Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Where's Leni Riefenstahl when you need her most?
Watching the opening ceremonies for the Athens Olympic Games last Friday I had the sudden thought: Too bad Leni Riefenstahl died last year. Not only could her services have been used to capture this kind of larger than life spectacle, but she also could have filmed the Democratic National Convention in Boston a couple weeks before that.
Was that a convention? Looking back on it now (and keeping Riefenstahl in mind), it seemed less like a convention than a week-long party rally a la Riefenstahl's. By the time it was Kerry's turn to speak, I was so worn out from a week-long emphasis on events from 35 years ago I didn't even watch his speech. Yes, it may be important to remind us yet again that Kerry served in Vietnam, but geez does it really matter that much? I watched much of the convention on C-SPAN. Highlights of the convention for me were Carter's speech and Obama's later in the week.
I was truly disturbed by a report I heard on the radio program that delegates were not allowed to hold up unapproved signs advocating peace in Iraq. If the Democrats worry so much about alienating those "swing" voters in the middle, don't they risk becoming irrelevant to their own political base? Isn't a large part of the fun of watching a political convention the somewhat tacky home-made signs? Also, if the sign for Al-Jaazera's network needs to be covered, shouldn't the same principle be applied to Fox News?
OK, so they don't want to look like McGovern's 1972 poorly managed convention, but can't they be somewhere in-between anarchism and fascism?
I was sorry that I missed Al Sharpton's speech just because he departed from the scripted version he had submitted to be approved. Staying on message is important, but when this becomes so transparent to the audience the effect comes off as phony at the least. I would have loved to have been back stage when Sharpton departed from the teleprompt, just to see all-hell break loose!
There's a thin line between "staying on message" and creating a so sanitized convention. Even though I think it's terrible that the major networks decided not to cover most of the convention, can they really be blamed if they're being asked to cover such manipulative garbage?
There's an essay by the Frankfurt School critical theorist Adorno titled "Reconciliation Under Duress" which, if memory serves, criticizes Sartre's and Lukacs's political engagement as bad aesthetics, and it was this title that rang in my ears for much of the week.
Was that a convention? Looking back on it now (and keeping Riefenstahl in mind), it seemed less like a convention than a week-long party rally a la Riefenstahl's
I was truly disturbed by a report I heard on the radio program
OK, so they don't want to look like McGovern's 1972 poorly managed convention, but can't they be somewhere in-between anarchism and fascism?
I was sorry that I missed Al Sharpton's speech just because he departed from the scripted version he had submitted to be approved. Staying on message is important, but when this becomes so transparent to the audience the effect comes off as phony at the least. I would have loved to have been back stage when Sharpton departed from the teleprompt, just to see all-hell break loose!
There's a thin line between "staying on message" and creating a so sanitized convention. Even though I think it's terrible that the major networks decided not to cover most of the convention, can they really be blamed if they're being asked to cover such manipulative garbage?
There's an essay by the Frankfurt School critical theorist Adorno titled "Reconciliation Under Duress" which, if memory serves, criticizes Sartre's and Lukacs's political engagement as bad aesthetics, and it was this title that rang in my ears for much of the week.
