Lisa Nova Comes Through Again!

Oh wow, Julian.

I am so in to Barack Obama and do think the Clinton campaign's strategic missteps have been somewhat detrimental to the bigger organizational project of beating McCain.

But does it give best expression to our political voices to take opposition to Clinton to this level? Equate her natural politician's egomania with an insane, sexually defunct has-been diva? If Barack had not gained the momentum that resulted from MI and FL's early subtraction from the tally, would you similarly compare HIM to this creepy, insane, Swanson-cum-Salome trope? Because if you know this wonderful film, and get the real joke, it's a Salome joke.

A misogynist joke.

Not exactly my idea of how to imagine the vanuqished Clinton.

Rather, I have a lot of respect and awe for the most powerful woman ever in the American political sphere. It's awesome that she got as far as she did, and others will follow and have it a little easier. Though humiliations like (attributions of hysteria) this may continue to come from conservatives. She needs to end it, but I don't think she's too much of a crazy old woman to be a potent political force going forward.

I'm all for crossing the boundaries of decency and loving speech in the political sphere–some sweet irony is kind of necessary to take the bitter pill of participation in this game.

But clearly, what is funny here is the image of the crazy woman. The egomania that is natural to any politician is portrayed as sexually indecent, horribly out of touch with reality and crazed in a uniquely gendered way. That there are also a lot of racist shadows in play in this campaign doesn't cancel that out.

This campaign is SUCH an awesome opportunity to pull just a piece of the mom-hating misogyny that American culture possesses–especially manifest when the stakes get high and the first hyper-powerful woman vies for the real symbolic prize on the other side of the glass ceiling. When the deep collective biases against women in power–often expressed in images of crazed women driven over the edge, like both the Swanson character and Salome by their love of power–there is a rich opportunity to act on our previously unseen shadows.

Meanwhile, some of the most obscene group-based prejudices express themselves with the caveat “I was only kidding.” That patina of humor is exactly how group-based prejudice remains in play in a legitimate fashion, and saves itself from being deconstructed. Often, what passes as funny (because it crosses boundaries of appropriateness) is exactly the touchstone that reveals tacit, otherwise embarrassing, beliefs. It's just a great, fascinating place to find the hidden aspects of psyche and “collective consciousness.”

I thought you were in to shadow work and forging “healthy” archetypes.

This is a rich moment where we actually have the opportunity to choose some better archetypes rather than re-living the symbolic politics of 1950.  But maybe that is not on your transformational agenda?

I just did a search for progressive commentary on the recent New Republic cover, which trafficks in the same joke about Hillary as a power-crazed woman.

This discussion is harshly worded, but please don't let it be a detraction from its keen slicing to this heart of the matter. The writer here is not interested in the psyche, just prima facie symbolic-archetypical content of the crazy Hillary joke.

Well I tend more to hugging than to bowing… maybe it's my gender.

When does a caricature cut through to the essence of a specific person; and when does it perpetuate the group caricature that specific person represents? (your question)

When does satire speak truth to power; and when does it reproduce harmful tropes? (my question)

Maybe both of these are good for getting at the shadows behind political speech. For moving between what's said and what's not said, between leaders a people and leaders as “representatives.” Insofar as the political sphere is a big symbolic playing field, the representational quality of political figures (what they represent in us and in the body politic) is kind of key. (I am pretty much in love with Barack Obama, and after he's been POTUS a while I'll get the chance to see how much of my better civic self I've inaccurately projected on to him.)

As for this piece by Lisa, I took delight in it and laughed out loud. Then I watched it a few more times to ask what part of me was so moved by it.

First, I love Sunset Boulevard and the Salome story (last year's re-release of SB contains the most eerie special features–highly, highly recommended; the best interps of Salome outside the New Testament are Oscar Wilde's brilliant play and Tom Robbins' maybe-tantric feminist re-telling in Skinny Legs and All). That Lisa was playing with these texts was enough to amuse me. Second, I am angry at Hillary and like it when liberals criticize her. So at first glance the satire is all good.

But when I sat with it, I realized that the pleasure I take in associating Hillary with the crazy old b**** Norma Desmond does play on some of my own confusion about what to do when a woman does not know her “place” in society. How could I be so quick to regard Hillary as a crazed freak and a laughingstock when I could just as easily treat her with the respect I afford John Edwards? What is this part of me that trusts her male incarnation–Bill–more than I trust her, and feels (on a deep, secret level) easier about him–not her–being Commander in Chief?

Because this clip brought my own distrust for women in power to the fore and played on the dismissive disgust I can feel for hysterical, power-hungry Salomes, I felt like it was playing with my shadows–and darkening them–in a backwards way.

It got to me–and thus failed the liberating political satire test–because Lisa reappropriates her original text so well and because there is an element of disturbing truth in what she's saying. And because her acting is really good.

Compassion for political leaders is a complicated emotion.

I do feel it for Hillary, though rarely. Which is interesting, because maybe like you I'm sensitive about the psychic loads that other public figures–“gurus,” teachers, public intellectuals–do carry.

When the woman in question is Michelle Obama, we both might feel differently. I'm trying not to pedestalize her too much, but she is amazing.