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.

The Shoes

What are shoes for? 

At their basic level, shoes protect one's feet, but they have become a way of indicating cool for a long time, starting with Converse,  then moving to Puma and Adidas, a few other brands for a short time, and then to Nike. (There are more extensive histories, but this is a basic narrative.) So what to make of the new, very cool Obama shoes by Van? 

The stunning shoes that Van produces are not very practical, in that shoes are close to the ground and can get dirty thus damaging the art. They are also less visible than let's say a t-shirt. But they reference a number of important trends. For one, they show the way Obama has become part of popular culture. Go to Van's site and you will see not only the Obama shoes, but all kinds of illustrated shoes, from a variety of cultural subjects including Spiderman, Tinker Bell, San Francisco, and Darfur. That Obama has joined these ranks itself shoes, er, shows the transformative nature of the campaign and the candidate.

Though Obama is probably the first national candidate to play basketball at this stage of his life, I think it's less about the shoes say less about this than about the cultural impact described above. Basketball shoes have gone way beyond sports; this semi-Obamian is in Europe, and in his country, he has seen many, many different kinds of Chuck Taylors here, in a population where almost no one plays basketball. To wear the Obama shoes--or to link to it on your website, which is more likely--is to show loyalty to Obama but also to show one's cool. In that sense, it's less about the shoes and Obama himself and more about the wearer. 

Obey Obama

For almost four years now, there has been little doubt of Barack Obama's standing in political culture. But recently, he and his image have not simply driven by but set up shop in the visually-based realm of pop culture.

The appearance of the Obama "Obey" signs may be the most convincing proof that Barack Obama's semiotic house has a good solid foundation on the main street of America's popular imagination.

As most readers know, the Andre the Giant "Obey" images have come to be the poster-poster for American fringe culture, but the quickness and ease with which Obama's image has occupied Andre's former semiotic space speaks to Obama's popularity across demographics.

It might also speak to the ease with which his image can become propagandized.

Meghan Daum has argued that the "official" Obama Obey images, designed by Shephard Fairey (who did the original Andre posters), merge the mythical with the questionable. For her, the posters are "a half-artsy, half-creepy genuflection that suggests the subject is (a) a Third World dictator whose rule is enmeshed in a seductive cult of personality; (b) a controversial American figure who's been assassinated; or (c) one of those people from a Warhol silkscreen that you don't recognize but assume to be important in an abstruse way."

Inspired by WPA posters of the 1920s but also the bold images of revolutionary semiotics, Daum's reading of the posters are not entirely off base. These texts play with important visual symbols that are often linked with deep-seeded images of nationalism. Such propaganda is characterized by bold colors, strong assertive graphics, heroic and commanding poses, and the iconography of leadership. As these two images reveal (and as we discuss in regard to the Time magazine covers), it is common to represent the figure from a "lower" perspective, making the hero appear larger than life. Note also the holy, even angelic rays emanating from Mao's head.

There is no question that, aesthetically, the Obama-obey posters recall the visual rhetoric of totalitarian imagery, of dictatorial propaganda, but they lack the idolatry of the Russian and Chinese versions. It's true the "Change" Obama looks a bit stern, even robotic, as though he has emerged from the panopticon to do some serious surveillance of the right wing. However, the "Hope" and "Progress" Obama is more pensive, more thoughtful, as though he's listening to a Neil Dimaond record or watching performance art. But, then again, hope is more laid back than change.

One question is, do the images evoke democracy? The red, white, and blue graphics play on American colors of patriotic semiotics, which is key. And, where most of the pure propaganda images show the body in postures of action, ruling, holding forth, and showing strength, these images exude confidence, authority, trust, and thought. They emphasize intelligence over action, realization over revolution.

This last point makes the fact that the images are so popular even more fascinating--especially given the audience of the original Andre posters. But then again, maybe they are, at their core, the most appropriate Obama images: they are edgy yet sophisticated; populist yet cool.

Not unlike Obama himself.

--D. R.

Obama's European Esquire cover

One of the semi-Obamians is abroad now and so has had some different experiences in encountering images of Obama.

One striking image that has appeared abroad and not in the states is this cover of Obama on Esquire. (Apologies for the photograph and not a scan.)

As you can see, the image is a head shot with the definition of charisma in Spanish and then the caption: "Barack Obama, president of the United States (some day)."

The headshot is striking for its luminosity and the simple layout. There are no other stories previewed, which is itself notable and in sharp contrast to this month's U.S. cover of Obama. This quality and the glow of the photograph evoke timeless quality, that this photograph and layout (excepting the obvious current font of the caption) could appear in four years or have appeared 20 or even 40 years ago, especially true given the consistency of the font of the "Esquire" title. I think the magazine editors are consciously evoking other timeless politicians, suggesting that Obama transcends recent politics in some way. Oddly enough, it evokes this Esquire cover too....

The cover suggests that Obama is simply glowing with charisma, which according to the Oxford English Dictionary, has a Greek etymology, meaning grace or favor. The definition itself (sorry, can't translate the Spanish exactly, so the Oxford will have to do), refers to two different definitions, "a free gift or favour specially vouchsafed by God: a grace, a talent," or "the gift or power of leadership."

What does this definition have to do with the photograph? It seems to favor the first definition, as the photograph's light orientation highlights Obama's personal qualities rather than the professional, which I think could be an implicit criticism that the cover is making--the glow is flattering, but also invokes a bit of flashiness that one normally associates with advertising. In fact, one of the criticisms from Europeans I've talked to is that Obama's appeal seems to be based on this quality, especially through the rhetoric of his speeches (the word, rhetoric, itself has a Greek root, roughly meaning eloquence). As I have pointed out, evidence of his leadership and his more concrete positions is available on his website.

But as we know politics is much more than policy. So Esquire is probably on to something with this luminous version of Obama, as his personal qualities have played a significant part of his success this campaign season.

France's Obama?

Well, not quite. But as the New York Times reports, France is obsessed with Nicolas Sarkozy in semiotic ways.

Sometimes Images Speak for Themselves

Myrtle Strong Enemy, a 101-year old member of the Crow nation, holding a Barack Obama “Change We Can Believe In” sign.

MetaPost: Writing about Writing about Obama and Semiotics

Taking a step back from reading representations of Barack Obama in popular culture in order to read the process and politics of such a project reveals a great deal about how we already see our culture.

Marshall McLuhan argued in the 70s that we live surrounded by media; that we are always already inside its grasp and its gaze. It stands to reason, then, that our readings of media and media culture probably also fall within the parameters that we and the media have mutually established. To step outside those boundariess, though, to read icons, media, and public discourse on our own terms is more complicated and can be seen as elite or overly abstract.

In the case of Barack Obama, though, it's just fun. How often do we see a person and that person's politics infiltrate so many aspects of popular culture? Without question, Obama has literally altered the semiotic topography of America and American culture beyond what some have called "the Obama effect."

So prevalent is his image and so utterly altered is the political and social terrain post-Obama, we can now, officially, talk about what we at SemiObama call an "Obamized" landscape and the "Obamazation" of popular culture.

The French philosopher Michel Foucault describes revolutionary action as confronting "the relationships of power through the notions and institutions that function as their instruments, armature, and armor.” As our culture has migrated so thoroughly to the realm of the visual, the politics of semiotics have become more and more important. Obamizing shoes, t-shirts, billboards, pins, posters, YouTube, web pages (perhaps even this blog) can be seen as a kind of semiotic revolution--an alteration of the signs, symbols, and images we tend to associate with authority, power, and dominance.