On and off TV, men get better political roles than women.
By Sarah Laskow, Yale University
Wednesday September 6, 2006
The names are already familiar: Clinton, McCain, Condi. Inevitably, the next presidential election will be about celebrity: The media has already begun obsessing about the details of the event with all the ebullience of E! before the Oscars.
Unexpectedly, that media includes the Biography Channel, which seems to have implicitly endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Recently a series of paired profiles aired under the rubric “Then & Now,” and with a heavy hand matched Obama with John F. Kennedy. The all too obvious implication was that Obama is a sort of inevitable President.
The Biography Channel trades in celebrity; naturally they would prefer that the candidate with the handsomest face win the nation’s highest office. But the “Then & Now” series distinctly understands what it takes to be president, and demonstrates why Obama has a better chance of being elected in 2008 than either of the high profile women who might run.
There’s a key moment in each hour-long Biography program, and it comes precisely at the 30 minute mark. This juncture always portrays pain or absolute triumph, as when, in a typical Hollywood bio, Vivian Leigh (best known as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind) becomes mentally ill. Right before the half-hour, after the usual obstacles to success have been overcome and accolades won, a wide-eyed picture of the subject will take up the screen as the emotion intensifies. The camera will close in just a bit more. At this moment, the text of the inane narrator ceases to communicate anything at all (though he’s still talking), because the only thing that matters is the pair of eyes on the screen. From the still frame, the celebrity gazes out, and for that one moment, succeeds in telling his or her own story.
This moment works wonderfully in Biography’s profiles of politicians. President Kennedy and Senator Obama, when playing their roles well, are idealists who might actually accomplish some of their goals. With all of the real political compromise edited out and only the personal motivation left standing, you can read into their eyes all the hope in the world.
Unlike Biography’s profiles of actresses, country singers, and playboy moguls, those of the politicians are built around the Great Man theory of history. At the pinnacle of their professional lives, it is expected that politicians like JFK or Obama merge their private passions and public selves, putting both into the service of great ideas. Vivian Leigh and Jodie Foster, on the other hand, another featured duo in the “Then & Now” series, move on screen as actresses inhabiting scripted characters. Even their off-screen performances demand scripted public personas—that’s their job. Their true, private selves and passions remain, for the most part, unknowable. But politicians’ two selves, the public persona and the private self, work in harmony at a great man’s finest moments. We don’t expect actresses to change the world; we expect that only from great men.
It’s difficult to imagine the women who might be president—such as Hillary Rodham Clinton or Condoleezza Rice—fitting into the “great man” model. Hillary and Condi present not an inspirational juncture between the public and the private, but the layers of a deceitful actress whose function is merely to entertain. This TV drama has already been made—ABC’s (now canceled) “Commander in Chief.” Here’s the promo for a reality TV spin-off: The United States Government, starring Hillary Clinton. On-camera she’s a moderate hawk; in public life, she began her career at the Children’s Defense Fund; and in her private life—we don’t really know—but…let’s just call her a brutally ambitious career woman with a philandering husband. Will she authorize military force just to prove she has more balls than Bill?
Rice is slightly more successful at avoiding the pitfalls of celebrity (although she was recently named one of the world’s best dressed women by Vanity Fair). Other than her disciplined practice of classical piano, Condi doesn’t seem to have a private life (although that doesn’t stop speculation. She presents as a staunch career academic; she delivers daily the bankrupt talking points of Bush’s foreign policy.
With this model of female leadership, who would want to look into either woman’s eyes? It seems too much to hope to find anything but pure ambition.
The division between politicians and entertainers has been blurring for years. This coincides, as the New York Times Magazine reported this weekend, with the disappearance of Hollywood starring roles for serious, nuanced actresses hoping to bring strong female characters to the screen. Until we believe that women can be true leaders—not just political actresses—the same will be true in Washington.
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