Optimus Prime
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Interesting read and theory
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Everyone has a theory about why American politics today is so awful.
I blame MTV.
More specifically, I blame the music channel’s “Rock the Vote” campaign in the early 1990s. That’s the moment when the tastemakers of popular culture decided the widespread perception that politics isn’t cool was a problem to be solved.
Politics had to be made cool. And therefore not boring.
Call today’s politics whatever you like, but it isn’t boring. I can hear the defenses of “Rock the Vote”: That’s unfair! Politics and entertainment have long overlapped — even Richard M. Nixon was on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” in 1968 saying “Sock it to me?”
But there’s a difference between politicians trying to be entertaining and politicians seeing their role as primarily being an entertainer. Here’s where “Rock the Vote” comes in.
The organization by that name, founded in 1990 by a music industry executive to combat censorship of song lyrics, teamed up with MTV ahead of the 1990 midterms to get out the youth vote.
But the campaign didn’t fully kick into gear until two years later, with the goal of persuading young voters to take a break from obsessing over Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men and actually care about voting for Bill Clinton.
Oh, those last three words weren’t explicit, but it wasn’t hard to discern MTV’s preference among the presidential options of the 68-year-old World War II vet incumbent, the nutty billionaire Texan with the charts, and the cool guy in dark sunglasses who played the saxophone on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”…….
In a vivid example of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions, one “Rock the Vote” public service announcement in 1990 featured Madonna rapping, “If you don’t vote, you’re gonna get a spanking.”
Never mind that some segment of the target audience might have paid good money to get spanked by Madonna. If your ad campaign requires pop culture’s preeminent sex symbol to make saucy allusions to S&M to persuade people to take their civic duty seriously, you’re not taking your civic duty seriously.
A few years later, John F. Kennedy Jr. came along with George magazine, “a lifestyle magazine with politics at its core,” giving political figures (Gerald Ford, Madeleine Albright, Pat Schroeder) the Hollywood treatment — when it wasn’t doing the same for actual celebrities (Kate Moss, George Clooney, Madonna — her again).
Almost every page and profile and article screamed at readers: Hey, Americans! We know you think politics is boring, but look how cool and fashionable and fascinating these people are!
With celebrities dressed up on the cover as Betsy Ross (Barbra Streisand) or Abraham Lincoln (Harrison Ford), and the inside relatively devoid of discussions of government policy, George offered a version of politics for Americans who weren’t that interested in politics. Lots of sweet frosting, almost no cake………
Getting a lot more Americans interested in politics is not the same as getting a lot more Americans knowledgeable about the workings of democracy or government.
It has brought the worldview associated with sports-talk radio to politics; you’ve got a team and you want that team to win, and the other team is always the worst, and the refs are always unfairly treating your side. Heaven forbid you concede that the other team played a better game……..
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Everyone has a theory about why American politics today is so awful.
I blame MTV.
More specifically, I blame the music channel’s “Rock the Vote” campaign in the early 1990s. That’s the moment when the tastemakers of popular culture decided the widespread perception that politics isn’t cool was a problem to be solved.
Politics had to be made cool. And therefore not boring.
Call today’s politics whatever you like, but it isn’t boring. I can hear the defenses of “Rock the Vote”: That’s unfair! Politics and entertainment have long overlapped — even Richard M. Nixon was on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” in 1968 saying “Sock it to me?”
But there’s a difference between politicians trying to be entertaining and politicians seeing their role as primarily being an entertainer. Here’s where “Rock the Vote” comes in.
The organization by that name, founded in 1990 by a music industry executive to combat censorship of song lyrics, teamed up with MTV ahead of the 1990 midterms to get out the youth vote.
But the campaign didn’t fully kick into gear until two years later, with the goal of persuading young voters to take a break from obsessing over Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men and actually care about voting for Bill Clinton.
Oh, those last three words weren’t explicit, but it wasn’t hard to discern MTV’s preference among the presidential options of the 68-year-old World War II vet incumbent, the nutty billionaire Texan with the charts, and the cool guy in dark sunglasses who played the saxophone on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”…….
In a vivid example of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions, one “Rock the Vote” public service announcement in 1990 featured Madonna rapping, “If you don’t vote, you’re gonna get a spanking.”
Never mind that some segment of the target audience might have paid good money to get spanked by Madonna. If your ad campaign requires pop culture’s preeminent sex symbol to make saucy allusions to S&M to persuade people to take their civic duty seriously, you’re not taking your civic duty seriously.
A few years later, John F. Kennedy Jr. came along with George magazine, “a lifestyle magazine with politics at its core,” giving political figures (Gerald Ford, Madeleine Albright, Pat Schroeder) the Hollywood treatment — when it wasn’t doing the same for actual celebrities (Kate Moss, George Clooney, Madonna — her again).
Almost every page and profile and article screamed at readers: Hey, Americans! We know you think politics is boring, but look how cool and fashionable and fascinating these people are!
With celebrities dressed up on the cover as Betsy Ross (Barbra Streisand) or Abraham Lincoln (Harrison Ford), and the inside relatively devoid of discussions of government policy, George offered a version of politics for Americans who weren’t that interested in politics. Lots of sweet frosting, almost no cake………
Getting a lot more Americans interested in politics is not the same as getting a lot more Americans knowledgeable about the workings of democracy or government.
It has brought the worldview associated with sports-talk radio to politics; you’ve got a team and you want that team to win, and the other team is always the worst, and the refs are always unfairly treating your side. Heaven forbid you concede that the other team played a better game……..
