In case you haven’t seen the FOX News commentary in which the host suggests that a fist bump between Obama and his wife is a secret terrorist signal, you can see it here. (And I thought this was bad.)
Here’s an image of the infamous terrorist signal:
NEW! It’s not an image, but Patrice Evans has an interesting essay on the “fist bump heard ’round the world,” arguing we should celebrate National Fist Bump Day.
I don’t have an image for this post. What I have is a quote from Bill Napoli, a South Dakota state senator. He doesn’t believe that bills banning abortion should have an exception in cases of rape, because if the woman “really” deserved to get one, she could get it under the health-of-the-mother exception. Here is a direct quote:
A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
I came upon part of this quote in issue #40 of Bitch magazine (p. 17), but I found the full quote here (scroll down a little past halfway).
What’s interesting to me here isn’t about abortion per se, but the implication of who would and wouldn’t “really” suffer if they were impregnated from a rape. Apparently if you aren’t a virgin or religious, or ARE a virgin but weren’t necessarily planning on staying that way until marriage, then being raped and getting pregnant just wouldn’t be as traumatic as it would to “nice” girls.
It’s also creepy how we often like to think in rather fine detail about the ways good little virgins can be violated. I mean, he could have just said “she was raped,” but no, he decides to make it a bit more graphic. And how bad is “as bad as you can possibly make it”? Is there some measuring stick for how traumatizing different violations are, so you can be sure the girl has suffered enough to qualify as a deserving victim?
It reminds me of an article I read about the myth of the black rapist and the virginal white victim in the post-Reconstruction South (sorry, I don’t remember the article); the author said that detailed stories about how animalistic, savage black men had ravaged delicate white women served as a form of folk porn–people repeated the stories over and over, embellishing as they went. Telling rape stories provided a socially sanctioned outlet for people to talk about sex even in “nice” society, since you were only doing it to warn others of the danger, of course.
So even though there’s no image, I thought the quote might spark some interesting classroom discussion, either about abortion or about sexuality, victimization, and the enduring idea of the deserving and undeserving rape survivor. Or, hell, even a discussion of the social construction of porn–I mean, if you took Napoli’s exact words and put them in a different context and didn’t tell people he was a senator discussing a proposed bill, I bet a lot of people would think it was obscene but interpret it very differently since he was just talking about a hypothetical situation while discussing serious matters such as the law.
One of my students last semester wrote a paper in which she looked at sexist images of Condoleezza Rice. Interestingly, much of the online discourse was very similar to the way people talk negatively about Hillary Clinton. It was fascinating to see the same themes used by people with different political viewpoints in their criticisms–both Hillary and Condoleezza were described as bitches and whores and as ugly man-hater lesbians. My student argued persuasively that the reason the online attacks on the two women were so similar was because they weren’t being viewed as politicians or through the lens of their policies, but instead the attacks used a sexist lens that focused on their femaleness–and willingness to trespass on male-dominated political terrain–as the thing to attack, rather than any specific action or policy. Unfortunately for the blog, though good for humanity, I didn’t find as many images that had been made to accompany the hateful rhetoric about Condi as about Hillary.
Here’s an image (found here) I came across (note that George Bush’s face has been super-imposed on the handler):
Both Hillary and Condi are often described as ugly. However, I noticed when searching for images of Condoleezza that both supporters and critics occasionally sexualized her (especially in reference to a pair of stiletto-heeled boots that got a lot of public attention at one point). I haven’t found similar images of Hillary from either supporters or critics (whether it would be preferable to be sexualized by a supporter or opponent, I’m not sure). I found this image of Condi in a bathtub here, though it was posted on several other websites I came across in a really brief search.
This bathing suit image came from here.
Unsurprisingly, Condoleezza’s race is also a focus in online discussions in a way that Hillary’s isn’t, such as this image (found here) that plays on the idea of the Uncle Tom (the implication being that Black Republicans or military hawks are puppets used by Whites for their own agenda–that is, that they are either duped or are trying to get power by appeasing Whites):
NEW: p.j. sent in this sexualized picture of Condi:
Thanks, p.j.!
This is the iconic photo of Tommie Smith and John Carlos (found here) from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. They raised their arms, wearing black gloves, in a symbol of protest against racism in the U.S. Less often noticed is that they were wearing beads to symbolize victims of lynching and went barefoot to protest the fact that the U.S. still had such extreme poverty that some people went without basics, such as sufficient clothing. Peter Norman, the Australian 2nd-place winner, grabbed a button produced by the Olympic Project for Human Rights (see below) when he found out what the other two were going to do and wore it in solidarity (if you look closely you can see that all three are wearing matching white buttons).
The reaction was immediate and negative. Carlos and Smith were stripped of their medals, ejected from the Olympic Village, and returned to the U.S. to widespread anger. In David Zirin’s book What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States (2005, Chicago: Haymarket Books), several black athletes discuss the difficulties they faced as a result of their actions. This 2003 interview with Tommie Smith covers some of the same issues.
Below is a button like the ones they were wearing. Much like we often think Rosa Parks spontaneously decided not to give up her seat on the bus (ignoring the fact that she attended training with other African Americans determined to protest inequality in the South), the assumption is often that Smith’s and Carlos’s gesture was something they decided on at the moment. In fact the Olympic Project for Human Rights, organized by Black U.S. athletes, had tried to organize an athletes’ boycott of the 1968 Olympics. When that was unsuccessful, tactics switched to making statements at the Olympics. This was part of an organized plan on the part of a number of Black athletes who were tired of representing the U.S. but being expected to stay silent about racism in the U.S.
Some of these buttons are for sale ($300 each!) on Tommie Smith’s website.
A t-shirt with the cover of the July 15, 1968, issue of Newsweek about “the angry black athlete.”
I looked for a photo of the cover itself but could not find one online. Clearly the nation was anxious about the attitudes of Black athletes even before the Olympics (in October) caused such a stir.
I think these images are useful in a couple of ways. I use them to undermine the idea of the individualistic protester and to bring attention to the ways Civil Rights activists organized and planned their actions. It could also be useful for discussions of politics in sports–the ways in which athletes have at times used their position to bring attention to social inequality, as well as the repercussions they may face for doing so. It might also be interesting to ask why this image caused so much furor, and how the Olympics is constructed as this non-political arena for international cooperation (a topic I cover in my Soc of Sports course). You might compare the image from the 1968 Olympics to this image (found here) from the 1936 Olympics in Germany:
Here we also see the Olympics being used to make a political statement, but in this case the athlete was not thrown out of the Olympic Village or stripped of his medals. What is the difference? Just that time had passed and attitudes toward political statements at the Olympics changed? In the 1936 pose, the athlete was showing pride in and support for his country, whereas Smith and Carlos meant their gesture as a protest of conditions in the U.S.–thus shaming their nation in an international arena (this was a major cause of the anger they faced when they returned to the U.S.–the idea that they were airing the nation’s “dirty laundry,” so to speak, for others to see). Could that be part of the difference in the reaction?
Of course, a cynical person might argue that these seemingly ungrateful, misbehaving black athletes who refused to smile and play along were being publicly punished in the media for getting “uppity” (in a time period where white Americans were also wearying of minorities’ continued demands for equality and social change).
The trouble is… people will answer them.
Found here thanks to commenter Phili-Chan! From an Australian show featuring Charles Firth.
At the Los Angeles Times, found via Scatterplot.
This Australian ad for Lipton tea suggests that it’s mind clarifying qualities are so good that it could help even George Bush achieve the feat of naming all 50 states.
This Brazilian ad for Rolling Stone, featuring a picture of George W. Bush, reads: “We don’t show naked women to sell more. At the most, we show some asses.”
This Chinese Greenpeace ad, portraying Bush’s spin on global warming, reads: “Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. Voice yours at forum.greenpeace.org.”
This Chinese ad for an erasable pen reads: “Everyone makes mistakes.”
In Malaysia, Bush is used to sell Smart cars. Text: “Still looking for weapons of mass destruction. Not smart.”
Also in Malaysia, Amnesty International makes fun of Bush in their effort to inspire opposition to Guantanamo Bay. “Write to him and help stop torture at Guantanamo Bay. Remember, use simple words.”
This is a Mexican ad for a dog kennel. “We don’t discriminate any kind of breed.” (The source says that, in Mexico, like in the U.S., “dog” is a name for a bad person.)
This ad for a Mexican newspaper reads: “Such a complex world needs a good explanation.”
This is an ad for the movie American Psycho in New Zealand.
In Portugal, playing war games (paint ball) is advertised as equivalent to playing George W. Bush.
This Swiss ad threatens, if you fall off your bicycle without a helmet, you may end up as dumb as George W. Bush.
These and more borrowed from here, found via adfreak.
Update: There have been some really nice points in the comments about how, in the process of making fun of Bush, we are also seeing the further stigmatization of “people with developmental disabilities, brain injuries, and psychological diagnoses” (that from Penny in the comments).
For our sociologist and sociologically-inclined readers:
As Wicked Anomie asks, “Sociologist and American are mutually exclusive categories?” Who knew!
She also notes:
…did you also notice that bit about “real issues,” and how they and racial/ethnic issues are mutually exclusive? So, we have the broader category of issues, then we have subcategories of racial/ethnic and “real.”
Indeed.
Via contexts crawler.
