“A Channel For The Conservative Id”: Fox News, Where Conservative Senior Citizens Get To Look At Half-Naked ‘Girls’
There’s something almost endearing about the fact that in an age when there are literally millions of images and videos of humans without their clothes on available instantaneously to anyone with an internet connection, the occasion of a famous person allowing her butt to be photographed can produce such an extraordinary amount of discussion. I’m not going to analyze the semiotic meanings and deep cultural resonance of Kim Kardashian’s behind (beyond saying that for someone with no discernible skills or talents, she sure is good at getting attention), but I do want to say something about the issue Conor Friedersdorf raises with regard to Fox News, which has been giving this critical issue extensive coverage:
Fox is, of course, not so different from other gigantic broadcast media corporations in shamelessly exploiting the fact that sex sells. Its behavior is noteworthy only insofar as it underscores the fact that the ideological mission it purports to have and the cultural critiques it purports to believe in are at odds with its actual programming. More than other broadcasters, it pretends to flatter cultural conservatives, and to disdain the decadence of liberals in their coastal enclaves. But that’s just a pose helping it sell ads against its own libertine cultural offerings.
In case you don’t watch Fox, you should know that they work extremely hard to find excuses to put images of scantily clad women on the air. Some of it contains no finger-wagging—how about a report on Hooters’ third-quarter profits, with lots of shots of waitresses?—but plenty of it is presented with a thin veneer of moral condemnation that allows viewers to feel like Fox remains on their side in the grand battle against sexual depravity. My favorite example has to be the time Sean Hannity presented hard-hitting journalism on what goes on at Spring Break, spread out over an entire week’s worth of stories with endless shots of girls in bikinis. Somehow, the Peabody committee overlooked Hannity’s scoop that kids are drinking and having sex in Ft. Lauderdale.
You can think of this as a betrayal of its audience’s cultural conservatism, but I think it’s actually a form of service. In a way, Fox News knows its viewers better than they know themselves. Don’t forget that the typical Fox viewer is a conservative senior citizen. The median age of the network’s viewers is 68.8, and some shows skew even older; Bill O’Reilly’s median viewer is 72. More so than perhaps any other channel on television, Fox endeavors to shape and reflect not just its viewers’ beliefs about particular topics but their entire worldview. It presents a picture of the world in which everything is going to hell, and the prime enemies are change and modernity. The president hates America, immigrants are destroying our culture, the kids are out of control, and it’s not like it was back in the day. Fox is a channel for the conservative id, where you can have your darkest thoughts and worst fears nurtured and validated.
And of course, there’s nothing the id likes better than looking at half-naked girls. On Fox, you can be like the stern father who discovers his teenage son’s stash of Penthouse, looking through each issue carefully to understand the depths to which the boy has sunk, lingering over each photo spread as you shake your head at how depraved the world has become. And should a voice in your head alert you that you’re finding this stuff dangerously titillating, you can remind yourself that the reason you’re there is to express your dismay. After all, it’s on Fox, the only network you can really trust.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, November 14, 2014
The Anti-Woman Party”: GOP Candidates Feeling Pressure From NRSC’s Flirtation With Todd Akin
Yesterday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced in a statement that it might yet fund the candidacy of Representative Todd Akin as he tries to unseat Senator Claire McCaskill in Missouri. “As with every Republican Senate candidate, we hope Todd Akin wins in November and we will continue to monitor this race closely in the days ahead,” said NRSC executive director Rob Jesner. (In August, the NRSC claimed that “if [Akin] continues with this misguided campaign, it will be without the support and resources of the NRSC.”)
Will the NRSC actually go through with this, and thus likely bring American Crossroads and other big-money outside groups into the fray? I reasoned yesterday that this won’t happen, because (1) Akin probably can’t win, so this would be a waste of resources, and (2) it would tar other Republican candidates also funded by these groups.
The NRSC’s flip may indicate it has some data showing Akin can actually prevail, a worrying thought indeed. But make no mistake—if the NRSC does jump in behind Akin again, it will create enormous pressure on several Republicans running for Senate, particularly incumbents.
As soon as the NRSC statement went out yesterday afternoon, Democrats began the inevitable guilt-by-association campaign. “All Republican candidates across the country are now going to have to answer for their party’s support of Akin,” said Senator Patty Murray, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “In case you were wondering whether the Republican party was anti-woman, now you know…they are,” tweeted Matt Canter, the group’s communications director.
Today, the DSCC found an ingenious and more direct way to implicate some incumbent Republican Senatorial candidates in the Akin fiasco, particularly Senator Scott Brown. It’s common for high-profile senators to raise money for the NRSC, in part so that it may help fund the candidacies of lower-profile challengers. (Like, say, Akin). The DSCC noted today that Brown has helped raise a whopping $3.7 million for the NRSC this cycle.
Since Brown previously called Akin’s comments “outrageous, inappropriate, and wrong,” and asked him to withdraw from the Senate race, the DSCC is calling on Brown to get his money back from the NRSC and denounce Akin once again:
“There should be no doubt that a vote for Scott Brown is also a vote for an anti-woman party that supports extremists like Todd Akin,” said Guy Cecil, Executive Director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Todd Akin’s views represent the official position of the Republican Party, and a vote for Brown is a vote to inflict that anti-woman agenda on the entire country. Brown’s silence speaks volumes. Brown should immediately demand his money back and renounce the party’s decision to embrace Todd Akin.”
Renouncing Akin again might be easy for Brown—though he hasn’t yet done it—but asking for that large chunk of money back won’t be. And if Brown doesn’t, Elizabeth Warren can now fairly say Brown helped fund Akin’s candidacy. This is an incredibly tough position for Brown, and it’s a squeeze likely to be put on other candidates in the days ahead if the NRSC actually pulls the trigger. (The DSCC is similarly targeting Nevada Senator Dean Heller, too, as he’s locked in a tight re-election battle and also raised money for the NRSC).
The NRSC might still back Akin, but the polls will have to look awful, awful good—because it’s making life a lot more difficult for a number of other candidates who still have a chance to win.
By: George Zornick, The Nation, September 27, 2012
“Pro-Corporate, Anti-Mammary Agenda”: Why MItt Romney Is No Fan Of Breastfeeding
When it comes to moms and their babies, Romney has been hungry to suckle at the corporate teat.
Breastfeeding is having another moment. Thanks to Time magazine’s creepy cover pic of young mom Jamie Lynne Grumet nursing her three-year-old son, the nation has once again gone tits-up over how mothers opt to feed their young. The choice is not an easy one: As previous Mother Jones parents will attest, there’s an enormous emotional and physical cost to breastfeeding. On the other hand, mother’s milk doesn’t contain secret toxic chemicals, put babies at increased risk for diabetes and asthma, or enrich already-bloated pharmaceutical companies to the tune of $8 billion a year.
One person doesn’t seem very conflicted about favoring formula, though: Mitt Romney. As Massachusetts governor, he took steps friendly to Big Pharma that helped push pre-fab formulas on new moms. Romney’s pro-corporate, anti-mammary agenda could now have implications as he struggles to convince a key constituency of female voters that he’s got their interests at heart.
Romney’s role goes back to early 2006, when Massachusetts’ Public Health Council tried to ban so-called baby swag bags, totes full of free supplies that were given to new mothers as they left their delivery hospitals. Formula manufacturers had stuffed the bags with samples and coupons; the panel worried that the moms would see that as a hospital endorsement of less-healthy formulas and would influence the moms to miss out on the medical and financial benefits of breastfeeding.
“The marketing of infant formula undermines the initiative to nurse,” Phyllis Cudmore, a council member, told the Boston Globe. “I don’t think there’s any place in a hospital for corporate America trying to influence a vulnerable population.” A pediatric expert at Boston University’s medical school added: ”The commercial stuff like gift bags—it’s like Pepsi-Cola in the schools.” (Statistics show three-fourths of moms start out nursing their kids, but fewer than half are still breastfeeding after six months.)
Romney was having none of it, decrying the swag ban as “the heavy arm of government” squeezing dear ol’ ma. “I think that the mother should have the right to decide whether she is going to use infant formula or breast-feed,” he said in a press conference. “And allowing her to make that decision is best [done] by letting her have the formula, and if she wants to use it, fine.”
By May 2006, Romney had removed three anti-swag council members, including Cudmore, and added new ones who permanently reversed the ban. Shortly thereafter, in early June, Romney’s administration proudly announced that Massachusetts had beaten out three other states to get a $660 million facility for pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb—parent company to the manufacturer of Enfamil, one of the country’s biggest-selling infant formulas.
Peeved breastfeeding proponents started a website, banthebags.org, to press for Massachusetts to restore the Public Health Council’s ban. That in turn prompted the formula industry to start its own astroturf sites: momsfeedingfreedom.com and babyfeedingchoice.org. “The decision to breastfeed or bottle feed is personal, practical, and private,” momsfeedingfreedom.com states on a page decrying the bag-ban. “These ‘3 P’s’ are the reason that Moms Feeding Freedom was created!”
But the site doesn’t add who created it: It was registered in 2007 by a web marketer, ENilsson LLC, with “a grant from the International Formula Council.” That same year, ENilsson worked on Mitt Romney’s nascent presidential campaign. The firm’s founder, Erik Nillson, is now a major developer of GOP fundraising technology. And he’s continuing to support Romney’s election efforts.
Romney’s connections to the breastfeeding issue would seem to suggest that he is less about giving moms choices than about giving corporations greater revenue streams. “Distributing free formula in the hospital is not about empowering women, helping them make informed choices or providing them with needed resources in tough economic times—all arguments made by supporters of the free samples,” Elizabeth Mitchell Armstrong, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, recently wrote in the New York Times. “Companies provide them for the same reason they distribute swag to celebrities: it drives sales.”
Indeed, between Romney’s recent missteps on women’s issues and his past maneuvering on breastfeeding, voting moms may decide that the GOP presidential hopeful has suckled at the corporate teat a little too long.
By: Adam Weinstein, Mother Jones, May 17, 2012
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