My Favorite Campaign Image

SemiObama posted a lot of images during the campaign. I mean, a lot. We ranked t-shirts, judged coffee mugs, compared Obama dolls, and even discussed the various forms of New York Times Obama swag, but we never really talked about our favorite pro-Obama image.

For me, it is the "Obama Next" graphic above. What I like about this piece is its synthetic simplicity. By "synthetic" I am referring not to something fake but to the process of synthesis. It collates patriotism (through its red, white and blue color palette), optimism ("got next"), an awareness of catch phrases and tag lines in popular culture ("Got Milk"), a very cool retro design, and a subtle yet compelling reference to race through the semiotics of basketball.

I also like that it incorporates an Obama-specific metaphor--basketball--as a form of political rhetoric. The ad reminds us that basketball is Obama's sport of choice, as opposed to Bush's more patrician, more Anglo, more exclusionary golf. Its pick-up-game lingo, "got next" also signals a generational shift, as if to say, Obama's is the next team to take the court of American politics.

As his presidency matures, we will start to write more about images of him as a president as opposed to him as a candidate, but, we couldn't resist this last bit of campaign SemiO. My hunch is he'll sink the free-throw . . .

---D.R.

BasketBama or BamaBall: Why the Fascination with Images of Obama Playing Basketball?

The first thing I said when I saw a clip of Barack Obama playing basketball was "He's left-handed. He'd be hard to guard."

I found myself liking him a bit more at that moment, assuming he'd be a wily player, quick and catlike, fast to the hoop, his shot difficult to block.

Obama's interest in basketball has become an interest of the American public, and there has been a push to watch him play and to see him in action on the hardwood. Such images have many potential advantages but carry some drawbacks as well.



On the plus side, Basketball Obama comes off as sort of macho, a man's man, confident and athletic. You can imagine him bonding during pickup games, playing hard defense on his man, standing up for himself if he gets a hard foul in the lane. It also contrasts his youth and agility against John McCain's lack of either. Obama's lean, healthy athleticism makes McCain's aging, greying, and cancer-visited body seem profoundly not young.

We also like to see our president hanging with regular folk, and so photos of our politicians playing sports do this cultural work. Though his swing is atrocious, watching George W. Bush hit golf balls with other white guys somehow reassures us that at least something in his life resembles that of a normal guy. We think, therefore, because we see him be a bogey or double-bogey golfer, that he might see the world the way an average double-bogey golfer would. Most mediocre golfers love their families and like peace and don't want to send people into war or shift the tax burden to the middle class. We see that bad swing, and we think we're okay.

Such is the power of the sports image.

On the downside are the negative connotations some tend to associate with basketball and black men. More than other major American sports, basketball has become dominated by African American players, and with the exception of Steve Nash and perhaps Pau Gasol, its superstars are all black. Golfing and jogging and hunting--the sporting domains of President Bush--could hardly be whiter. Conversely, if you ask most Americans what sport a black man is most likely to play, they will probably say basketball. The only problem with this is that Obama and his image handlers want him to appeal to white voters, white women, and poor whites, and those with negative opinions of African Americans may see in Obama's basketballness his blackness.

One has to hope that America's semiotic sophistication goes beyond stereotype, beyond the "image" of basketball players, black politicians, and black athletes.

What people who see Obama play basketball should consider is that basketball teaches teamwork, collaboration, patience, behind the scenes work, and both offense and defense. There is no quarterback, no goalie, no pitcher, no designated hitter--it is America's most democratic game. It's the great equalizer. It is the anti-golf.

--D. R.

Cover-ing Obama: Time Magazine

When Barack Obama appeared on the cover of Time in October of 2006, it was an important moment for a number of reasons.

Until this feature, almost no one thought this senator from Illinois could reasonably contend for the Democratic party's nominee for president--much less actually be president. And yet, there was Joe Klein making a compelling argument that a relatively inexperienced, relatively young African American, with a relatively Muslim sounding name could hold the highest post in the land, be the occupier of the whitest house in the country.

What is most interesting about the cover, though, is the image of Obama. Rather than feature a photo of him and his attractive family or a picture of him giving his now famous speech at the Democratic convention in 2004, the editors of Time chose a close-up--a tight shot of little more than Obama's face, bookended by his trademark ears. Handsome, well-groomed, and ethnically ambiguous, the image oozes an earned, intelligent confidence that is both engaging and mysterious.

For better or worse, the tightly cropped photo of Obama called up Time's embarrassing O. J. Simpson cover, in which Simpson's skin was intentionally darkened by artist Matt Mahurin. One wonders if this flattering (though not altered) photo of Obama was a kind of reverse homage to that cover, a semiotic I'm-Sorry-Don't-Hold-It-Against-Us entreaty. Regardless of intent, though, the effect of this cover was staggering.

John Berger has written effectively about how reproduced iconic images, like that of the Mona Lisa on t-shirts, coffee mugs, ties, the sides of barns, billboards, in Dali paintings, and on postcards, alters how we see, conceive, and feel toward the original image. So ubiquitous is Obama's visage now that it is difficult to remember back to when this image was fresh, when it was exciting, when it may have even been transgressive.

Indeed, contrasting the original Time cover with the "contender" version that appeared in 2007 is illuminating. In the first, the TIME letters are red, here, they are white. Also, in the most recent version, Obama's head occludes the TIME letters, whereas, in the first one, the big, red, TIME font tattoos across Obama's forehead. Notice also how, in the later version, a sort of angelic glow seems to emanate from Obama's body, as if he might be illuminating, radiant, even holy.

Additionally, one can't ignore the camera angle. Positioned just below his waist and shot upward, the perspective makes Obama seem larger than life, even gigantic. The low-upward shot was a favorite for directors in classic Western films. The cowboy, often John Wayne, was frequently filmed from a low angle to reinforce the thematic of the hero as large, capable, and towering. One also wonders if the whiteness of the cover is an attempt to soften Obama's blackness. It's a complicated and extraordinarily delicate subject to talk about--how visual culture represents a person's skin--but the first cover certainly and silently references it where the second seems to obviate it.

One could accuse TIME of cagey visual rhetoric here. Without question, they have manipulated the tools of graphic design, semiotics, and visual iconography to make an argument about Obama's aura, his candidacy, his magnetism, his star status.

The semiotics of both covers reveal how visual culture can alter how we see and how we see images--even those of people who we think we see so often, we are inured to visual rhetoric. But, Obama is a complex text, and almost every group has some interest in shaping how we (and others) read him.