Obama: Biggest Celebrity in the World?

The 2008 presidential campaign may have fused politics and entertainment once and for all.
In fact, McCain desperately tried to make Obama look bad for being in synch with popular culture but it ended up biting him in the butt. A brilliant move by Obama after a bruising debate with Hillary Clinton: he brushed the shoulder of his suit jacket, quoting a music video by rapper Jay-Z, “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” He instantly distanced himself from Clinton on the cultural level, and was embraced by American youth, who remixed the Obama moment, and unleashed it on the Web. This moment crystallized how politics can start to think about popular culture in a productive way. The official definition of pop culture is this: contemporary lifestyle and items that are well known and generally accepted, cultural patterns that are widespread within a population. Ellen DeGeneres hosts the extremely popular daytime television show “Ellen” and she is known for her eccentric dancing. When Barack Obama came on the show, he easily jumped in with her dancing even though the amount of rhythm he has is slim to none. There was the ever popular “Obama Girl” who was apparently in love with Obama. She used her sex appeal for that music video and skyrocketed to fame. I definitely didn’t see any “McCain Girl”, which may have been why he was a little bitter.

President Barack Obama was more in tune with pop culture than any other presidential nominee before him. Yes, Bill Clinton may have gone on the Arsenio Hall show to play his saxophone, but Obama completely and 100% embodied the pop culture icon and used to his advantage. One of the most popular campaigns out there for young people is “Rock the Vote”, and when you have a nominee like Barack Obama, it will encourage young voters to register and “get their voice heard” as it was promoted. Like I mentioned before, McCain tried to use Obama’s celebrity against him, but it definitely backfired against him. Obama wanted to relate to everybody, and it just so happened that he was so relatable that it pushed him into the pop culture limelight. Obama crossed the pop culture/politics divide by praising Lil' Wayne's rhyming ability at a campaign event in Powder Springs, Georgia. Before dismissing this development as trivia, consider that Lil' Wayne was both the most acclaimed rapper of 2008 and is one of the biggest pop culture figures in the nation. I also remember reading an article during the election when he discussed what was on his iPod. That goes back to earlier in the semester when we were talking about ability to relate to candidates, homophily. The iconic photo of Obama can’t be left out of this discussion either. These pictures are some of the most famous from the campaign, they could be put in the same category as Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe or Campbell Soup Cans pictures are. A popular feature in magazines such as Us Weekly or People is photos that display that celebrities really are “just like us!” Obama was featured regularly in them, like when he was on vacation in Hawaii and he was photographed running on the beach with his shirt off. Many celebrities are photographed on the beach frolicking about, but not many presidential nominees are, so when that happened it was a huge deal. People were talking about how the president had a “hot bod” or things among that nature.

Another thing to take into consideration is what I talked about earlier, how he wants to relate to everybody and he does a damn good job at doing it. He was named one of Ebony's "25 Coolest Brothers of All Time." Yet he did not mind spending a little of that coolness capital during an interview on MTV, of all places, when he announced: "Brothers should pull up their pants. A lot of people may not want to see your underwear. I'm one of them.” Parents around the country rejoiced. Clothes were a big thing for Obama, one popular retail chain, Urban Outfitters, had an abundance of t-shirts representing Obama. They ranged from saying “Barack Star” to “Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican”.

Fast forward to January 2009. The inagural filled the National Mall in Washington, D.C., with 1.8 million people, played on jumbo screens in Times Square and in multiplexes across the U.S. (exhibitors devoted 27 theaters in 21 cities to a real-time news feed from MSNBC), and aired live around the globe. By Wednesday morning, as many as 2 billion people worldwide had seen footage of Obama putting his hand on a Bible. About a third of all the human beings on Earth. Coming straight from a celebrities mouth, “What a presence. Stunning. Just stunning,'' Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles said, who performed for Obama at a concert at the Lincoln Memorial. ''People who have such charisma have a higher message, a higher vision. That's the difference between a celebrity who is popular on some level and someone like Obama who can imbue the rock-star spirit with everybody they come in contact with.'' So is that what it takes to be the “biggest celebrity in the world”? Charisma? JFK Jr. had plenty of charisma, and he is probably the only other candidate that could come as close to the pop culture level that Obama has. Obama was able to take pop culture and turn into something none of us even had thought it would go to. It became popular to register to vote, if one of my friends hadn’t registered to vote I thought it was weird. He was able to pull people together, even if they weren’t going to vote for him, and make politics into something completely new, something that everyone wanted to be a part of. Political debates in classes became popular again; everyone had an opinion and wanted to share it. Obama was speaking to voters in a visual language that we understood: the celebrity obsession of 21st-century consumerism.

Attack Ads: Facing the Inevitable

Political advertising is something everyone knows about and definitely gets sick of at some point or another. During a major election, our politicians take over our television, mail, and phone (calls from supporters), among other things. They talk about how great they are, what they plan on doing to better our county/city/state/and or country, and, of course, how terrible their opponent truly is. A campaign without attack ads is like Ft. Collins without Cam the Ram. However, how far is too far? The attack ads in the last Presidential campaign were fairly innocent compared to the first attack ads. Attack ads can be effective to some degree, but there has to be a boundary to some of the outlandish claims that have been made in the past.

Let’s take a look at two completely different ads in two completely different time periods, both presidential elections. First, there is the “Daisy Girl”, used in the 1964 election with Lyndon B. Johnson attacking Barry Goldwater. This remains one of the most controversial political ads to ever have been aired, and it was aired only once. The ad is credited to having a huge impact on the landslide victory that Johnson had over Goldwater, and even though Goldwater is never mentioned by name in the commercial, the scare tactic was enough for voters and they didn’t need to hear his name to know what the commercial was trying to get at. Goldwater previously had said comments about using nuclear weapons in Vietnam, so the Johnson campaign jumped at the opportunity to pinpoint Goldwater as a reckless weaponry user who was going to make the Vietnam War reckless and more dangerous for Americans. The ad was pulled after only one airing because of the criticism Johnson received for painting a portrait of Goldwater as someone who was going to lead America into a nuclear war. When people are fighting, a phrase that is used commonly is “you’re putting words in my mouth.” Well, that is exactly what Johnson did, he used something Goldwater said and turned into an extremely effective ad that scared people into believing that voting for Goldwater would have dire consequences. Goldwater discussed the possibility of using low-yield nuclear weapons to defoliate infiltration routes in Vietnam, he never actually advocated the use of nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese, and so while the Johnson campaign didn’t completely make it up, they twisted something that was fairly innocent into something it wasn’t, which I think is taking it too far. It should be allowed to use the facts of your opponent to your advantage, but when you twist something so far as they did, it should not be allowed. Yes it was only shown once, but it should have never been shown, especially since it had the impact it did, it virtually single-handedly took Goldwater out of the race, since Johnson won with 61% of the vote.

Now, let’s fast forward to the present. The 2008 campaign is still fresh in all of our minds, due to the constant criticism of President Obama and many people are still upset at how it turned out. The ads were in constant circulation last year at this time, and all ads were in play: Advocacy ads, which promote a candidate and his or hers ideals, with no negative info about the opponent; contrast ads, which contrast a candidate and/or his or her policy positions with that of the opponent, and can contain attacks; and of course attack ads. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is the attack ad against Obama by McCain, criticizing him and questioning his ability to lead because he is the “world’s biggest celebrity.” Included in the commercial were quick shots of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the latter of which wasn’t too happy about it, and she quickly fired back with her own little campaign ad.

It would be hard to argue that President Obama isn’t a huge celebrity, but comparing him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton was a little ridiculous. Like I said earlier, the attack ads used to be extremely more confrontational and accusatory, but McCain’s ad was more appropriate. If McCain came out with an ad last year that had the same underlying techniques as Johnson’s did, there would have been an uproar. You could liken the McCain ad to the 1988 GOP attack ad of Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis. The ad showed Dukakis riding around in a tank and used his own footage against him, because if you watch the video, he doesn’t seem like someone who many would want to lead. In both ads, the GOP took something from the Democratic candidates and used it against them, Obama with the celebrity status he received from the press because he was the first Black candidate who had the highest chance of winning, and Dukakis by taking his footage and looking ridiculous. “If you listen closely to this ad you will hear the sound of grinding gears, suggesting that Dukakis cannot even run the tank smoothly. That sound was added to the footage; tanks do not have gears that grind. The gear sounds were of an 18-wheeler.” (Attack Ad Hall of Fame) Adding the sound to make it seem like Dukakis couldn’t run a tank was an underlying affect to make it seem like if he can’t run a tank, he is far from being able to run a country, and if Obama is as famous as someone as Britney Spears, he is clearly inadequate as well.

With the above mentioned ads, we can see that attack advertisements can be extremely effective. They do have negative consequences at the same time though. In addition, negative advertising can also be used to demobilize voters. Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar, who wrote Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate, found that negative campaign advertising appeals only to partisans. They go on to say that negative advertising alienates independents and demobilizes them as voters, which causes elections to be fought among the partisan extremes. This makes sense since it removes the independents as a voting coalition to be concerned about and allows the candidates to stick to the party line. Another study done at Ohio State University says that ads that had to do with a Supreme Court nominee “turned off so many viewers that many became less supportive of the court as an institution.” Another downfall to it is something called the “boomerang effect”, as explained by Gina Garramone. “First, many viewers disapprove of advertising that attacks a candidate and such viewers may develop negative feelings toward the sponsor of the advertising. Second, viewers may perceive the negative advertising as an infringement upon their right to decide for themselves. Such a perception may result in reactance, a boomerang effect in which the individual reacts in a manner opposite to the persuader's intention.” Another source, Thomas Hollihan, says that while voters claim to not like attack ads, election results suggest that they work. In addition to that, they may appeal more to republicans and independents then democrats.

So, while the results may say they work, are they really necessary? We should be worried about what a candidate can achieve for us, but we should also be worried about what they cannot. Attack ads make the line blurry though, because some of the claims that are made aren’t always true, and they can be extremely misleading (remember little Daisy?). An election could probably go on without them and I would like to see what the candidates would talk about if they weren’t allowed to attack each other. Without attack ads, more could be accomplished and we would be able to see who the true candidate is because they wouldn’t be able to put the negative spotlight on their opponent and make it seem like they are the right person to vote for. However, that is something that is highly unlikely to happen, so until then, let’s keep things fair and have a clean fight, because no one likes a cheater or a liar!

Links:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/284996.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/supreme-court/2009/06/study_attack_ads_may_make_publ.html