The Glamour President
Virginia Postrel writes for The Weekly Standard:
After C-SPAN reran a 1999 BookNotes interview about my first book, I received an email from a disappointed viewer. He was chagrined to hear that I was editing a website called DeepGlamour instead of writing "more serious nonfiction." Glamour, he implied, is a trivial subject, unworthy of consideration by people who watch, much less appear on, C-SPAN.To which I have two words of response: Barack Obama. In an era of tell-all memoirs, ubiquitous paparazzi, and reality-show exhibitionism, glamour may seem absent from Hollywood. But Obama demonstrates that its magic still exists. What a glamorous candidate he was--less a person than a persona, an idealized, self-contained figure onto whom audiences projected their own dreams, a Garbo-like "impassive receptacle of passionate hopes and impossible expectations," in the words of Time's Joe Klein. The campaign's iconography employed classically glamorous themes, with its stylized portraits of the candidate gazing into the distance and its logo of a road stretching toward the horizon. Now, of course, Obama is experiencing glamour's downside: the disillusionment that sets in when imagination meets reality. Hence James Lileks's recent quip about another contemporary object of glamour, "The Apple tablet is the Barack Obama of technology. It's whatever you want it to be, until you actually get it."
As critics who denounce movies that "glamorize violence" or "glamorize smoking" understand, glamour is much more than style. It is a potent tool of persuasion, a form of nonverbal rhetoric that heightens and focuses desire, particularly the longing for transformation (an ideal self) and escape (in a new setting). Glamour is all about hope and change. It lifts us out of everyday experience and makes our desires seem attainable. Depending on the audience, that feeling may provide momentary pleasure or life-altering inspiration.
via Nancy Rommelmann
> Hence James Lileks's recent quip about
> another contemporary object of glamour, "The
> Apple tablet is the Barack Obama of technology.
> It's whatever you want it to be, until you
> actually get it."
Obama like the Ipad! I'd missed that. The similarities continue! Both are authorititarian schemes, accepting limited input, and even data, from the owner. They'll tell us what we need, and we'll be expected to like it.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at April 10, 2010 10:00 AM
GD HTML.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at April 10, 2010 10:01 AM
Glamour is the absence of substance. It is the simple lack of something that we subject to imaginary traits that we (innately and naturally) make up to suit the unknown aspects of the reality of whatever we are focused on in the moment.
To some Obama is a liberal socialist, to others he's a continuation of the Bush presidency or worse. Anyone who has studied his voting as well as his personal statements sees that he is a center-right candidate running under a democratic flag.
Glamour is a very interesting banner to fly, as it is literally celebrating the absence of knowledge and the bias and fanciful ideas we put in its stead.
Sancho Spitzer at April 10, 2010 7:19 PM
> Anyone who has studied his voting as
> well as his personal statements sees that
> he is a center-right candidate running
> under a democratic flag.
Tell us about the flora and fauna of your planet.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at April 10, 2010 11:49 PM
Studied his voting? There was not voting to study.
"Glamour . . . . is literally celebrating the absence of knowledge and the bias and fanciful ideas we put in its stead."
Yeah. That's pretty much the beef I have with the current president. No knowledge, just fanciful ideas.
Elle at April 11, 2010 8:31 AM
> Glamour is the absence of substance.
No. Postrel's book is called "The Substance of Style", and even though I haven't read it yet, I like it more than I like your book. Postrel is an especially gifted thinker, writer, and editor. As a topic, glamour doesn't do much for me either, but it deserves more respect than something that "literally celebrates the absence of knowledge".
This is like when Amy gets on her high horse about religion being "irrational". If any of you were as gifted at discerning the real from the not as you claim to be, your lives would be much, much different.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at April 11, 2010 9:11 AM
Obama's marketing campaign was slick, but how glamorous do you have to be, just to fill the role of "not Bush?"
However, anyone who would actually say something like this: "Glamour ... is a trivial subject, unworthy of consideration .. " is a pompous windbag.
Pirate Jo at April 11, 2010 1:02 PM
Crid, I think what Sancho might be talking about is that Obama has pretty much continued all of the Bush policies regarding Iraq and anti-terrorism. However, I get the distinct impression that that's less because Obama thinks that Bush had the right idea, and more because Obama simply can't be bothered to engage this area. After all, it's not -- to continue the theme of this thread -- a glamorous topic. The whole terrorist-trials-in-Manhattan fiasco happened because Obama decided the subject wasn't worthy of his attention, and he outsourced it to Eric Holder.
Cousin Dave at April 12, 2010 6:40 AM
Oh.
Maybe. But I don't think if he'd done the work with his own knuckles, the Manhattan debacle would necessarily have been avoided. I don't think this guy's more intelligent or attuned than Dubya.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at April 13, 2010 8:03 AM
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