A historic moment

[fpb]

This election has already given us a historic moment; a moment which, I think, may well feature in future histories, become the centre of scholarly debate, and perhaps even be remembered as one of those factoids that everyone remembers about historical figures - like Pontius Pilate washing his hands, or Washington's troops starving at Valley Forge, or the fat figure and six wives of Henry VIII.

No, I don't mean the debate, although the results of the debate may well come to connect themselves with the event I mean. The event I mean is the publication, by the Obama campaign, of the following blog entry:



This is incredible. If it means anything, it means that the Republicans, if elected, would engage in a campaign of tearing out uteri from living women.

I think I can say with a clean conscience that no campaign ever stooped this low. This is a record, and, I would say, probably unsurpassable. My friends who are historians and know what I am talking about can make the mental experiment: project yourselves into the minds of Julius Streicher or Gabriele d'Annunzio. Try to imagine Streicher saying that about Jews, or d'Annunzio about democratic politicians. You can't. You know you can't. They would not think of it; and if they did, they, even they, would laugh at it as at a crazy joke. The evident and rather unpleasant sexualness of the enclosed drawing, featuring a lightly-dressed, apparently underaged young lady with her clothes being blown all over by the wind - the very image of the worst kind of irresponsible male fantasies - makes the thing even worse: it as good as invites women to identify with this near-paedophile fantasy image, and to imagine that there is something there that is worth something for women to keep and that it threatens women to lose. The abyss of abjection in the association of visual idea and depraved gag literally challenges description and analysis.

This does, of course, confirm my old belief that abortion is the central issue and the driving force of so much that seems unhinged and bewildering about modern politics. But it also suggests a desperacy lurking somewhere below the confident gloss of Obaman politics; as though these people felt the breath of the Avenger of Blood breathing over their neck, and feared it even where the rest of us can't begin to feel any presence except theirs. It is like the crazed language of British medical bodies on the subject of abortion - language that a child would know was insane. But it also suggests an essential hollowness at the heart of the Obaman message. If that is the sort of thing they resort to, they must feel they have exhausted every other weapon. Now, add this to the effect of Romney's definite victory in last night's debate, and see what you get.

Comments

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing this e-Card on Facebook for the past 6 months or so. I am surprised that it would show up on Obama's official website.


(BTW, it was generated from the website www.someecards.com If you choose "Create Your Own" and then under "Choose an Image" select the sub-category "women", this image comes up on page three. I think it was probably choose by whomever first designed the card because it is the only image of a woman with her arm up in the air -- a vaguely voting-like gesture. Well, there are two others raised arms, but in one the woman is clearly serving a tennis ball, and in the other the woman is beauty queen and the gesture is a clearly a wave.

I think this is vintage image, probably taken from a newspaper or magazine in the 1920s. I think was the woman is wearing is actually a bathing suit (note the river and the dock) which makes it an even more bizarre choice.)


EDIT: OK, not quite 6 months. I just looked it up on someecard. This one was apparently created by a user named "lisasubeck" on May 27, 2012.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The thing that leaps to my eye, as a male, is that she has no bra. It is a highly sexual image, in a pseudo-innocent twenties style, with strong suggestions of the "dumb blonde" stereotype - altogether a curious choice, as you say. The mere fact that the author thought it a tolerable female image to use says all that needs be said, except that a lot of people today are so saturated with that particular notion of "women's" sexuality, so-called, that they would not see the difference unless their attention were called to it.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I think this is vintage image, probably taken from a newspaper or magazine in the 1920s. I think was the woman is wearing is actually a bathing suit (note the river and the dock) which makes it an even more bizarre choice.)

You're right! That's a bathing suit. The 1920's concept of a beautiful girl was a slim, somewhat boyish woman, usually with cropped hair and wearing a short skirt, often fringed, hence "flapper." The flappers were seen as a bit silly because they were young, convinced they knew it all, and usually a lot more innocent than they were pretending to be: hence they were as much figures of fun to the truly sophisticated as much as they were sexually-threatening to the prudish.

This is an odd choice for a pro-choice campaign, mostly because abortion was illegal in the 1920's. Not just in America, but pretty much everywhere in the Civilized World.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I find my point is not getting through. The point is that to select such an image sends its own message, namely that the "rights" for which women are supposed to fight is to be objects of male fantasy of that kind. The original flapper was a retreat from the earnestness of the pre-war years, the years of suffragism and social reform, into a deliberate childishness - that "boyishness" you comment about went with a deliberately brainless and falsely innocent dumb-blonde posture, which of course delighted men at large. To retrieve it today sends the same message. It is not a message I find respectful of women as persons and individuals.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I actually agree with you on that. Notice that a lot of the Obama appeal is to citizen-as-helpless-child.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think your point is getting through. I still maintain, however, that image was probably selected from the limited choice on someecards (as opposed to all the possible images in the world, or a new drawing) solely because the woman has her arm raised. I highly doubt "lisasubeck" thought through it any farther than that. In and of itself, that lack of thought is a problem. As you say, it undermines any gravitas the author may have intended by sending a completely different one with the image.

Interetingly, I went to Obama's Tumblr last night and couldn't find this post. I think it's been removed.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Oh, it has all right. I think they soon realized what they had done.