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ajnabiehDuring the 2008 campaign season, I wrote a short piece for Flow, the media studies online magazine, about Tigh/Roslin 2008, the joke campaign that drew from the resemblance between John McCain and Sarah Palin, in the real world, and Saul Tigh and Laura Roslin, from the fictional world of Battlestar Galactica. In, it, I argued that
I thought of that when, today, this image got posted on Facebook:
A numbered list of 15 quotes, with the title "Who Said It: Mitt Romney or Mr. Burns?" Cartoon images of both Romney and Burns are on the top.
This image is another joke about a Republican candidate for office, but one with a very different thrust. The Tigh/Roslin campaign was at least partially absurdist--it wasn't a real endorsement of the candidates, or even a real criticism of them. (In most of the contexts in which it was discussed, it was clear that those making the comparison a) liked/had affection for the BSG characters and b) did not like/did not plan on voting for the actual candidates.) But the Romney/Burns comparison is intentionally critical of Romney as a candidate, by portraying him as literally cartoonish in his unawareness of what his wealth means.*
Thinking critically about these, my first reading is that these are different sorts of political gestures. The Tigh/Roslin campaign might have been about taking politics at least as seriously as we take our pop culture, but the Romney/Burns comparison is about using pop culture to make a metaphorical argument about politics. Metaphors and symbols are politically useful because they are dense; they carry a lot of information, and, when they're well-deployed, they make a whole complicated argument in a relatively short amount of time. If the makers (and circulators) of this list are saying that the presumptive Republican nominee (I say on Super Tuesday) is a cartoon plutocrat capable of building a giant disk to block out the sun in order to increase profits, most likely they are encouraging us not to vote for him. (And if Obama is Luke Skywalker, presumably we should stand against the Dark Side.**)
*Interestingly, images of Mr. Burns were used against Angela Merkel in Germany during a recent campaign. There, it wasn't a criticism of wealth, but her public support for nuclear energy. How do I know this random piece of trivia, when I otherwise know nothing about German politics? Because I peer-reviewed an article about it. Coming soon to an issue of TWC near you!
** Wait, where does the "I am your father?" moment fit in that metaphor?
The Tigh/Roslin campaign is not just of a sign of how pop culture can be used to provide a springboard for political reasoning; it is also a call for consideration of substantive politics, not because other forms of politics lack seriousness, but because there are more serious things to make fun of here than lipstick and beauty pageants
I thought of that when, today, this image got posted on Facebook:
A numbered list of 15 quotes, with the title "Who Said It: Mitt Romney or Mr. Burns?" Cartoon images of both Romney and Burns are on the top.
This image is another joke about a Republican candidate for office, but one with a very different thrust. The Tigh/Roslin campaign was at least partially absurdist--it wasn't a real endorsement of the candidates, or even a real criticism of them. (In most of the contexts in which it was discussed, it was clear that those making the comparison a) liked/had affection for the BSG characters and b) did not like/did not plan on voting for the actual candidates.) But the Romney/Burns comparison is intentionally critical of Romney as a candidate, by portraying him as literally cartoonish in his unawareness of what his wealth means.*
Thinking critically about these, my first reading is that these are different sorts of political gestures. The Tigh/Roslin campaign might have been about taking politics at least as seriously as we take our pop culture, but the Romney/Burns comparison is about using pop culture to make a metaphorical argument about politics. Metaphors and symbols are politically useful because they are dense; they carry a lot of information, and, when they're well-deployed, they make a whole complicated argument in a relatively short amount of time. If the makers (and circulators) of this list are saying that the presumptive Republican nominee (I say on Super Tuesday) is a cartoon plutocrat capable of building a giant disk to block out the sun in order to increase profits, most likely they are encouraging us not to vote for him. (And if Obama is Luke Skywalker, presumably we should stand against the Dark Side.**)
*Interestingly, images of Mr. Burns were used against Angela Merkel in Germany during a recent campaign. There, it wasn't a criticism of wealth, but her public support for nuclear energy. How do I know this random piece of trivia, when I otherwise know nothing about German politics? Because I peer-reviewed an article about it. Coming soon to an issue of TWC near you!
** Wait, where does the "I am your father?" moment fit in that metaphor?