The Hillary Nutcracker

Oh, come on, do we need this? I know, I know, it's cute. STAINLESS STEEL THIGHS! FEEL THE SQUEEZE!

Perhaps the fact that a major party is about to nominate either a female or an African-American male to be president of the United States is so lacking in controversy, so quietly ho-hum, that a little adolescent gender humor on the side is no big deal, either.

Enter -- stage right? stage left? -- the Hillary Nutcracker, a hot-selling novelty product of the 2008 political season that has gotten some fawning and even enthusiastic press, with right-wing MSNBC pundit Tucker Carlson so moved by the nutcracker he all but confessed his castration complex regarding Ms. Clinton, all in fun, of course. This is political discourse in America.

I'm still trying to figure out what to make of it -- feeling at once troubled that this is more cultural rollback, that it's OK (again, still) to mock the concept of women in power with quasi-sexual guffaws that mask deep male anger and fear, a la Tucker Carlson; yet at the same time swayed by the idea that this light-hearted product, while it has obvious appeal to Hillary haters, could also appeal to her supporters and to women in general because it conveys female empowerment, and in any case it's funny, and sometimes it's OK to just lighten up.

The Hillary Nutcracker is just that: an 8-inch plastic Hillary figure, smiling, arms crossed, that cracks nuts between its legs. The product's Web site works hard to be nonpartisan, spoofing politicians and pundits of all stripes, and designer Gibson Carothers, who says he's sold 200,000 nutcrackers so far, vigorously defended the benign, even pro-Hillary nature of the nutcracker in an e-mail exchange with me.

"I'm sure you will be surprised to know that our best estimate is that sales are breaking almost 50-50 between supporters and detractors. And the buyers are overwhelmingly women," he wrote ( see our complete exchange). "The supporters see it portraying Ms. Clinton as a tough leader who can handle right wing nuts."

He adds: "Amazingly . . . the buyers are almost all women. My attorney is a feminist. She thinks Hillary should put the nutcracker on the podium every time she speaks. One other interesting point to me, and you'll just have to believe me on this, is the paucity of complaints we have gotten -- about 10 negative e-mails from over a million visits to our web site."

Well, OK. My own modest survey of mostly women yielded a far higher percentage of negative reaction, and I stress that the negativity wasn't simply humorlessness; it was more like a sharp stab of pain, followed by fury or the memory of some injury caused by an arrogant or dominating male jerk.

That said, I add in all fairness that other women -- including some who, I thought, would surely be offended by the Hillary Nutcracker -- were ambivalent at most and saw in it at least some of what Carothers was talking about.

"It's juvenile," said Carmen, a thirtysomething mom. "But it's less offensive because the culture has changed. There's more awareness of violence against women. It's sexist lite."

When I suggested that it struck me as the equivalent of a racist caricature of Barack Obama -- a Barack lawn jockey, say -- she disagreed. The latter "has no silver lining. It's totally racist. The silver lining of the Hillary Nutcracker is that it does humorously and forcefully exude power.

"What makes it OK," she added, "is that we've gone forward as a society. But when the media embrace it . . ."

Well, that gets worrisome, she acknowledged. It obliterates the hard-won consciousness of the last 30 or so years. It rolls back awareness "past 'take back the night,'" to the good old days of, oh, forever. ("But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." -- 1 Timothy 2:12)

Some of that media reaction can be found at hillarynutcracker.com, including a bizarre MSNBC segment in which Carlson, after a cohort describes the product, exclaims, "That is so perfect. I have often said, when she comes on TV, I involuntarily cross my legs."

Here's where my impulse is to weep for my country. Commentary this dumb seems like the norm, doesn't it? There is a vacuity, a collective stupidity of the airwaves, that feels conspiratorial in nature. News is at least 90 percent context, and the smirky commentators and coiffed anchorpersons of the tube create a context that plays at about the eighth-grade level, a circumstance even more acutely painful in an election year with stakes as high as this one.

Sexism lite? Good fun? Castration? Let me know what you think.

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Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at [e-mail] or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.

© 2008 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Comments

[thetraveller]

As a non-US citizen, I've been both disheartened and downright appalled by the US media coverage of the election, particularly with regard to Hillary Clinton.

Apart from the sheer banality of so much of the "commentary" (to misuse the word to describe such arrant nonsense - e.g. Katie Couric asking Hillary Clinton about what some snotty-nosed brats at school called her), the MSM and the internet has been awash with the dreck and detritus from some very nasty ids.

What is disturbing is how close the fear and resentment of women lies to the surface of daily life, how easily gross and ugly prejudices slip into everyday acceptability.

There is a level of incivility that threatens the nature of political discourse in the US, a coarsening of public sensibility that undermines the basis of rational debate in a civil society.

It's like living in a world where the political commentary is written by the National Enquirer - and to your shame, the American left has been a party to it.

[Beelzebufo]

Lighten up! Those nutcrackers are all in good, healthy fun!

[lip]

first let me say that i am a woman. a black woman at that. so i have felt the dual narratives of racism and sexism play out in my life. may i humbly suggest that in present day america: ... racism more often (not always) runs its course invisibly in the fabric of many public policies and institutions whereas sexism is more socially acceptable in public but less rampant in education, housing, disparate income and incarceration rates ...

all that to say ... i am not personally perturbed by the nutcracker doll ... i do think it is sexist but can be adopted by anyone as an empowering tool ... because as a black woman i have developed an incredibly thick skin (as a result of constant oppression) and turned many an insult into my own empowerment ... what all this election biz signifies for me is that yes, the world is changing ... but dolls like these only serve to remind us ... change happens very slowly ... so as a black woman soldier on the frontlines of american sexism and racism i can't be deterred by these distractions ... i have a purpose and a mission and what i know in my bones is that there are many who would like to see me distracted ... disempowered ... and fail.

not gonna happen. they can even make obama lawn jockeys and black women will just shake their head cuz they knew it was a battle along ... and then .. we will ... keep it moving. as we have always done.

i think what this electoral race reveals for journalists and 'mainstream' americans like yourself are the trials and challenges women and black people go through on a daily basis. our trials are now being faced in public and well-meaning men and white people feel our same shock, embarassment, disgust, dismay, and defeat. so now it's news. i aint mad ... it's about time i guess.

[StephenJK]

Hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women. Everyone but Hillary's supporters seem to have all of the above for Hillary.