“Not your finest hour,”
“Is this really the feature story?”
These were two of the comments that greeted Newspaper Tree’s treatment of the release of a pornographic movie starring a Sarah Palin look-alike.
These comments raise a valid question: What is credible news? Is this it? Surely, is it not too frivolous and distasteful a topic? Are we not giving it unjustified credence and dignity by reporting it? Doesn’t this sort of thing belong on a silly blog instead?
But one could argue that it absolutely is news. First, and most practically, the piece remained the top story for the day, and Newspaper Tree is not the sort of website that idle surfers stumble across. Our readers found this interesting.
I believe that because the event occurred, combined with the interest it generated, much can be said about society and politics in America. But its unimportance lies in the fact that it is a historical marker, not a turning point. It is a glaring example of where things are, not where they are going.
Recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost a legal battle with a Parisian company that manufactured Voodoo dolls of him in effigy. (They came complete with pins.) Though Sarkozy lost the case, and the look-alike dolls continue to be produced, the issue caused a minor uproar. This side of the Atlantic, the McCain-Palin campaign have made no complaint, have taken no legal action against the porn film’s producer, Hustler.
This is because they either believe the film to be inoffensive (unlikely considering Palin is an evangelical mother of five) or that it will have no political consequences.
But why would it not have consequences? I believe the reason is simple. Over the last 20 years, our politicians have become so dehumanized, their views so commoditized, that what difference does a well-publicized porno make? The film doesn’t porno-fy politics: it merely illuminates the pornographication of politics.
What is pornography? It is also the commoditization of sex: the compartmentalization of a multifaceted experience that is repackaged and sold for a price. It is the distillation of all that is exclusively sexual about sex.
But any good lover knows that there’s more to sex than sex. (Or at east more to sex than porn.) It is, therefore, an abstraction of sexuality from real life (from human relationships). Sensuality becomes fast food, something quick and easy to be consumed, no longer a complex, nuanced and vulnerable undertaking. It is the de-sensualization of love-making by the ultra-sensualization of it.
All these things have happened to American politics. Values are abstracted from life’s complexity and poured into sound bites. Morality becomes something consumed to satisfy one’s identity needs. A political manifesto is a quick fix , a Big Mac solution that quenches hunger without providing the body politic with nutrition. The political process has become de-politicized by its ultra-politicization.
Politics has become pornography in that it masturbates our egos while it dehumanizes others’. Negative campaigning is its biggest star.
When did this begin? One might posit the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal as a watershed. Indeed, presidential affairs are so common in American history that the historian of the future will be thoroughly un-interested in President Clinton’s behavior and utterly engrossed in the responses of his political opponents and the electorate.
But the pornographication of politics must have been under way before then. If not, the scandal wouldn’t have taken place, having no cultural infrastructure in which to flourish.
For the sake of argument, why don’t we fuzzily delineate 1989 as a starting point. The end of the Cold War left a massive political vacuum. American politics became less grave. The common enemy was removed, and bipartisanship began to breakdown.
Meanwhile, in a booming economy, Americans were more able than at any other time to buy, consume and experience those things that are accessory to life. (The stuff we don’t need.)
Social mores that had been propped up by the Cold War (or at least the pretense of them) began to dissemble. Continuing on from the 1980s, life continued to be commoditized: its raison d'être increasingly governed by consumption rather than struggle, good vs. evil, or life after death. Existence became suburban.
Interestingly, the Religious Right were no pariahs to this experience. They were its apostles. The disciples of Kenneth Starr partook in the McDonaldization of religion, honing it as a spiritual consumer product. (i.e. mega-churches, get-rich/saved/God/laid-quick books, abortion bumper stickers, Christian Rock).
Evangelical politicians pioneered the commoditization of morality. Issues became products to consume; hallmarks of political identity rather than behavior. For example, 20 out of the last 28 years have seen pro-life presidents in the White House. Roe vs. Wade stands. Why? It’s simple.
Do you think the Karl Roves of this world make all those nasty mail-outs in order to change the course of the nation or to win elections? It is, of course, to win elections.
Values are a means to a very postmodern end: power. For example, abortion is most useful as an issue – as a bogeyman. It is no good to the powers-that-be as a ticked box on the checklist to make America a Godly nation once more. They are employed to massage the electorate rather than to obey them. Issues are more about the identity of the saints rather than the actions of the sinners. They are marks of consumption; a bumper sticker on the psyche. It’s the same with gay marriage.
These shifts were what characterized the Lewinsky affair. It was one massive “celebration” of what it meant to be an evangelical Christian. Clinton was merely the sacrificial lamb. House Republicans were the televangelists taking the congregation’s credit card information. It was what happened outside the Oval Office that was really pornographic. Palin porno pails in insignificance.
And so we find ourselves in a world where issues are commodities to be exploited and consumed. Our politicians are nothing more than totem polls to be erected by the faithful and desecrated by enemy tribes. Negative campaigning provides the ritualistic framework within which at all happens. It is the tragedy of American politics.
Negative campaigning leaves 40 to 49 percent of the electorate feeling betrayed and humiliated as their totem is torn down. But the totem is not a parody. It is a person in whom the identity of many has been invested.
On Nov. 4th, millions of people will think the country is in the hands of either a terrorist-sympathizing closet-Muslim or a decrepit septuagenarian accompanied by a gung-ho, cheerleading hick. No one wins. The mutilation of the loser’s persona, ideas and supporters will be the winner’s most glaring accomplishment.
Long before Hustler, the pornographication of American politics was complete. Negative campaigning is its Larry Flynt, and we are all creeps glued to the computer.
Well, that is, as long as we tolerate the immorality of negative campaigning; as long as we tolerate the commoditization of our values (which artificially polarizes them), as long as we tolerate the abstraction of feeling from reason, which the logic of the demagogue insists upon.
These pornographic things trespass tragically on both the dignity of human beings and the transcendence of human reason.
* * *
Ben Wright is a contributing writer to Newspaper Tree from England who has worked as a Christian youth minister in El Paso and Lyon, France. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in history, with an emphasis on American and European politics, from Kings College in London and plans to begin work on a Ph.D. next fall.
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"USA! USA! USA!"
by Ben Wright
There is something I find creepy about seeing elected officials and presidential candidates cultivating the deep boom of the masses in nationalistic mantras. Such mantras need no qualification, no thought, no nuance and most importantly, no humility. They require only guttural emotion.
vato
October 30, 2008
You mean "commodification," not "commoditization." Commodification is what happens to sex in prostitution or pornography. Commoditization is what happened to your home mortgage when it was sold as securities. Actually, pornography is a commodity, a prostitute provides a service.
Marco Milazzo
October 30, 2008
So let me understand this: Sarah Palin deserves to be the subject of a pornographic movie because . . . something about negative campaigning. Okay, but why does her 9 year-old daughter deserve to have a porn film made about her mom?
You know it's only a matter of time before another kid tells her "I heard about that porn film your mom made." It was wrong of NPT to wallow in the same cesspool as Larry Flynt. You should have let the story die, not defended it with half-baked arguments.
DJ
October 30, 2008
Mr. Wright,
It is clear that you are a gifted writer, but it seems to me your knowledge of the history of our political process, and in particular the media’s coverage of that process, is a little short-sighted, just as your summary call for reason is based on flawed logic. I would think that someone with the educational credentials you claim to have in American politics among others could reach a little further back than the 1980s.
You state that “Values are abstracted from life’s complexity and poured into sound bites”. I could not agree with you more, it surely is a sad state of affairs we have in our political process.
What you fail to address, the “elephant on the room” as it were, is the role of the media in driving (no, pummeling) often irrelevant negative sound bites from candidates and even other media commentators down our throats on a near-constant stream, without any substance or value behind them. It shocks me how downright stupid the coverage of the presidential campaigns has become, with constantly revolving “issues” (like the shoes the candidate wears) being discussed ad nauseum. What has turned these campaigns to filth is not the candidates or the parties, it’s the coverage.
Yours (and the Newspaper Tree’s) running this story on the Palin Porn ranks you right up there with the rest of your disreputable and sordid profession. It’s just stupid, sleazy and of no value or merit in the political process, despite your philosophical diatribes about political pornography. The Larry Flynts are not the candidates, they are the press and the columnists and the news channel personalities. We expect more from you and you let us down.
If you fail to see that you yourselves and your decision to run trash like this are the reason behind the readers’ negative comments, perhaps you should remove your head from the tight, dark and confined space it presently occupies for a fresher perspective.
With regard to the so-called Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, the issue that the American people had (that the media and you seem to fail to see) was never Bill getting head in the Oval Office.
It was the cover-up, the arrogance of being above the law and the criminal perjury that the president perpetrated after. He lied under oath about it and more importantly he lied directly to us. He looked directly at the camera and lied to us and then he was proved to be a liar. That was the transgression.
Mike
October 30, 2008
People have lost it all over this country. Get a life people, it's humor. Some may find it funny others may not. Mellow out! Geez, this is one reason our country is in such a mess trying to be too political, too careful, too sensitive, too lilberal, too conservative...
Funny!!! if the world and our country learned to laugh a little more a lot of our problems would go away.
Cindy G
October 30, 2008
Negative campaigning has been around since the earth cooled. That's really not the issue here. What I'd like to know is when Larry Flynt entered the radar of NPT.
There's no deep sociological meaning here. It's pornography. It's sexist. There's no reason to link to it on NPT. And why should the McCain-Palen campaign sue Hustler? It would just bring attention to the video, as NPT did. Don't confuse interest with disappointment. Please NPT, El Paso deserves better.
AR
October 31, 2008
Hey DJ and Mr. Wright, politics (which root etymology literally means "things concerning the people") is not some kind of game like chess with universal rules everyone is supposed to follow that are in danger of being violated or "pornographied," that notion is silly. Politics is what it is because of the people it reflects. If the people wallow in the gutter then so does politics. If the media wallows with them it is because it is the smart marketing move to capture an audience. The media exists because of its consumers. It"s all about demand and supply. If they're putting it out it's because someone is listening, otherwise they wouldn't be in business.
The sad truth is that for 90% of the people politics is not about reasoned issues, it's about emotional knee jerk non-rational gut feelings. That parallels the 90% or so of people without real higher education, (look at US Census data about that). So what if NPT runs this story, they're not doing anything Fox or the National Enquirer don't do. Perhaps some NPT readers do not like the idea of pandering down to the "common people," who lap this stuff up, but that is a class warfare issue. People, like yourselves, like to be outraged and indignant, and we like to read about it, and that feeds the beast. Magic words: Market share!
p.s. Bill Clinton never lied about having "sexual relations" with his intern. It is society's twisted view of what sexual relation is that made it seem like he was lying. But that is so way above the heads of the people these days that no one has bothered to explain it to them, neither did Clinton nor the Congress. The task is too gargantuan by now.
MW
October 31, 2008
It is the hypocrisy here that just amazes me. I am just going to put it out there – if someone made a Barack ManDingo Warrior prono parody – there would rioting in the streets! And rightly so. There is no word in the English language that could describe how degrading, disgusting, disrespectful and inappropriate that would be and NPT would have nothing to do with it except to maybe go off on a tirade about how wrong it is. NPT would never ever try to defend it or justify it. It is obvious that the staff at NPT does not believe that a conservative, Christian woman deserves that same kind of respect or consideration. I challenge you – tolerant liberal thinkers, defenders of all that is true, just and right, take a look in the mirror.
AR
October 31, 2008
Hey MW, try this link, and grow a sense of humor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOTAfGuLA-0&feature=related
Maybe not a "Barack ManDingo Warrior prono parody," but equal in the "degrading, disgusting, disrespectful and inappropriate" catagory to the worst NPT posted about Nailin' Pailn....
Haven't seen any rioting in the streets yet, and I assume NPT IS posting this letter.
littlebopeep
October 31, 2008
The real ben wright is real cute. I want to do a movie with him.
elrubio
November 1, 2008
What a great contrast Mr Wright; maybe America needs to stop with the denial. The next step is to recognize porno and related issues of prostitution are here to stay; just like other progressive European democracies the key is decriminilization. And I am not saying this so I can run down and buy a woman. I never have paid, and probably never could have sex with a stranger.
Well, let me back up there; drunk at a club in my adolescent years, maybe a stranger. :)
But then who has not? Oh, that's right, our special puritan people whom we've elected who are free of sin and could never be tempted and are not human. Surely this is just good media attention for the VP, and very mild in comparison to Clinton's witch-hunt which only resulted in a much greater humiliation and digust for Americans, and only served to embarrass Americans globally.
El Revolucionario
November 2, 2008
LOL! This is too funny! Why? Because who cares! If you don't like it, don't read it, or in this case if you don't like it, DON'T WATCH IT!
And I venture to say that the reason the McCain/Palin camp hasn't and probably wont sue is because, well, hey! it distracts from their campaign, or am i not supposed to actually say that! I mean, it really is a campaign having more to do with distractions than substance! no?
"gimmick"ization
November 3, 2008
It has always been about turning issues into gimmicks, (I think commodities is too generous of a description for what goes on in politics).
There is hardly ever a high road in the political swamp.