Spectacular resistance: The billionaires for bush and the art of political culture jamming

Polity

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 273-296

  Farrar, Margaret E ^a   Warner, Jamie L ^b  

^a Augustana College

^b MARSHALL UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Billionaires for Bush; Irony; Participation; Political culture jamming; Protest; Spectacle

Indexed keywords

EID: 46849097838     PISSN: 00323497     EISSN: 17441684     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300104     Document Type: Article

References (116)

1. Mark Dery, Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs (Westfield, NJ: Open Pamphlet Series, 1993), 6.
2. See Alan Keenan, "The Twilight of the Political: A Contribution to the Democratic Critique of Cynicism," Theory & Event 2, 1 (1998). http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v002/2.1keenan. html (accessed July 12, 2007).
3. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (New York: Zone Books, 1995), Thesis 36. http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4 (accessed July 10, 2007).
4. Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, Thesis 42.
5. Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, Thesis 42.
6. While Edelman's main concern is explaining how political spectacle functions to mystify and obfuscate, he is also very aware of the emancipatory potential of spectacle.
7. See Constructing the Political Spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), especially Chapter Seven.
8. For a related discussion of political aesthetics, see his From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political Conceptions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
9. Bruce Miroff, "The Presidential Spectacle," in Voices of Dissent Critical Readings in American Politics, 4th ed., ed. William F. Graver and Joseph G. Peschek (New York: Longman, 2002), 167-81.
10. Miroff, "The Presidential Spectacle," 169.
11. See, for example, Joe McGinniss' classic account of Nixon as candidate, The Selling of the President (New York: Penguin, 1988 [1968]).
12. Michael Rogin, Ronald Reagan the Movie: and Other Episodes in Political Demonology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). One can only imagine what Rogin would have to say about former Tennessee senator and current Law & Order star Fred Thompson, whose 2008 presidential primary campaign kickoff in Des Moines began with the words "A role only Fred Thompson can play." Found at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/ elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_5692022,00.html, accessed September 7, 2007. Even more interesting is the fact that while he was a candidate, faux TV political pundit Stephen Colbert polled better than "real" Democratic candidates such as Governor Bill Richardson and Representative Dennis Kucinich. Found at http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_displayjsp?vnu_content_id = 1003661610 (accessed October 26, 2007).
13. Jodi Dean, Publicity's Secret: How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 3.
14. The language of branding within political campaigns is ubiquitous. See, for example, Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, The Phenomenon of Political Marketing (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990);
15. Robert V. Friedenberg, Communication Consultants in Political Campaigns: Ballot Box Warriors (Westport, CT. Praeger, 1997);
16. and Bruce Newman, ed., Handbook of Political Marketing (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999).
17. William Chaloupka, Everybody Knows: Cynicism in America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001).
18. Jodi Dean, Publicity's Secret, 5-7.
19. Keenan, "The Twilight of the Political," ¶3 and ¶4. Keenan's argument is much more sophisticated than this gloss indicates, of course. Keenan argues that democratic politics will always produce some degree of cynicism, simply because of the public's expectations versus what the democratic process can reasonably deliver. However, he claims, our current level of cynicism is a result of "widely-available meaningful public spaces" (¶14) for us to engage in collective action. Combined with a condition he calls the "state of emergency" this leads to "the shared spectatorship" of crises that "increasingly constitutes the sense of American national identity" (¶37).
20. Miroff, "The Presidential Spectacle," 168.
21. See also Diane Rubenstein, "The Mirror of Reproduction: Baudrillard and Reagan's America," Political Theory 17 (November 1989): 582-606,
22. and Michael Rogin, '"Make My Day!' Spectacle as Amnesia in Imperial Politics," Representations 29 (Winter 1990): 99-123.
23. Alan Keenan, Democracy in Question: Democratic Openness in a Time of Political Closure (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 3.
24. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 166.
25. Of course, one can trace the lineage of these recent critics back to the Frankfurt School.
26. See also Douglas Kellner, Television and the Crisis of Democracy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990) and The Persian Gulf TV War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992) ;
27. Robert McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990);
28. and Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives (New York: Henry Holt, 2002).
29. We are not alone in this assessment; a wide variety of scholars have challenged these sorts of pessimistic claims, as well as the quasi-nostalgic tendencies evidenced by both Postman and Putnam.
30. For a critique of Putnam's broad narrative of decline in American civic life, see Barbara Arneil, Diverse Communities: The Problem with Social Capital (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
31. For a compelling critique of the highly idealized public sphere of an earlier time that both Putnam and Postman presume, see Peter Dahlgren, "The Internet, Public Spheres, and Political Communication: Dispersion and Deliberation," Political Communication 22 (2005): 147-62.
32. For a trilogy of empirical refutations of the media malaise thesis from a variety of angles, see Pippa Norris, Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Digital Divide? Civic Engagement, Information Poverty and the Internet Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2001);
33. and A Virtuous Circle? Political Communications in Post-Industrial Democracies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
34. João Freire Filho, "The Fate of Literary Culture in the Age of Television Spectacle," Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 13 (December 2004): 301-13.
35. Hegel, for example, thought irony was a thoroughly negative attribute and thus could never serve as a foundation for anything constructive.
36. See The Philosophy of Right, trans. TM. Knox. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952): "lrony," Hegel complains, "is playing with all. To this subjectivity nothing is serious; it creates the serious, then annihilates it, and can transform all into appearance. All high and divine truth disintegrates into nothingness (or vulgarity); all that is serious is at the same time only a joke." Cited in Joseph Dane. The Critical Mythology of Irony (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991), 84.
37. Jody Baumgartner and Jonathan Morris, "The Daily Show Effect: Candidate Evaluations, Efficacy, and American Youth," American Politics Research 34 (May 2006): 341-67.
38. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), xv.
39. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York: Penguin, 1985), 162.
40. Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 161.
41. Dery Culture Jamming, 6.
42. Umberto Eco, "Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare" in Travels in Hyperreality (New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1986), 138-43, 144. Cited in Dery, Culture Jamming, 6.
43. Kalle Lasn, Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge - And Why We Must (New York: Harper, 2000), 22.
44. "Postmodern cynicism is rage that can no longer get it up." Lasn, Culture Jam, 141.
45. Lasn, Culture Jam, xvii, 103.
46. Berry quoted in Bart Cammaerts, "Jamming the Political: Beyond Counter-hegemonic Practices," Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 21 (March 2007): 71.
47. For a brief genealogy of culture jamming tactics, see Cammaerts, "Jamming the Political," 75-77.
48. Cammaerts emphasizes that for all the historical differences in antecedent movements such as Dadaism, Fluxus, and the Situationists, their agility with "serious parody" provides a common thread (76).
49. For a specific case study of spectacular politics in the early twentieth century see Kirk Fuoss's compelling analysis of Depression-era workers' struggles, Striking Performances/Performing Strikes: A Look at How Two Groups of Strikers Promoted Their Agendas by Mock Performances (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997).
50. David Joselit, "Yippie Pop: Abbie Hoffman, Andy Warhol, and Sixties Media Politics," Grey Room 08 (Summer 2002), 64.
51. Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (New York: Vintage, 1961), 11. Cited in Joselit, "Yippie Pop," 63-64.
52. Quoted in David Gates, "He Didn't Need a Weatherman," Newsweek 124:24 (December 12, 1994), 68.
53. http://www.hippycom/article-100.html (accessed September 15, 2007).
54. Dery Culture Jamming, 7.
55. http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/view.php?id = 340 (accessed February 2, 2007).
56. http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/tvturnoff/ (accessed February 2, 2007).
57. "Join us," invites Lasn. "Buy a pair and become a voting shareholder in The Blackspot Anticorporation. Together, we'll unswoosh Nike's tired old swoosh and give birth to a new kind of cool in the sneaker industry" http://adbusters.org/metas/corpo/blackspotshoes/aboutblackspot. php (accessed February 2, 2007).
58. Even the more traditional spectacle creation of Reverend Billy has a sophisticated media interface through his website, which includes audio, video and links specifically for the media, including a press kit.
59. See his website at www.revbillycom (accessed September 17, 2007).
60. Dery, Culture Jamming, 7.
61. Jello Biafra, interviewed in Pranks!: Re/Search #11 (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications, 1987), 64, cited in Dery, Culture Jamming, 7.
62. Gareth Branwyn, Jamming the Media: A Citizen's Guide to Reclaiming the Tools of Communication (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997), 263-65.
63. Christine Harold, "Pranking Rhetoric: 'Culture Jamming' as Media Activism," Critical Studies in Media Communication 21:3 (2004): 190.
64. Christine Harold, "Pranking Rhetoric," 131.
65. Christine Harold, "Pranking Rhetoric," 130.
66. You can see all of these ads at http://adbusters.org/spoofads/fashion/ (accessed February 2, 2007).
67. Cammaerts, "Jamming the Political," 72.
68. Quoted in Stephen Whitfield, "THE STUNT MAN: ABBIE HOFFMAN (1946-1989)," Virginia Quarterly Review 66:4 (Autumn 1990): 565-84. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed September 15, 2007).
69. Todd Gitlin, The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media and the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
70. See also Aniko Bodoghkozy, "Every Revolutionary Needs a Color TV': The Yippies, Media Manipulation and Talk Shows," in Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 98-122.
71. Joselit, "Yippie Pop," 67.
72. Dieter Rucht, "The Quadruple 'A": Media Strategies of Protest Movements Since the 1960s," in Cyberprotest: New Media, Citizens, and Social Movements, ed. Wim van de Donk, Brian D. Loader, Paul G. Nixon, and Dieter Rucht (London: Routledge: 2004), 37.
73. A more direct genealogical line in regards to tactics can be traced from the Yippies to groups like the Guerrilla Girls and the Radical Cheerleaders.
74. See Anne Demo, "The Guerrilla Girls, Perspective by Incongruity, and Feminist Resistance," Women's Studies in Communication, 23 (Spring 2000): 133-56;
75. also Margaret Farrar and Jamie Warner, "Rah-Rah-Radical: The Radical Cheerleaders' Challenge to the Public Sphere," Politics & Gender 2 (Fall 2006): 281-302.
76. Quoted in Michael Slackman and Colin Moynihan, "Now in Previews, Political Theater in the Streets" The New York Times, February 19, 2004.
77. Andrew Boyd, "TRUTH IS AVIRUS: Meme Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)," found at http://www.culturejamming101.com/truthisavirus. html (accessed January 24, 2007). Originally published in Cultural Resistance, ed. Steven Duncombe (New York: Verso, 2002).
78. Boyd, "TRUTH IS A VIRUS."
79. Boyd, "TRUTH IS A VIRUS."
80. See also Alastair Mckay, "In Place of Politics - Consumer Cash Points," The Scotsman, August 2, 2000.
81. Boyd, "TRUTH IS A VIRUS." This kind of tightly orchestrated media campaign makes the Billionaires for Bush quite different from the more organic activism of the Radical Cheerleaders, whose work we explore in "Rah- Rah- Radical."
82. As Kevin DeLuca points out, activists who consciously create more imagistic forms of protest do so because they may gain access to mainstream media in a way that more traditional forms of protest might not.
83. See Kevin Michael DeLuca, Image Politics: The New Rhetoric of Environmental Activism (New York: Guilford Press, 1999).
84. See http://billionairesforbush.com/diy_v2_contents.php (accessed July 12, 2007).
85. Boyd, "TRUTH IS A VIRUS." The number of local Billionaires chapters grew from three to over hundred during the 2004 election. Since 2004, a number of the chapters have gone on hiatus; however, the Billionaires have continued to develop and expand their repertoire of resistance: in 2006, the Billionaires were featured in a movie of their exploits titled "Get on the Limo;" in 2007, the Billionaires appeared in a New York stage production titled "Billionaires Forever;" and for 2008 the group is releasing their first wall calendar, featuring "Mission Accomplished Day" (May 1) and "Don't Vote Day" (November 4).
86. On the group's website, Billionaire Ivy League-Legacy asks rhetorically: "Are we in it for the long haul? You bet your golden parachute we are." http://billionairesforbush.com/index.php (accessed October 21, 2007).
87. Quoted in Barbara Spindel, "Isn't it Ironic? Left-Leaning Protest Groups Get Behind Bush," found at http://www.mtv.com/chooseorlose/ headlines/news.jhtml?id = 1488703 (accessed January 24, 2007).
88. Found at http://www.billionairesforbush.com/story.php (accessed January 25, 2007).
89. Jack Hitt, "The Birth of the Meta-Protest Rally?" The New York Times Magazine, March 28, 2004.
90. For other examples, see Michael Gelter, "Gaps in Disclosure, and in Satire," The Washington Post, January 30, 2005;
91. Clyde Haberman, "In Defense of Privilege, With a Wink," The New York Times, November 9, 2004;
92. and Donovan Slack, "Billionaires for Bush. Well, Yes and No," The Boston Globe, March 26, 2004.
93. Kavita Kulkarni, "Case Study #5 'Postmodern Parody as Political Intervention: A Case Study of Billionaires for Bush." Found at http://hemi.nyu.edu/cuademo/politicalperformance2004/Globalization% 20Site/Web%20Content/billionaires/BillionairesCaseStudyhtml (accessed January 24, 2007).
94. Boyd, "TRUTH IS A VIRUS."
95. Quoted in Jason Flores-Williams, "The Billionaires are Back" The Brooklyn Rail, March 2006. Found at http://www.brooklynrail.org/ issue/2006-03/express/the-billionaires-are-back (accessed January 25, 2007).
96. Linda Hutcheon, Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 12.
97. Hutcheon, Irony's Edge, 96-97.
98. Another excellent example of this is the immensely popular The Colbert Report, which both draws on our cultural context of numerous right-wing media pundits and creates a new way to describe and parody news media and political rhetoric: "truthiness," chosen by the American Dialects Society as 2005's word of the year. Associated Press, "Linguists vote 'truthiness' word of 2005" USA Today (January 8, 2006), found at http://www.usatodaycom/news/education/2006-01-07-word-of-the-year_x.htm (accessed January 28, 2007).
99. M. Lane Bruner suggests that there is another benefit to spectacular resistance: more leniency from an increasingly humorless (i.e., a less tolerant) state. Bruner describes how members of Solidarity's Orange Alternative protested Soviet occupation by dressing up in ridiculous costumes, waving red flags, and singing communist songs. They were not arrested because it was unclear how to police an action that - at least on the face of it - appeared to be supporting the regime. The public learned from this that they could push the envelope of satire further and further in these sorts of political spectacles.
100. See Bruner, "Carnivalesque Protest and the Humorless State," Text and Performance Quarterly 25 (April 2005): 136-55.
101. Steven Johnson, Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter (New York: Riverhead, 2005).
102. For examples of the complicated relationship between spectatorship and participation, see Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ed. Rhonda V Wilcox and David Lavery (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002);
103. Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge, 1992);
104. and Christine A. Wooley, "Visible Fandom: Reading the X-Files Through the X-Philes," Journal of Film and Video 53 (Winter 2001-2002): 29-54.
105. Hutcheon, Irony's Edge, 116.
106. See also Stanley Fish, "Short People Got No Reason to Live: Reading Irony," in Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983).
107. Quoted in Haberman, "In Defense of Privilege."
108. William Connolly "Film Technique and Micropolitics," Theory & Event 6:1, 2002, ¶14,
109. http://www.billionairesforbush.com/overview.php (accessed September 17, 2007).
110. While the Billionaires for Bush can't technically gauge their effectiveness empirically besides citing the large number of media outlets who have picked up their stories, other political culture jammers who employ similar parodic techniques, such as the satirical news shows The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, andThe Colbert Report can claim an audience of over 1 million viewers per night.
111. See Matea Gold, "When Stephen Met Bill. . ." Los Angeles Times, Calendar Desk; Part E, 1 (January 20, 2007).
112. For a detailed discussion of Jon Stewart as a political culture jammer, see Jamie Warner, "Political Culture Jamming: The Dissident Humor of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Popular Communication 5 (Spring 2007): 17-37. Other current examples of political culture jamming include The Yes Men who impersonate corporate executives at shareholder meetings and corporate conferences and give talks on subjects like suggesting that the WTO reimpose slavery on Africa (http://www.theyesmen.org/en/hijinks/wharton); the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which parodies Intelligent Design (http://www.venganza.org/); and the satirical newspaper, The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/content/index).
113. Keenan, Democracy in Question.
114. See Michael Schudson for an in-depth description of the various ways American citizenship has been practiced, none of which conform to the nostalgic ideal of authentic, non-manipulative, inclusive, and participatory citizenship.
115. See The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life (New York: Martin Kessler, 1998).
116. Jane Bennett, "Commodity Fetishism and Commodity Enchantment," Theory & Event 5, 1 (2001), ¶1.