Roped In

For those of you with access to the Saturday New York Times, have a look at the front page story story: "Where to Catch the Sights, Sound and Smell of a Campaign." You can also click here to read it. But my observations are not about the text. The photos that accompany the story are what grabbed my interest. In fact, you don't really have to read it to get the story.

The story is about how each presidential candidate works the rope line before and after their scheduled events. Obama's rope lines have a rock star feel to them and he moves through them with efficiency. Senator Clinton, like her husband, loves the rope line and lingers and chats. John McCain works the rope line dutifully and invites a respectful distance.

OK, got it. Now let's talk about the pix of each rope line crowd.

The photo of Mrs. Clinton's rope line is included in the online version of the piece. Have a look. Three old white guys. We have this stationery story in my town where these four old retired guys bring folding chairs and sit outside, read the paper and watch the traffic go by. At first glance I thought it was the folding chair quartet.

Allow me to describe the other two photos.

John McCain's rope line crowd could be members of a single family. The all-American family. No facial hair, no blemishes. Looks like they all got haircuts before heading out to the rope line. And I know they are not all blondes but when I first saw the picture, they all looked blonde to me. And they all have this reverential look as if, you know, a President may be walking by soon. They are ready.

Last but not least we have the Obama rope line. It's a big, feisty crowd and they look like they are about to bust through the rope line. It's an ebullient and animated crowd. You can almost hear them shrieking. They are people of all shapes, sizes, ages. I see an Asian-American and a few white faces but I looked closely and more than once. At first glance, the crowd appears to be entirely African American. Looks like a wild bunch, maybe even disorderly.

The New York Times, like other papers, makes intentional decisions about the photos they choose. During my years at GLAAD, we battled with newspapers every June during Pride month as photo editors selected photos of drag queens on roller skates to accompany text about the parade. Occasionally (not often enough), we succeeded in persuading a newspaper to include a picture of lesbian moms pushing strollers. Editors will tell you that when folks think Pride Parades, they think drag queens. I would argue that they think this because those are the images they give us. And we know full well that the vast majority of people only experience parades through news coverage.

So too with the New York Times and rope lines. Let's reinforce every stereotype about each of these candidates by picking three photos, each of which affirm every one of the sixty billion polls we hear about sixty billion times a week from the best political team in the Milky Way.

If photos didn't have an impact on our attitudes, there wouldn't be a print advertising industry.

So next time you open the paper, pay a bit more attention to the photos. A picture can be worth a thousand words. But if the editor takes the easy way out, those thousand words tell us way more about the photo editor than the story itself.

Comments

[PioneerKing]

JOAN:

"Last but not least we have the Obama rope line. It's a big, feisty crowd and they look like they are about to bust through the rope line. It's an ebullient and animated crowd. You can almost hear them shrieking. They are people of all shapes, sizes, ages. I see an Asian-American and a few white faces but I looked closely and more than once. At first glance, the crowd appears to be entirely African American. Looks like a wild bunch, maybe even disorderly."

The photo that you have linked shows few faces so one wonders how you are able to discern that they are mostly African-American.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/23/us/24obama02_650.jpg

[cynicalidealist]

HuffPost's Pick

Joan,

Your thesis is strong -- that a photo editor in this visual age plays a central role in carrying a message. That said, your choice of image suite is unpersuasive.

The three images might well have reflected the constituencies that were being courted at that moment is time.

If you are of a mind that Clinton is not merely the candidate of the "white, working class" - make that point. The McCain extrapolation is interesting - does McCain reflect the Norman Rockwell family unit, or is that the extent of his reach? And the Obama image can be interpreted many ways - while commenting that it might be a "disorderly, wild bunch" is problematic, that's your opinion. I prefer to think that it shows the vitality and diversity of America. My point here is about the subjectivity of images. The hallmark book, Ways of Seeing, as well as Sontag's On Photography, are still relevant.

Show us the disconnect - how images - still or video - are being used in attack ads to portray voters as "special interest" blocs, rather than human beings.

Cheers.

[plafayette]

Spot on!

[clevelandchick]

The crowd personalities vary whether the Obama campaign stops at a college, an urban center, a church or say like 75,000 people in Portland Oregon, a state with an African American population less than 5%. I imagine that crowd had a lot of white people.

I went to his stop here in Cleveland which was kind of a impromptu occasion. Just a couple of days notice. He got about 7000 people. Every color, every age, every gender. It wasn't a crowd mostly of African Americans, it was pretty equal as far as the race of the attendees. Nobody was unruly or wild.

At the time my husband & I hadn't committed to supporting Obama, so we wanted to hear what he had to say. He discussed the Bush power grab, what this administration has done to the Constitution and restoring civil liberties and habeas corpus. He's THE ONLY candidate out of any of them save Dennis Kucinich that has discussed that issue. Hillary hasn't brought up that topic at all. And forget McCain.

I agree with your conclusions as far as the media using pictures to hide the truth. It's run by Republicans and they want Hillary to be the Dem Nom. From day one they knew it was their best shot at the White House.

[SethBLiNK]

It sounds like the 1,000 words match the picture. They tell the exact story that the reporter wrote and perhaps it's accurate. The Obama photo didn't look all that flattering. Mostly surrounded by his own staff and security.

[PhDiva]

Joan, you wrote "Looks like a wild bunch. Maybe even disorderly. Why do people insist on using the word "wild" to describe groups of African Americans? I know you were trying to make a critique, but you ended up reinforcing the sterotype you were challenging with that language. Also, why the word "disorderly" which is a kind of criminalizing term like "drunk and disorderly conduct." Why not use the term "rowdy" which is what journalists write when discussing lively groups of white people.

Also, in looking at the photograph with the story, I saw three hands that may belong to Black people, not an overwhelmingly black crowd. Another thing some people often do is overestimate the number of black people they are seeing.

Joan, before you start challenging the stereotypes of the NYT, why not check out your own.

[procrustes]

Diva, in defense of Joan--

Try to write something that is parse-proof and you will end up with a tortured unreadable sentence. I suggest that you consider the spirit of the text. In fact, that might be a good idea for all of us. It seems we've lurched into a strange place where everything is taken in its worst possible interpretation.

In the spirit of the piece, Joan was not commenting about wild black people. She was commenting about the NYT cynically using that cliche. Offense is everywhere. Look for it and it's 100% sure to be found. The good news is that's true of everything else. We find what we look for.

[Gemma08]

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooosh! That went completely over your head.

Semiotics is a SCIENCE in media studies and elsewhere. Reread the article ... perhaps you'll get the point.

[OhDear]

"Semiotics is a SCIENCE"

It's not science. It is a legitimate interpretive lens used to analyze media and public discourse. But it ain't science.

[MandyW]

Yep, let's all spend a lot of time scrutinizing the pictures of campaign rope lines and the details of the latest polls purporting to show who's most "electable". God forbid that we should spend a second thinking about anything substantive which might give a clue as to which candidate is best qualified to govern if this endless nonsensical campaign ever ends.

[3fingerbrown]

I don't think there's a general-circulation editor in the country who wouldn't publish the rollerskating-drag-queen photo instead of the woman-pushing-the-stroller photo.

A big part of the editor's job is to keep the readers' eyeballs on the pages for as long as possible. No one flipping quickly through the paper is going to stop to look at a photo of a woman pushing a stroller and say to himself, "Hmmm, what's this all about?" That's what photos of rollerskating drag queens are for.

If you don't like that, tell the rollerskating drag queens to stay home next time and instead get 100 women pushing 100 babies in 100 strollers. That's a photo that will get attention and push your group's message. It's unreasonable to think that a newspaper or website is going to publish a dull photo instead of a colorful one just because you say so. You've got to meet them halfway: Give them a photo op that's both colorful and on-message, and they'll run with it.

[PennP]

Are we looking at the same pix?

Clinton: One middleaged woman and three white men, 50's to 70's, behind a draping, backed by pillars and a campaign poster. In the dim background, a cameraman adjusts his equipment. Shot is taken from below.

McCain: Foreshortened shot of McCain, arms outstretched, one hand with a pointing forefinger, an open-mouthed half-smile of recognition on his face. Background is a city street; behind him to the left is the taut blonde head of his wife. Beyond that, one head with white hair, and the rest varying shades of brown. A person of color holding up a camera for a distance shot. But no blondes, other than Cindy. Shot taken more or less level, from child's height.

Obama: Flanked and backed by six stern-faced white men, Obama reaches up to shake a hand, looks as if he's listening to a question. He's on the ground of an auditorium or stadium; the people he's facing are in bleacher-type tiers, and behind him is a closely spaced row of people. Of the latter, I see 10 hands, 8 of which are white. In the bleachers, a person of color is in the foreground right, stretching out an arm for a shake. Then there are two white hands, one of which he's shaking, his other hand resting in the hand of a darker hand, and there are four white hands and two darker hands awaiting him. The shot is taken from above.

[InformedMisery]

Prior to one of the early debates the pundits were commenting that both Edwards and Obama were planning to go after Hillary Clinton. When the debate came, Hillary Clinton stood at the center stage podium.... with Obama on one side and Edwards on the other. Both went after. She was literally being attack from both sides. The visual that creates, of her being attacked, and constantly having to shift her attention from one side to the other to answer the person directly, is very jarring and unflattering. This goes on a lot. And for some odd reason Hillary Clinton seems to the worst of it. Go figure.

[abigail1]

I am really confused by your description of the photo of the Obama rope line. Did the NYT switch the photo since you wrote your article?
You describe seeing faces of people of all shapes and sizes and races and the impression that most are African American. The photo shows just a couple of faces in the crowd off to the corner and primarily focuses on Sen. Obama and his secret service protection. There are many hands reaching out to the candidate but hardly any faces, which is what makes it so odd that you say you see Asian American, African American and White faces in the crowd.
There is much to read into a photo of an Obama rope line that where most of the people shown are in the Secret Service, especially in light of recent gaffes from Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton and the woman on Fox News and your advice to think about the messages that photos give us is important, but i am confused by what you say you saw in the photo.

[Americanium]

Yes they did change the photo. Initially when I read the article on the NYT website I was struck by the photos but because I know that Obama has the overwhelming support of the African American voters I never connect it to a what the writer is presenting his article above.

I guess someone must have contacted the NYT and have them change the picture.

Good observation on your part though.

[abigail1]

thanks for clearing that up!

[miles120]

Good observation; I get it. But one thing that's missing from the piece is the responsibility of production crews to shape the rope line for the candidates. I would be shocked if the campaigns did not make sober choices about the people who were allowed to stand in the front row.

Interestingly, each demographic group can be considered a liability or strength, depending on the viewing audience: Obama's diverse crowd is exciting for younger, more liberal folks but threatening to the heartland (whatever that means); Clinton's older crowd is almost the flip-side of Obama; while McCain wants to appeal to god-fearing folks while deliberately jettisoning those on the left.

The point is made, though. Everyone needs a sharp eye and considerable skepticism when digesting these messages.