I'm a little bemused by it. I'm trying to think about how -- had Hillary Clinton been elected -- you would structure an ad playing on her as 'crazy girlfriend.' I assume they'd get Laina Walker to wear a wig, and pitch the 'overly attached' meme her desire to prowl through your health care records, spy on your text messages, and make all the decisions in your life.
To hear Dr. Althouse tell it, the Obama administration has it coming because they have coyly structured their message as if it had a 'boyfriend' theme. I suppose that must mean that works, too, at least for the unmarried female demographic to whom they've pitched so much of their messaging effort.
Still, if they'd done it to Clinton, we'd be hearing how sexist the ad is. I don't suppose it is, though: there can be bad boyfriends/girlfriends without it being a comment on men/women in general. Just the bad ones.
Well, I think part of my unease is the way in which is does play to the sub-rosa suggestion that the President should represent a kind of replacement man-in-your-life for unmarried women. That model of relating to the government is fundamentally unhealthy.
More like father figure. But it's still the ads of the Obama coterie.
Clinton's ad set may well follow a government as in loco parentis meme, but it'll be her form, not Obama's, and so not as father, or any other type of man, in one's life.
Fight the enemy you have, and not the enemy you'd like to have?
Still don't like it. The problem isn't that he's a bad boyfriend; it's the sense among a majority of this subset of unmarried women that 'boyfriend' is kind of a good analogy.
I'm not convinced here. There's no reason to believe it's a very large subset of unmarried women. It's hard to determine the degree of success of this sort of ad even among this subset. To the extent there's any success, it's hard to tell whether the ad type works or it's simply operating in the vacuum of the Republicans' and Conservatives' decision to ignore this subset rather than to engage with them.
Grim, sometimes you have to fight on their terms and turf, and not the ground you'd like to fight on. It may not be ideal, it may not even work in the end, but if they won't come to you, what choice have you? Ignore them? We've let go of too much already, don't you think?
'Vote for us -- we'll turn government into the best boyfriend you could want!' Kind of a soft paternalism -- not quite your father, but he'll still pay all your bills when you need him to?
They think that way anyway. Why not use it to our advantage? If I were fighting an Islamic enemy, I wouldn't hesitate to use Islamic rhetoric to influence the enemy, even though I'm not a Muslim.
I think my answer to "Why not?" is that this is how the English Tory party got where it is. They basically said, "OK, we'll turn England into the welfare state you want. We'll just promise to run it better."
Do people really not think it's possible to convert young, unmarried women away from thinking of the government as properly paternalistic? Well, they don't want it setting rules for them, so it's not like 'Daddy,' but it does pay all their bills... that was the point of the 'Julia' campaign.
If that's the way to win, maybe we need a different game.
I'm not saying we change anything about policy, just messaging.
To me, it's the same as if you are trying to appeal to a Spanish-speaking demographic and make an ad in Spanish. It's not advocating that the US make Spanish its official language; it's just speaking to them in a language they understand.
Also, given the level of dissatisfaction expressed in the ad, maybe there's an opening for another ad that explains why looking at government like a boyfriend was a big mistake.
Well, I think part of my unease is the way in which is does play to the sub-rosa suggestion that the President should represent a kind of replacement man-in-your-life for unmarried women.
How else are you going to get vulnerable women that are being raped in college, to turn in their patriotic American neighbors to the Death Squads?
I mean seriously, they need some kind of Authority.... you know, to trust and obey.
13 comments:
I'm a little bemused by it. I'm trying to think about how -- had Hillary Clinton been elected -- you would structure an ad playing on her as 'crazy girlfriend.' I assume they'd get Laina Walker to wear a wig, and pitch the 'overly attached' meme her desire to prowl through your health care records, spy on your text messages, and make all the decisions in your life.
To hear Dr. Althouse tell it, the Obama administration has it coming because they have coyly structured their message as if it had a 'boyfriend' theme. I suppose that must mean that works, too, at least for the unmarried female demographic to whom they've pitched so much of their messaging effort.
Still, if they'd done it to Clinton, we'd be hearing how sexist the ad is. I don't suppose it is, though: there can be bad boyfriends/girlfriends without it being a comment on men/women in general. Just the bad ones.
You're overthinking it, Grim. Clinton wasn't elected. Obama was. Full stop.
Should Clinton get elected in '16, the response type ads and parody ads will be based on what ads Clinton actually runs.
Eric Hines
Well, I think part of my unease is the way in which is does play to the sub-rosa suggestion that the President should represent a kind of replacement man-in-your-life for unmarried women. That model of relating to the government is fundamentally unhealthy.
More like father figure. But it's still the ads of the Obama coterie.
Clinton's ad set may well follow a government as in loco parentis meme, but it'll be her form, not Obama's, and so not as father, or any other type of man, in one's life.
Eric Hines
Fight the enemy you have, and not the enemy you'd like to have?
Still don't like it. The problem isn't that he's a bad boyfriend; it's the sense among a majority of this subset of unmarried women that 'boyfriend' is kind of a good analogy.
this subset of unmarried women
I'm not convinced here. There's no reason to believe it's a very large subset of unmarried women. It's hard to determine the degree of success of this sort of ad even among this subset. To the extent there's any success, it's hard to tell whether the ad type works or it's simply operating in the vacuum of the Republicans' and Conservatives' decision to ignore this subset rather than to engage with them.
Eric Hines
Grim, sometimes you have to fight on their terms and turf, and not the ground you'd like to fight on. It may not be ideal, it may not even work in the end, but if they won't come to you, what choice have you? Ignore them? We've let go of too much already, don't you think?
'Vote for us -- we'll turn government into the best boyfriend you could want!' Kind of a soft paternalism -- not quite your father, but he'll still pay all your bills when you need him to?
They think that way anyway. Why not use it to our advantage? If I were fighting an Islamic enemy, I wouldn't hesitate to use Islamic rhetoric to influence the enemy, even though I'm not a Muslim.
I think my answer to "Why not?" is that this is how the English Tory party got where it is. They basically said, "OK, we'll turn England into the welfare state you want. We'll just promise to run it better."
Do people really not think it's possible to convert young, unmarried women away from thinking of the government as properly paternalistic? Well, they don't want it setting rules for them, so it's not like 'Daddy,' but it does pay all their bills... that was the point of the 'Julia' campaign.
If that's the way to win, maybe we need a different game.
I'm not saying we change anything about policy, just messaging.
To me, it's the same as if you are trying to appeal to a Spanish-speaking demographic and make an ad in Spanish. It's not advocating that the US make Spanish its official language; it's just speaking to them in a language they understand.
Also, given the level of dissatisfaction expressed in the ad, maybe there's an opening for another ad that explains why looking at government like a boyfriend was a big mistake.
...why looking at government like a boyfriend was a big mistake.
Now you're talking. :)
Well, I think part of my unease is the way in which is does play to the sub-rosa suggestion that the President should represent a kind of replacement man-in-your-life for unmarried women.
How else are you going to get vulnerable women that are being raped in college, to turn in their patriotic American neighbors to the Death Squads?
I mean seriously, they need some kind of Authority.... you know, to trust and obey.
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