NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/soc/women/19662

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-15 | 3.5 KB

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From: [e-mail] (susan larsen)
Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.men
Subject: Re: Elle MacPherson causes rape?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 13 Nov 92 15:05:28 GMT
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Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter Chrzanowski) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (susan larsen) writes:
>> I've heard it said that Abraham Lincoln could not be elected president
>> today because he was just too darned ugly.  I've heard it said that
>> Franklin Roosevelt could not be elected president today because he would
>> appear weak and unhealthy on his crutches or in his wheelchair.
>
>This is straying from the subject, but while I've heard the same things,
>the fact is nobody really knows.
>
>If you look at old photographs or televised newsreels of FDR you'll
>hardly ever see the wheelchair.  You'll see him speaking at a podium,
>and there's no way of telling from the picture that he's not standing
>behind it.
>
>I agree that visuals are very important in politics, but many candidates
>have successfully controlled the media's presentation of them, just
>as FDR was able to keep pictures of the wheelchair out of the media
>in his time.  Nixon and Reagan were both masters at presenting only
>what they wished to present to the public.  In this last election,
>Perot bought 17% of the vote even though his looks are, shall
>we say, homely.
>
>  If looks are that important, HEEEEEEERE COMES DANNY!
>

Fodder for my nightmares!

About FDR, he was able to successfully hide his condition because the
visual news media was still in its infancy.  Most of the events
depicted in the newsreels were staged and FDR used radio as his
most potent communication tool.  Given today's wall-to-wall television
coverage of our leaders, such a huge physical flaw as the effects of
FDR's polio could not be concealed.  In fact, just as the media harped
on Paul Tsonga's cancer and Pres. Bush's general health, they would never
ease the focus on a candidate's disability.

Nixon learned the hard way that political survival depended on media images
through the 1960 debates with Kennedy.  Reagan was a professional actor.
Even Perot, although not conventionally handsome, understood that playing
a role mirroring a classic American icon (the folksy, down-home
philosopher ala Will Rogers) could work to his political benefit.

What I fear is a time in which our general view of human appearance becomes
so narrow and our political process becomes so dependent on sound bites,
that a good-looking nut case could gain a position of political or
economic power.  I was heartened this year, though, when the voting public
showed not only the candidates, but the mass media as well, that they were
starved for in-depth discussion of the issues.  IMO, we will be better
served by the mass media when we use are power, as consumers and viewers,
to shape the media in our own image to suit needs as we define them, not
as a Clinton or Bush or Madison Avenue or Hollywood would define them.  Or us.

Sue Larsen
[e-mail]