on popular fellatio

Music: Not Drowning, Waving: Cold and the Crackle (1986)

The corndog bitten and then seen around the world, thanks to the Intertube virility, came from the Iowa State Fair many days ago. The biter is one Michelle Bachmann, the current presidential candidate favored (apparently) by the "Tea Party" flank of Neoconservativsim in the United States---not the Republican Party, per se, since it seems many former re-pubs have declared their independence. Admittedly, when my friend Mirko passed on a link to this photo I lost myself to fits of adolescent laughter; I even posted the photo for a few days as my profile picture on a social networking site. I replaced it a couple of days later with an image of Rick Perry eating the same for balance, but the image is not as funny. I then asked myself: why? Why is Perry stuffing his corn-hole with a dog not as funny as Bachmann doing the same?

In part, it has to do with the closed eyelids and what that signifies. You have to be familiar with pornography to know. I know only a few of us are familiar, of course. If you need an explanation, email me.

So far, the smartest commentary I've come across has come from a conservative website. The shot was taken by a reporter for UK's Telegraph, a fairly respected paper (akin, I would reckon, to the Washington Post, a little left, but respected). The Mediaite website commentator, Frances Martel, asks the rhetorical question, is this the best photograph The Telegraph could come up with? The answer is obviously "no," so Martel concludes two rationales: (1) Bachmann is actually photogenic, and this is the "liberal" MSM's attempt to destroy this quality; and (2) there is a sexist subtext. Regarding the latter claim, Martel suggests no male candidate would be similarly portrayed.

I think Martel's second point has some teeth; I thought the same thing with the now infamous Newsweek cover photo of "the Queen of Rage." As difficult as it is to admit it, I worry that what prompts my laughter at Bachmann CornDogGate may be an internalized misogyny that is part of what it is to be a subject in the United States (if not the West, or perhaps . . . .).

My worry, in part, is inspired by a recent essay by Karrin Vasby Anderson in the recent Rhetoric and Public Affairs journal titled, "'Rhymes with Blunt': Pornification and U.S. Political Culture." In this essay Anderson analyzes political discourse surrounding Palin and Clinton in the 2008 election and persuasively argues that sexualized stereotypes have emerged in popular venues to contain feminine gains in the political arena. She tracks something I've been noticing as well, the reduction of the female politician to the "bitch," or worse, to that which rhymes with "blunt." Quick proof: the photograph of Bachmann eating the corndog. Although I think I probably come at feminism from a different tack than Anderson (I'm a "pro-porn" feminist, as they say, and on board with the third-wave queer studies ilk), I nevertheless think she's tracking something disturbing and important---and that her essay is quite prescient for the looming election cycle: misogyny is a political weapon in popular culture, right and left.

See, here's the deal: my inner twelve-year old laughs at the Bachmann photo because, well, it's dirty and I do not share her political viewpoint. In fact, I find her platform offensive and scary, and so my laughter is produced by the intended photographic-pornographic signification: this is a female candidate who is demonstrating her subservience to patriarchy, despite herself. The telegraphed message is that Bachmann's candidacy, presumably a feminist achievement, is really a patriarchal gesture. And there's something to that implied "visual" claim, no doubt. But, Martel is right: the decision to publish the photograph (evidenced by the text accompanying it in the Telegraph) rides a number of sexist assumptions, assumptions that Anderson details very well in her essay.

Well, my reaction here is complicated. I cannot discount how clever the "visual rhetoric" of this image is, because few of us who side on the "left" would agree that Bachmann represents a progressive view of women and their import to the socious. The image is funny in this respect, and I understand the high-minded commentary that was, apparently, intended. At the same time, the politics of representation here is troubling for the reasons that Anderson points out in her conclusion:

Humans have always been storytelling animals. As critics, we consider not only what stories teach us, but also what they reveal about us. Unfortunately, this particular story demonstrates that if you're a woman running for public office, you're just a few jokes away from becoming a . . . well, I can't write it here, but it rhymes with blunt.

It can't be put more bluntly. Brilliantly put.

I don't want Bachmann to be president. But I worry about the attempts to prevent that reality this way. I worry about the "left" (in journalism or otherwise) riding misogyny for political gain. It was done to Clinton and Palin in 2008, and it's going to be done to Bachmann in 2012. There are reasons a-plenty to disqualify this person from public office other than the fact she is a woman. Even if I find the photograph funny, I have the self-awareness to know what ideology is appealed to with this image.

The left can do better.