Read this please. From calm68 on the Balloon Juice post Your Modern GOP in Three Clips:
Like most viewers I thought Clint’s presentation was odd, sad,laughable, incongruous. Somehow this was a moment that just didn’twork out. But it was President Obama’s response tweet that got methinking at a much deeper level. Obama responds with a picture ofhimself sitting in his chair in the Oval Office, back turned to theviewer, saying, “This chair is taken.” Directly to Romney, terse anddefiant. Why did Obama respond to that moment, Clint’s strangerambling off-topic schtick? Isn’t Obama too smart to respond? ButObama’s response was so pointed, so potent. Clearly something neededto be addressed.
So I went back to the whole Clint Eastwood stunt and re-watched it afew times with a critical eye. Here’s what I come up with: that was an intentional act of imagined violence against President Obama at adeep semiotic, level of American mythos. Take the optics, Clint comesout under a huge backdrop of the Western gunslinger. He starts amonologue vs. ‘the punk.’ (Do you feel lucky, punk? Well do you?)The punk, the empty chair, the empty suit, responds by telling Romney,‘Go fuck yourself.’ Clint scolds Obama and leads the crowd in achant, “Go ahead. Make my day.” At which point, as we all know,offstage, Clint would then shoot the punk and kill him.
This was a very public, very deeply mythical/semiotic imaginativeenactment of violence against the sitting President of the US. It wasa post-modern lynching, black-faced dehumanization. I think Obama gotexactly what was going on and that’s why he responded with such force.
Personally, I am disgusted by it. There is an evil afoot in Americatoday. It is essential that we stand firm against it.
The Barack Obama Tweet in question?
"This chair is taken."
Goddamn, this guy has ice in his veins. Spread this, this comment is absolutely it.
h/t ms yafb at Rumproast
Not having a T.V., I missed on the violent imagery, but I did realize that it was really condescending. I think the main thrust of the evening was Reagan nostalgia- the "make my day", the references to Iran and Russia. If you squint really hard, Mitt looks a bit like St Ronbo.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're prolly right about the intention, Reagan/Marlboro Man/Thatcher, really macho types and the glories of the 80's.
ReplyDeleteI was there and conscious, and they wuzn't all that.
But the righty id, it can't seem to address anything without, at the minimum, implicit violence. Ugh.
Mitt looks a bit like St Ronbo
My morning-addled mind first read that as St. Bonobo, and I wondered what those Rumproast folks are into...