So I’m pretty aware that most love jumping on the Rachel Maddow bandwagon, yee-hawing all the way about anything poking fun at conservatives. So, it must have just been a treat getting wind of what those crazy people were up to now. The show gave us the whole scoop, and it was a grand ol’ time, full of condescending hilarity! But I’m not really sure why it’s all so hilarious—especially when the segment we watched in class was inarguably biased and completely un-professional. I really appreciated the on-camera smirks/not-so-subtle snickering as the two contributors could barely get out the phrase “tea-bagging” (apparently for its sexual connotations?) Not that the political sway of her show is any secret, but her contributor was an absolute joke, slinging insults and bemused expressions left and right. Did any left-leaners who watched this clip take any of this into consideration? And why exactly was this particular clip shown? Was it to simply inform us of current events? If so, it seems like a horrible choice of something to be taken at face-value. Was it to show an example of a tactic? Then there should have been discussion or explanation following it.
Even if one considers the aspect of tea parties to be unproductive, what can be so funny about the overall goals/strategy? From what I have seen, it appears as if the goals are about being involved and making law-makers aware of people’s feelings on taxes and big-government. This doesn’t seem ludicrous to me in the least. Their tactic was to hold rallies, or “tea parties,” and even to send tea bags in the mail to officials. Why is it so funny that concerned people are exercising their right to “protest”? Apparently only certain group’s protests are taken seriously. Luckily, I’m sure Maddow will continue to inform us of the worthiness of similar future activism. Whew.
Another tactic of the organizers was refusing RNC Chair Michael Steele’s request to speak at a rally. A possible reason for this is something Maddow and her contributor not-so-surprisingly did not mention (must have been too busy trying to make it through the darn segment without falling over from giggles or conspiratory looks—I give them credit for a valiant effort), was that this tactic was because the tea party organizers are trying to have a more united base—without any political party backing it. Especially with the current economic rut, why is it laughable to want to be active and to try to do something that could be effective for everyone?
So long story short, Maddow is not alone when she writes off the tea parties as being ridiculous tactics, but I would beg to differ.
P.S.
Today, some students on campus went shoeless (except in Gorecki, thank God). If their overall strategy was to raise awareness for those who live without shoes, I say this was a successful tactic. However, if they were attempting to live in solidarity with the shoe-less poor, I don’t think it can really be that successful, since they will be wearing shoes tomorrow…
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Your analysis of the tea bagging clip was very interesting. As I've blogged about before I think it is important to always be aware of where your information comes from and how the context etc impacts the validity and content of the news.
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned viewers are aware of her political sway and such, which makes her bias very obvious... but does this make it ok?
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ReplyDeleteWell responding to you and H.B. I think that this clip was ok because both News stations CNN and Fox are known for their political views and both bat around comments about the other side.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do agree that this clip should have been followed by an in depth discussion because it would show that those that laughed were laughing for good reason. Being that the "Tea bagging" was to imitate the Boston Tea Party which was a protest on Taxation without representation when this protest clearly was not.
But laughter aside I think you did argue your point well and I agree with you that we should have had discussion on the matter (especially since not all of the protesters were republican) and we should have looked at news coverage on Fox news too to get their side of the story. So then we could figure out if this was a well thought out tactic.
I just noticed that Steve's last blog post discussed this issue so you girls should check that out too if you're interested :)
ReplyDeleteI feel I have to respond to this since I have some responsibility for the unprofessionalism you speak of.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think your analysis of Maddow's tactics is correct, and in some ways agrees with Naomi Klein's skepticism about stuff like reclaim the streets and the consciousness-raising shoeless people. (But I can't off the top of my head think of anything especially funny to say about going shoeless to express solidarity with the poor.) You're absolutely right that her show was a snarky dig at the far right wing, and that she was totally self-congratulatory -- the show was for liberals to laugh and pat themselves on the back. Ultimately, her show did little to further any positive politics, unless by "positive politics" one means patting oneself on the back.
But it's hard not to be amused when you know what the phrase "teabagging" actually means (check it out on urban dictionary or my blog), and I think your critique of her being unprofessional is a bit off the mark. Her show is a comedy show (like Saturday Night Live or Colbert Report), not a news show. And you can't expect a comedian to hide his or her political bias, because the whole point of comedy is to make fun of people.
But this leads us to a a more complex question. How effective is comedy? What does comedy do for us? Consider not just the Adbusters stuff that Naomi Klein talks about, but also such literary satire as Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" that mocked the policies of the British Empire. Some kinds of satire, like Maddow's and South Park's, simply ridicules stupid behavior, and allows a group of people to feel good or smart at the expense of others. But other kinds of satire, like Swift's but also like Jonathan Stewart's in my opinion, takes us to a higher moral level and may produce revelatory effects.
That said, I have a hard time taking the teabaggers seriously for many reasons. And not just because of the sexual double meaning that Maddow was basically exploiting. First, as anyone who actually gets a paycheck knows, taxes are lower now than they were last year for almost everyone (except for really rich people.) I don't know if you get a paycheck, but if you do, you might have noticed this. So, the teabaggers just look like sore losers.... or like people who don't actually earn a living. Second, as everyone who remembers their 5th grade history class knows, the Boston tea party was about taxation WITHOUT representation, not taxation with representation. So, they don't seem to understand elementary school history or basic high school civics very well either. This is why they are a fringe element of the Republican party, and why most mainstream Republicans are distancing themselves from the teabaggers. It also raises lots of questions why a news organization such as Fox would so completely abandon any sense of journalistic objectivity and support them. (And there's a difference between a comedian making fun of something and a newscaster supporting something.) Fox has always been a partisan network, but possibly they went too far this time... I don't know, but the question that interests me (based on my reading of Klein) is how political tactics backfire. What I think we can learn from Klein is how critical she is of people she actually agrees with politically. And likewise, one might suspect that working class conservatives have been duped by the wealthy owners of the mainstream media, and that the mainstream media's blunder has backfired on them.
So, for sure, you're right, the teabaggers may be expressing their frustration, but the key question here is what they are frustrated about. It doesn't seem like they actually know.
Thanks for the comments; kind of funny/fyi: i do indeed know what tea-bagging means. I actually just had to explain it to my mother over the phone(she had heard it referenced on the news as having a risque "double meaning")
ReplyDeleteSix people responded...I will respond...
ReplyDeleteA side note, doesn't seem like the story of the teabaggers is comical in a sense - like a spoof on a T.V. sitcom? With the "double meaning" function, explaining the event itself seems too comical.
This brings into the play of representation. We talked about this in class. It seems 'weird,' when what is represented in fictional sitcoms seems like everyday life. And when true events are on the news, like the 'teabagging' event, it seems bizarre. This brings us to question the representation of what "real" is.