Comments on: Dead Tree Alert: Meet the Obamas! http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2008/11/21/dead-tree-alert-meet-the-obamas/ A blog about television by TIME’s TV critic James Poniewozik. Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:42:04 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: plukasiak http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2008/11/21/dead-tree-alert-meet-the-obamas/comment-page-1/#comment-17416 plukasiak Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:19:07 +0000 http://timetunedin.wordpress.com/?p=2163#comment-17416 Sorry, the whole thing is BS. This is about the media's effort to justify its selection of Obama -- puff pieces about his family are just par for the course here. But "David Palmer" (Morgan Freeman is too old -- Dennis Haysbert is just right) and "The Huxtables" (Claire and TWO Rudy's!!) are the template that the media is using. Its got nothing to do with Fiddy Cents, and everything to do with maintaining the media's mythomania about Barack Obama. Sorry, the whole thing is BS.

This is about the media's effort to justify its selection of Obama -- puff pieces about his family are just par for the course here.

But "David Palmer" (Morgan Freeman is too old -- Dennis Haysbert is just right) and "The Huxtables" (Claire and TWO Rudy's!!) are the template that the media is using. Its got nothing to do with Fiddy Cents, and everything to do with maintaining the media's mythomania about Barack Obama.

]]> By: phaedrus10 http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2008/11/21/dead-tree-alert-meet-the-obamas/comment-page-1/#comment-17387 phaedrus10 Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:21:32 +0000 http://timetunedin.wordpress.com/?p=2163#comment-17387 Ok, I see what youre saying. David Palmer might have helped get him elected, but 50 Cent helped get him accepted. Well, maybe... i still don't really buy it though. I think the positive reaction to Obama comes from the contrast with George W. Bush (hallelujah my President isn't an embarrasing dumbass) and the positive reaction to his family comes mostly from the fact that they have cute little kids (we're a nation obsessed with little kids). I could be wrong obviously, but I think the effect of comparisons with the 50 Cents and negative media imagery you're talking about (and Obama was talking about) really came and went at the beginning of the primaries when everyone saw that "he speaks so well" (nod to Chris Rock). Ok, I see what youre saying. David Palmer might have helped get him elected, but 50 Cent helped get him accepted. Well, maybe... i still don't really buy it though. I think the positive reaction to Obama comes from the contrast with George W. Bush (hallelujah my President isn't an embarrasing dumbass) and the positive reaction to his family comes mostly from the fact that they have cute little kids (we're a nation obsessed with little kids).

I could be wrong obviously, but I think the effect of comparisons with the 50 Cents and negative media imagery you're talking about (and Obama was talking about) really came and went at the beginning of the primaries when everyone saw that "he speaks so well" (nod to Chris Rock).

]]> By: James Poniewozik http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2008/11/21/dead-tree-alert-meet-the-obamas/comment-page-1/#comment-17386 James Poniewozik Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:00:24 +0000 http://timetunedin.wordpress.com/?p=2163#comment-17386 @phaedrus: I probably could have unpacked this better in that passage, but here I'm referring to the intensity of the media reaction to the Obama family *after* the election—and especially, the visceral effect of their unveiling as the First Family. (Hence, the reference to the puppy, etc.) In other words, it's not that the contrast to this history of negative images helped him get elected, but it—along with America's whole racial history—is what's added intensity and significance to the soft-media focus on the new First Family. (I think--I hope--it makes more sense in the context of the column, which is about the post-election fascination with the Obamas... maybe I should have pull-quoted the beginning rather than the middle of the column.) One thing I had put in the column, and cut out because it was running long, was an interesting Obama quote to the New York Times magazine in its long profile of him just before the election. He said that—whereas the usual assumption is that voters get to know you and then vote for you—he felt this was impossible in the campaign and media environment. Instead, people would vote for him, and *then* get to know him. Which I think is what's happening here. And it's in this getting-to-know-them stage that this contrast with this history of negative images is really pronounced. ADD: The night of the election, and for a while after, I remember hearing on commentator after another remark on the tableau of the Obamas at Grant Park. It seemed funny, in a way, because they had to have known intellectually that if he won (and he was probably going to), they'd be the First Family. But knowing it and actually *seeing* it were two different things... and it was in that seeing-it where I think the contrast with the history of African Americans in the media and pop culture really hit home. @phaedrus: I probably could have unpacked this better in that passage, but here I'm referring to the intensity of the media reaction to the Obama family *after* the election—and especially, the visceral effect of their unveiling as the First Family. (Hence, the reference to the puppy, etc.) In other words, it's not that the contrast to this history of negative images helped him get elected, but it—along with America's whole racial history—is what's added intensity and significance to the soft-media focus on the new First Family. (I think--I hope--it makes more sense in the context of the column, which is about the post-election fascination with the Obamas... maybe I should have pull-quoted the beginning rather than the middle of the column.)
One thing I had put in the column, and cut out because it was running long, was an interesting Obama quote to the New York Times magazine in its long profile of him just before the election. He said that—whereas the usual assumption is that voters get to know you and then vote for you—he felt this was impossible in the campaign and media environment. Instead, people would vote for him, and *then* get to know him. Which I think is what's happening here. And it's in this getting-to-know-them stage that this contrast with this history of negative images is really pronounced.
ADD: The night of the election, and for a while after, I remember hearing on commentator after another remark on the tableau of the Obamas at Grant Park. It seemed funny, in a way, because they had to have known intellectually that if he won (and he was probably going to), they'd be the First Family. But knowing it and actually *seeing* it were two different things... and it was in that seeing-it where I think the contrast with the history of African Americans in the media and pop culture really hit home.

]]> By: phaedrus10 http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2008/11/21/dead-tree-alert-meet-the-obamas/comment-page-1/#comment-17385 phaedrus10 Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:48:39 +0000 http://timetunedin.wordpress.com/?p=2163#comment-17385 "But maybe there's an opposite factor at work here too--the 50 Cent effect." --- I don't know JP, that seems like some seriously weak reasoning to me. If anything, this "50 Cent effect" is what Mccain his cronies were trying to push... the idea that "you don't really know the Obamas", that beneath the show they're the same exact "problems or threats, from news to cop shows to hip-hop. Broken families, perp walks, AKs and Cristal." I think those decades old media images only fed into those fears and made people doubt the sincerity of the Obamas image. Unless you've got additional support for this theory, I think I'm far more inclined to believe that David Palmer helped Obama get elected... and 50 Cent, at best, didn't hurt. "But maybe there's an opposite factor at work here too--the 50 Cent effect." --- I don't know JP, that seems like some seriously weak reasoning to me. If anything, this "50 Cent effect" is what Mccain his cronies were trying to push... the idea that "you don't really know the Obamas", that beneath the show they're the same exact "problems or threats, from news to cop shows to hip-hop. Broken families, perp walks, AKs and Cristal." I think those decades old media images only fed into those fears and made people doubt the sincerity of the Obamas image. Unless you've got additional support for this theory, I think I'm far more inclined to believe that David Palmer helped Obama get elected... and 50 Cent, at best, didn't hurt.

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