Ah, Republicans . . . sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Two of today’s eye-rollers:
1. Amid all the manufactured controversy over Clint Eastwood’s ad for Chrysler (does anyone really believe that Karl Rove, the king of gutter politics, is “frankly, offended”?), another political Super Bowl ad has flown under the radar. Peter Hoekstra, the former Republican representative running for the Senate in Michigan, ran an attack ad against Sen. Debbie Stabenow that featured an Asian woman speaking, in broken English, about the American economy. In addition to playing to fears about the evil red Chinese threat, the ad tapped into conservative xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment. The woman says: “Debbie spend so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs.”
- Watch Hoekstra’s ad on YouTube here
Ugly? Yes. Of course, Hoekstra denied that there was anything offensive about the ad, which the Times reports was produced by the same geniuses who came up with Carly Fiorina’s “demon sheep” spot in 2010. “There’s nothing racist in this ad,” he told the Detroit Free Press.
Racist undertones have defined this year’s campaign, from Newt Gingrich’s branding of Obama as a “food stamp president” to Rick Santorum’s opposition to giving black people “somebody else’s money,” but what’s interesting about the Hoekstra debacle is that some people saw more in the ad than run of the mill China-bashing. James Fallows at The Atlantic has an interesting take that I haven’t seen anywhere else:
The ad’s words are about trade, budgets, and jobs, but its images are about — ‘Nam!! Of course some parts of southern China look the way this ad does, with rice paddies, palm trees, no big buildings, people wearing conical straw hats and bicycling along dike tops. But this is nothing like how the typical big-factory zone looks in China, or the huge cities that would exemplify Chinese wealth and the country’s rise — ie, the subjects of this ad. So why this rural setting? I think it’s because it offers a kind of visual dog-whistle, for those Americans who, either through experience or through Apocalypse Now-style imagery, associate smiling-but-deceptive Asians in a rice-paddy setting with previous American sorrow.
I’m not sure how completely I buy this interpretation; it seems to be a bit of a stretch. Hoekstra’s ad is chock-full of offensive material without tossing in the Vietnam references, and somehow I doubt the producers were focused on anything but vilifying China. Crediting them with the nuance needed to add a Vietnam subtext may be too generous. Still, Fallows makes an interesting point, and follows up with another revelation. He takes a look at the HTML code of the video and offers the following screenshot:
Fallows halfheartedly notes that the girl is wearing an orangey-yellow shirt, but adds, “I suppose it’s as if you were using a picture of Colin Powell or President Obama wearing a black shirt. If you were producing one of these ads, by the same logic you could just label it ‘black boy,’ right? I mean, why not?”
Either way, the whole episode leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
2. Given that Hollywood types generally lean left of center, the Republican party has historically had little luck attracting star power to its events. The GOP has to settle for low-wattage celebs like Ted Nugent, Patricia Heaton, and Jon Voight. (To be fair, Adam Sandler did stump for Rudy Giuliani in 2008). The Times reported this weekend that Newt Gingrich was forced to stop using “Eye of the Tiger” at campaign rallies after the band Survivor complained. Michele Bachmann cued up “American Girl” at events until Tom Petty sent a cease-and-desist letter, and Jackson Browne actually sued John McCain in 2008 after “Running on Empty” was used in an ad attacking Obama’s energy proposals. (Mitt Romney just can’t win. After playing a song by the reliably right-wing Toby Keith, a “big-time” donor complained about the vulgarity of the lyrics “hot damn.”)
Now, proving once again that conservatives don’t understand pop culture, the Wall Street Journal claims that President Obama’s designer campaign swag is “raising a ruckus.” (As far as I can tell, said ruckus is being raised primarily by WSJ reporters.) The tote bags, T-shirts and jewelry by designers like Vera Wang, Diane von Furstenberg and Marc Jacobs have been featured on Obama’s website for weeks, but they go on sale tomorrow. The Republican National Committee accuses Obama of violating campaign-finance rules (rules which, as Mitt Romney will tell you, Republicans would like to eliminate) because the designers’ wares usually sell for many times the $75 price of a Derek Lam Obama-themed tote bag. The WSJ writes that:
Republicans say that suggests they relied on corporate resources to keep costs low, which could amount to illegal campaign contributions. On Mr. Lam’s website, handbags range in price from $340 to $1,890. The three scarves offered on Mr. Thakoon’s website go for $325 apiece.
Aren’t right-wingers cute when they pretend to understand fashion? As fans of Michele Bachmann’s primary-colored skirt suits, they may not realize that Thakoon Panichgul also designed a line of floral-print dresses and sheer tank-tops for Target in 2008. The most expensive item? A steep $44.99.
Of course, this could all be sour grapes. What designer is going to offer his services to a party that bashes gays, thinks a woman’s place is at home with the kids, and blames skimpy clothes for the erosion of “traditional” values?
Thakoon for Target dress, $40
Thakoon's "Runway to Win" scarf, $95
. . . So Well Read. . . 