Skeptical Moments

[akirlu]

Okay, maybe some of the dissing Hillary Clinton gets for looking crabby is crypto-sexist. But how exactly can anybody serious claim that Clinton's uniquely singled out for bashing based on appearance? Or did they just sleep through the last eight years of the Left refering to George W. as a smirking chimpanzee? Or the cartoons of Bush as Alfred E. Neuman? And I'm not saying Bush doesn't look like a smirking chimpanzee. I'm just saying that mocking people's looks isn't necessarily anti-feminist.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

And is anyone old enough to remember Nixon?

Re: Skeptical Moments

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

while i don't comment on anyone's looks, i can sort of understand some of the comments on ann coulter -- she does it herself all the time about liberals, and is especially harsh about liberal women.

i just don't think lowering oneself to her level is a good idea.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Mocking people's looks as a substitute for substantive criticism of their positions is, of course, nonsense. But in the age of television, pretending that looks don't matter, or won't influence how people will vote, is equally nonsensical. It's a looksist world, as you of all people ought to be aware.

When candidates are brought into everyone's living room by the power of television, you can pretty much bet that the fat, the disfigured, and the otherwise untelegenic will never be contenders for major political office. William Howard Taft was only possible as a pre-television President. One of the ways the modern media has too powerful a distorting effect on politics is the way that they can selectively distort our image of a candidate (think of Howard Dean's 'crazy' yell and how that one de-contextualized clip affected his run for the presidency), and that's only true precisely because voters will be swayed by appearances.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

If Bush had beaten Gore in the 2000 election, that would only prove that looks don't have everything to do with how people vote, not that it doesn't have anything to do with it. But in fact, Al Gore won the popular election in 2000. He had absolutely more votes. (Also, but less relevant to the immediate point, he won the Florida election, once the votes were counted according to Florida's own rules.) So the if-looks-mattered-Bush-wouldn't-have-beaten-Gore tack doesn't really work. Bush didn't beat Gore, except in mau-mauing the Supreme Court.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Tricky Dick? Sure.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that political caricatures are absolutely standard, always insulting, and have been around for well over 100 years. It'd be reasonable to say they're not acceptable too; I find it a bit harder to argue that they're acceptable but picking on how people look *in words* is not.

[avram]

Nah. If you're going to draw a picture satirizing a politician, you probably need to portray that politician, and you're going to need to make your depiction of that politician recognizable in a way that allows you to meet your deadlines. That means caricature.

If you're writing an essay about a politician, you can indicate that you're taking about that politician just by using his or her name.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Apparently the size of Bush's ears in political cartoons is correlated with his ratings in the polls, or something like that (the more negatively they want him to come across, the bigger the ears). Someone did a study a couple of years back, and asked a cartoonist for confirmation. He agreed.

[avram]

Not to mention fat jokes about Bill Clinton, or jokes about Reagan's flabby neck, Carter's toothy grin, and Nixon's general appearance.