John McCain in 1986 when speaking to the National League of Cities and Towns:
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, “Where is that marvelous ape?”
Here is an image of the original story about the incident in the Tucson Citizen (link to image found at Think Progress). I know it’s small and hard to read, but I wanted to provide the original source.
According to Think Progress,
McCain said he did not “recall” telling the joke. More recently, the McCain campaign scheduled a fundraiser with a Texas oilman who compared rape to the weather while running for governor. “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it,” said Clayton Williams in 1990. After public outcry, the event was “postponed.”
From what I recall, the comment by Williams was widely credited as a major reason Ann Richards won the gubernatorial campaign, becoming the second female governor of Texas.
Huh. I was looking up some information on Ann Richards really quick and discovered this list of the governors of Texas and discovered there have only been 6 Republican governors of Texas, and two of those were right after the Civil War, when the Republican party had quite a different platform and orientation. The other 4 have all been since 1979. And my home state of Oklahoma has only had 4. This shouldn’t be surprising, given that the Southern swing to the Republican party occurred mostly after the Civil Rights movement and Civil Rights legislation signed into law by President Lydon Johnson (who correctly predicted that the Democratic party would lose the South as a result of the policies), but it still surprised me.
Thanks for the link, Umlud!
Here is an ad put out by the McCain campaign that associates Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton:
What struck me about it is that associating Obama with some young women is a way to imply he’s not a serious candidate (see this post from yesterday on a similar theme). I mean, they could have used, say, Tom Cruise of one of the examples of overwhelming celebrity, but part of the image of the Obama campaign is that many of his followers are sexy but vapid young women. (Also, as far as I’m aware neither Britney Spears nor Paris Hilton have actually been connected to Obama, unlike Scarlett Johansson, who sent him emails; the media frenzy over the idea that he was her “email buddy” eventually forced him to distance himself from any association with her. Why this was such a big deal, I do not know, since there was no indication that the emails were inappropriate in any way.)
Also: Paris Hilton has now become part of our political discourse? Really?
NEW: Marc S. sent in a link to the humorous response from Paris Hilton. It might be a humorous intro to a discussion of the way that we assume that certain types of femininity (particularly the type associated with tanning and liking the color pink) are incompatible with being intelligent or politically aware.
Thanks, Marc!
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first presidential candidate to use television commercials. Below is one of his commercials, made by Disney, from 1952.
Eisenhower was skeptical about using television and his opponent, Stevenson, wouldn’t appear on television because he thought it demeaning to a man ascending to the presidency. Eisenhower won.
This and campaign commercials since can be found at The Living Room Candidate.
This is why Gwen was pessimistic about the New Yorker cover. Another product sold at the Texas Republican Convention:
Also sold at the Texas Republican Convention: If Obama is President… Will We Still Call it the Whitehouse?
Found here via Copyranter.
Breck sent in a link to this post about the controversial New Yorker front cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as Muslim extremists (I found the full-size image here):
As you may guess, there have been some quite negative reactions to this cartoon. The Obama campaign did not particularly like having him portrayed as an American flag-burning Muslim, oddly enough. And apparently this has gotten wide enough press coverage that even my mom had heard about it and was distressed, and my mom doesn’t follow politics too closely.
I’m kind of fascinated by this entire situation. When I went to Oklahoma last month to visit my family, my uncle informed me that Obama is a Muslim with some secret evil motive for wanting to be president that the rest of us can’t even imagine because we aren’t diabolical enough to think of it. When I pointed out that Obama is not a Muslim, my uncle said he used to be, which is the same thing, and that if Obama really loved America he would change his middle name from Hussein. I gave up on the conversation at that point and returned to pulling ticks off the dog, since that was a lot more pleasant.
What I’m saying is, I have first-hand knowledge of the people out there who honestly believe Obama is some type of Muslim extremist with an evil plot for when he gets into office. Fox News reported on the “fist bump” as a possible terrorist gesture. This distrust of Obama is out there. So this cartoon could spark a really interesting discussion of political humor/satire and the boundaries between “appropriate” and “inappropriate.” I assume–and I’m just assuming here–that this cover was supposed to be a commentary on the fact that some people (and Fox News) are convinced Obama has a connection to Muslims and/or terrorists and, as a result, has evil plans for the future of America. But the cover could also simply reinforce those ideas–I really hope my uncle doesn’t suddenly take up reading and pass by a magazine rack in the near future, because this cover will prove to him that he’s been right all along. So what’s the line between social commentary that points out and/or ridicules issues such as these and just reinforcing the misconceptions or stereotypes that you claim to be undermining?
It could also be used for a discussion of how we read things into images based on our own assumptions. I mean, I have no evidence this cover is supposed to be a commentary (however misguided, dumb, or inappropriate it might be) on misconceptions about Obama; I’m just presuming based on what I know about The New Yorker, its liberal slant, and my recent experience with my uncle. If you showed me the exact same image and told me it came from Fox News, I am certain my reaction would be different because of my assumptions about what Fox News would be trying to say with the image. I can check that tendency to make assumptions about the intention of the creators of an image, and I try to, but I think it’s always good to point out to students that we don’t just passively see an image; our own experiences, assumptions, and so on influence how we interpret them. This is part of the reason that, once an image is put out there, the intention of the creator doesn’t necessarily have much to do with how people interpret or use it.
Thanks, Breck!
On an unrelated note: If you’ve noticed my absence from posting the last few days, I can only say that the first 2 seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” turned out to be way more compelling than I was expecting and watching them can be quite the time sucker.
