season of the bitch

Colin Powell was always one of those Republicans I had some respect for (like McCain used to be, but I digress). Powell seemed to have at least some awareness of the world around him and especially of the importance of diplomacy. Like everyone else, I was disappointed when he went before the UN and, well, lied. When he stepped down in the wake of Bush’s re-sort-of-election, I was really angry, because I felt that residual respect and affection for Powell in this country could’ve swung the election for Kerry if he’d resigned before the election. He wouldn’t even have had to make an explicit endorsement–his leaving the ship would’ve been a sign.

Powell was head of the State Department–the department that relies most on performative language, according to Cook. The Secretary of State and his underlings do their job mainly by making statements. Approval, disapproval, etc. are expressed through the media as well as through direct diplomacy.

Powell, then, knew exactly what he was doing when he took to Meet the Press to make his endorsement of Barack Obama.

He didn’t appear on stage with Obama and probably won’t (though you know the ad people are working overtime to cut his words into a spot). He sat in a chair, comfortably, and spoke honestly. He didn’t invoke race once. He prefaced his statement with both respect for and criticism of John McCain, and especially of the choice of Sarah Palin, and then spoke of Obama as a potentially transformational figure.

And most importantly, he called out the Republican party on scare tactics and fearmongering, on xenophobia and hatred. Powell of all people has tremendous power to make the comments that there’s nothing wrong with being Muslim. As a general, as one of the architects of several of our recent wars in the Middle East, he will be accused by no sane person of being a terrorist sympathizer. When he spoke of an American Muslim soldier who died in Iraq, he sounded sincere, unlike McCain’s phony invocations of a bracelet from a soldier’s mother.

Implicit in those statements was an endorsement of Obama as the better leader on Iraq. He didn’t have to say it outright. He invoked Iraq and a fallen soldier in a way that if I didn’t know better I’d call a left-wing dogwhistle. I felt for just a second as if Powell had whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry about that, guys. I’m trying to fix it.”

Powell’s appearance on a news talk show was itself the top headline on the New York Times and the third headline on the Washington Post today. While I’m not going to go into what that says about canned news events and the corporate media here, suffice it to say that once again, we can see that speech is itself a form of action, especially in the executive branch.

So I have 8000000000000 things to do right now, but I’m going to take just a moment to comment on something because I think it’s important to note.

The New Yorker’s Obama endorsement makes many excellent points. You should read it. But to my mind, the most important point it made was this one:

Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.

See, the presidency is largely a symbolic office. Congress is the body that’s going to have to actually make and pass these tax cuts and health care policies–all the president can do is encourage and sign. One of the reasons I was an early Obama supporter was that he seemed to have a much better grasp of and less warmongering slant on foreign relations. And foreign relations are carried out by, yes, talking. Words. Speeches.

There’s a huge place for performative language in all of this. Timothy Cook outlines this whole process expertly in Governing With the News. The president makes a speech, and policy changes. Need an example? Remember the “Axis of Evil” comment, and how suddenly after that we seem to be dealing with North Korea and Iran increasing their nuclear capacities?

Every time the president makes a speech, it is news. Even now, when the candidates make a speech, it is news. That news gets carried not just to voters, but to other countries and other governments. The reason McCain keeps harping not on Obama’s willingness to go into Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, but his willingness to talk about it, is that he knows that by making a statement the president has to back it up.

A popular president’s speeches could buoy Wall Street just by pledging support; it is a measure of Bush’s lame duckitude that he can’t. Any president can screw foreign policy up majorly just by mistaking the names of countries or leaders; just ask Richard Nixon about Mauritius and Mauritania.

The president has to know when to speak and when to shut up, what to say and what not to say, and yes, be willing to talk to other leaders. Talk doesn’t prevent action, or require some sort of soul-selling to Ahmadinejad like McCain seems to think it does. But it does indeed have an effect on what happens.

So having a president who is a man of “mere” words, as opposed to one who regularly mistakes one country for another (or one Supreme Court Justice for another–ask Justice Breyer if he’s slightly insulted at being confused with Alito this morning) is actually rather important when you think about it.

And after watching those debates, which candidate do YOU think is more likely to shoot himself in the foot while attempting diplomacy, whether it’s face to face or through the press?

That’s right, everybody’s favorite proponent of universal health care in the pages of the Times is now a Nobel Prize winner.

I’ll take this as a good sign, thanks.

Congratulate him.

Regular readers here will know that I love me some Gina Carano, female MMA fighting superstar.

Well, apparently some male sports writers believe Carano needs to be “protected from herself.”

See, cutting weight is part of fighting. It’s one that I’m disgusted by, having lived with a fighter for two years and seen the battles that he–yes, he–went through with the process and the damage it did to his body image. Fighters weigh in a day or two before their fight, and the idea is to take a fight at a low weight, lose some of it off your body and sweat the rest of it out so that when you rehydrate, you weigh more–hopefully more than your  opponent, and you get an advantage. So no one actually fights at their real body weight, except amateur boxers and wrestlers, who weigh in the day of the event, just hours before their bouts. And even they  often sweat out a few pounds and hope to be able to hydrate and eat before their fight.

But thousands of men across the world do this regularly. Boxers, muay thai fighters, and MMA fighters, as well as even high school wrestlers “cut” weight. It’s been dramatized on shows such as The Ultimate Fighter and Fight Girls, which starred Carano.

None of them were called out by name as being in danger of injuring themselves by taking fights at weights too low to make, even though there are many who struggle with the weight-cutting process.

Instead, the writer here chose to make the female MMA star–and there is no argument that Gina Carano is the biggest female mixed martial arts star out there–the subject of his article.

Once again, the female body is there to be policed by men.

If this writer is so concerned with the health of fighters, he should have written an article exposing the entire weight-cutting process for what it is: physical damage done in the attempt to gain a somewhat unfair advantage. He could’ve written about high school coaches encouraging teenagers to go into the ring weakened and dehydrated in order to make a lower weight class.

In other words, he could’ve written this article without making it about a woman.

Instead, Carano needs to be protected from herself. She needs to be stopped from doing damage to her body. He throws in some images of naked Carano being weighed in between two towels, and jokes about internet fans hoping someone would drop the towel.

This is completely unnecessary. If he had a specific point to make about how women are more likely to be encouraged to lose weight, how the thin ideal is encouraged on women more than men, he could’ve done it. He could’ve proposed same-day or even right-before-bout weigh-ins (like jockeys on the racetrack, though they routinely go into races dehydrated and starved as well).

But he didn’t. He chose to sexualize and then scold the woman.

Hey guys. So one of the fun things I do as a communications student is study portrayals of different people/groups in the media. Obviously, this comes with a feminist slant. And I assume most of my readers here will have the same sort of viewpoint, and maybe some academic backgrounds that can help me out.

So it’s been suggested by one of my profs that I should attempt to do a little crowdsourcing experiment on this paper. I’m posting my topic here, and I would love suggestions from my readers on where to take it, and more specifically, on readings I should check out for it. I’ll be blogging my progress as it goes on, so we’ll see if this helps, hurts, or is just neutral and fun for you to watch me tear my hair out.

Proposal below the fold.

Hockey Mom, Beauty Queen, or Pitbull in Lipstick:
The Many Faces of Sarah Palin in the Media

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin burst onto the political scene in August with her selection, seemingly last-minute and out of nowhere, to join the McCain campaign and bring something new and fresh to the ticket. Almost immediately, the media seized on her image as a young, attractive woman and the coverage overflowed with stories about her past as a beauty queen, her looks, her style, and the Internet exploded with Photoshopped bikini pictures and Palin Bingo.
The public opinion of Sarah Palin has changed as more information has come out about her, but the one thing that hasn’t is the pervasiveness of feminine stereotypes in the coverage. Feminist theorist Judith Butler has written about gender as a performance rather than as an innate quality, and it is my theory that the coverage of Palin centers on how successfully she performs certain gender roles. Other theorists have also written about the female body as signifier, and this also plays into portrayals of Palin—stories will mention her physical appearance when they would not mention the appearance of a man in the same situation.  Critical feminist theory will provide the framework for this study, drawing from several disciplines to analyze her portrayal in the news.
I plan to study the coverage of Palin in two media outlets: Salon.com and the Washington Post, and carry out a qualitative analysis of the stereotypes presented in their stories, both op-ed pieces and straight news. A random sampling of stories will be selected from the volume of stories about Palin in the two sources, and read for stereotypical descriptions of her physical appearance and personality. I will then use the feminist theorists to examine what those particular stereotypes mean, and why they are pervasively applied to Palin, often in place of discussion of policy.

So I’m used to feminist complaints about overly retouched, unrealistic photos in fashion magazines. I’ve even indulged in a bit of this myself (even while I photoshop zits out of my own pictures on Flickr.)

But now apparently there’s some controversy (granted, this is from FOX NEWS) about an UNretouched photo of Sarah Palin gracing the cover of Newsweek.

I found this ridiculous sentence while searching: “The cover photo is a very close-up picture, which drew controversy because many people say that a close-up picture of a woman is meant to be unflattering.”

To me, among many, many other things, this proves the fact that Republicans chose Palin because she was pretty, not because of any other qualities she brought to the ticket. I’ve seen hundreds of unflattering photos of Obama and McCain this election cycle, not to mention insulting and racist cartoons. Yet we’re supposed to be up in arms because she was NOT photoshopped?

First off, from what I know of photojournalism (and I do TA in the photojournalism department of my university), altering the photo is a breach of ethics. Now, granted, that usually has more to do with adding people into events where they weren’t, or making someone look worse (whoops, Fox), or, perhaps, making a black man look blacker?

So apparently I’m supposed to be up in arms because a close-up photo of a very attractive 44-year-old woman with more money than average and better skin than I’ve got shows what, her pores? That she’s got a few fine lines?

This is ridiculous.

I write in defense of beauty rituals and makeup, glitter and sparkle and high heels and femininity. And I don’t pick on Sarah Palin for using any of the above. I don’t even pick on her for being “Caribou Barbie” or “Bible Spice.” She’s allowed to be a pretty woman and to make herself even prettier.

But what the hell is wrong with us that a simple unretouched photo is enough to set the right wing howling that it’s unfair coverage? What’s wrong with showing a 44-year-old woman’s skin? Do they honestly think someone’s going to decide not to vote for her because they can see her laugh lines?

After debates over Biden’s possible Botox, and comments that Palin could wink so she clearly hasn’t had it (used to imply elitism on the part of the Democrats), this whole tempest in a teapot seems forced at best. At worst, it’s profoundly insulting to the woman’s intelligence–and to all of ours.

But then, presidential campaigns in general are an insult to our intelligence. And the more we harp on issues like this, the more they really do seem like a beauty contest.

I warn everyone: this may be offensive. There was champagne, and much shouting at the TV. Click “more” at your own risk. Also, it goes in reverse order, with the most recent first.

» Read the rest of this entry «

So as you may or may not know, I’ve become addicted to Rachel Maddow. Not watching her yet? Here’s a taste:

In any case, though I love Rachel (and to a lesser extent, Olbermann), I must admit that this ain’t journalism and it isn’t a step forward for the journalistic profession as such.

It’s punditry, of course, just like FOX News. The dangerous thing about it, just like the dangerous thing about the blogosphere, is that it leads you to think everyone is thinking like you.

I watch Rachel for the laughs, and because she is in fact quite bright and backs up her sources. Because she’s a young, smart, liberal woman who’s an out lesbian with her own prime-time news commentary show, and that makes me happy.

I don’t believe in “objective” journalism. I believe in transparency. I believe that it’s impossible to hide your opinion, to pretend that you don’t have a horse in the race. If you’re a human being, you’re going to have an opinion, you’re going to be swayed one way or another. It’s just not possible. And thus I think that it’s better to be out in the open about it.

Still, I get my news from NPR, which of any American news outlet seems to come the closest to the “objective” ideal. That doesn’t mean they don’t call out bullshit when they see it–listen to the hilarity when actual lipstick was applied to an actual pig. Even objectivity doesn’t mean some sort of mythic balance between two sides.

It should mean finding the truth.

Anyway, I appreciate Rachel Maddow because she usually has backup for her sources, and her opinions are clearly that–opinions.

My dream media landscape would include much more public funding for NPR and PBS, enough to make them truly competitive news sources. Because not-for-profit news is the only way we’re going to get truly disinterested (at least financially–the reporters and producers will always be human and thus never truly disinterested) news. Then MSNBC and FOX and whoever else wants to get into the game can put out whatever kind of news and commentary they want, because there would be something to check it against.

Of course, the calls of liberal bias on NPR wouldn’t stop, not when Republicans have found it such an effective campaign strategy. But a recent study (Kull, Ramsay and Lewis, “Misperceptions, The Media, and the Iraq War”) found that NPR and PBS consumers had the fewest misperceptions about the Iraq war–and that having those misperceptions contributed to the likelihood of supporting the war, and of voting for Bush.

Anyway, that’s my dream.

Most of you regular readers know that I’m working on my master’s in journalism. Yet very little of what I do currently is actually journalism. I blog. I write op-eds for Global Comment. I write about comic books, movies, and pop music. Very little of that is real journalism. I suppose that when I do an actual interview with a comics writer (like this one) that might count, but I don’t really flatter myself that it has a huge effect on the world.

Not to denigrate the impact of art–I think art and music, literature and film can have a huge impact on the world, and it’s one of the reasons that I return over and over again to writing fiction. Willow Wilson’s AIR and Brian Wood’s DMZ, Warren Ellis’s BLACK SUMMER and Alan Moore’s V FOR VENDETTA and WATCHMEN all could conceivably change people’s minds about political issues, and for that comics are as valid as any other format. But when I’m writing about them? At best I’m a critic, at worst a glorified fangirl.

I’d love to do real journalism when I get out of school. Love to go write for one of the heavy magazines and do long, in-depth investigative pieces that require months of work at a time.

But it ain’t what I do now.

And it ain’t what Rachel Maddow is doing, either. Or Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews or Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity or Brit Hume. At least not most of the time.

Friends got me hooked on Twitter a few months ago. Yesterday I signed up for Tumblr–as if I didn’t have enough time-suck devices. There’s Facebook and Flickr and MySpace (though I hardly ever play with that one anymore) and this blog and Alterdestiny and my stuff at BUST…and I could keep going, though I won’t.

I’ve even got a personal site that doesn’t have my name or any identifying details on it, just so I can write the personal things that I can’t share on something easily-searchable like this site. Because somehow nothing seems real anymore if it isn’t shared–even if no one really reads it.

Sort of a tree-falls-in-the-forest feeling. Since I spend much of my time alone–grad student life means I am at home in front of my computer or a stack of books more often than I am around people, and being single means I don’t have that one person around constantly to share minutia with.

A couple of weeks ago I read this article in the New York Times about the digitization of our lives (which I found off Amber’s Twitter) and I’ve been thinking about it a bit since. Came back to mind the other night during a really long actual telephone call with a long-distance friend whom I used to actually know in the flesh. We were talking about technology, different ways to communicate.

Each little outlet of communication that I have is slightly different. I suppose if you kept up with all of them (especially the secret ones) you might get a decent picture of me and of my life, of what I think about and what I feel, of how I look and what makes me sad, angry, happy…even, if I do a good job of writing, what I taste and smell.

If you talked to me on top of it, you might feel like we had a substantial friendship, even if you just talked to me through email or IM. Text messaging feels a little more intimate, since it’s my phone to yours and not just computer to computer through public forums. Actually talking on the phone, when you get into those good, deep conversations that somehow are easier to have when you can’t actually see each other, feels even more intimate these days. Almost no one calls me anymore.

Some don’t because they have all the information they need from these little outlets here. Others don’t because they just text and then we meet up in person. The only ones who call to chat are usually my parents, who aren’t hooked in to Twitter and blogs and ’social networking’ sites.

I still prefer the personal conversations, meeting for crepes on campus under the trees to catch up, talk about points of First Amendment law and our fucked-up relationships, discuss love and loss and the finer points of the Flyers game. Going shopping and trying on dresses and pants off the sale rack while debating Joe Biden vs. Howard Dean as straight-talking Democratic politicians and wondering if we’ll ever get to the point where we’re old enough to feel pressure not to be single.

There’s very little substitute for flesh and blood contact. Yet when I’m isolated by my very lifestyle, I enjoy playing with these little technological wonders, sharing the bits and pieces of my day with all of you instead of with that one concentrated presence in my life.

I have my digitized, sanitized flirtations and my Internet presence, and it keeps me from feeling too lonely. My small, weird world where possibly millions of strangers can look at pictures of me, read my thoughts and feelings (though they don’t).

Would I have this much of a need to share all of this if I were in a relationship? Is it only to combat loneliness, or is it just how we communicate now?

Bitch Magazine has been saved. And charges have been dropped against Amy Goodman and other journalists arrested at the RNC.

And I met Howard Dean today. Which has little to do with journalism, since I didn’t get to interview him or anything, but it made me-from-four-years-ago, the Deanie, happy.

Now back to my law books.