Celebrities and Politics

It is obvious through the numerous celebrity magazines and tabloids that are sold daily in this country, that for the most part the average American citizen is concerned with what the select few "famous" people are doing. We love to see that they do normal activities like us, such as go to the grocery store, but we love it even more when they make a complete mess of their lives and we simply get to observe. It is also beginning to be more and more obvious that this fascination with celebrities is permeating the political realm as well. It is becoming national news when a celebrity announces which candidate it is endorsing, and a soundboard for discussions about what this means about the candidate.

For example, when Oprah announced that she would be endorsing Obama, her fan base was irate. The fact that she did not choose to support the female candidate angered many, and brought up the question of whether or not she was supporting Obama simply because he was black? Oprah is simply a person with her own opinion like everyone else, but her opinion seems to influence more people, then say mine would. This leads me to my main point about celebrity endorsements, which is the fact that most people say they are not influenced by what celebrities believe, but they do believe that other people are influenced by them...the third party affect.

In a clip on NPR about celebrity endorsements a scholar was asked about this phenomenon and he noted that while we as individuals do not believe that we are influenced by celebrities, we do believe that everyone else is influenced. I found this notion extremely interesting and completely accurate. Ironically, I thought the exact same thing when posed with the question of whether or not I weighed celebrity opinions in my own decisions. I thought "no, of course not, but I'm sure that many people in America do." When you break this down in reality, that means that a lot of people are, in actuality, influenced by such things as celebrity endorsements.

I think that if nothing else, American citizens can at least relate to a candidate by who or who does not endorse them. For example, almost all of Obama's supporters are young or "hip" celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson and George Clooney. On the other hand, celebrities such as Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger have endorsed McCain, only adding to the list of middle aged white males that support him. As a voter, and one that claims to not be influenced by celebrity endorsements, I can if nothing else, relate to the group that supports Obama because I am young and further, I am not a middle aged male.

So all in all, even if a specific celebrity does not influence a voter one way or another, they can as a group act as guidelines for the general public. Overall, I think that the importance of celebrities in politics should not be overlooked, because it reality they have more impact then we give them credit for.

CNN Article

I just found this article on CNN about race and gender in the upcoming election. It's very interesting and basically says the same thing I talked about in my first blog. Check it out:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/15/kaye.ohioracegender/index.html

Gender and Race in the Democratic Party

When it became apparent that the three Democratic candidates would be Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards it was clear that this election would be one of firsts. There could be the first woman president or the first black president. With the possibility of this monumental change, I was excited to see how these firsts would play out over the next months in each candidate's campaign. I was also interested to see what stance the media would take on these two candidates and how they would present them to the public. It quickly became apparent that the media, and the public, were willing to run with the gender debate but not so quick to jump on the discussion about race and all that entails. I think this illustrates the interesting point that America in general is much more comfortable discussing gender and the supposed character traits that can be assigned by this division. Contrarily, the media becomes hesitant to discuss race and use it as a categorically defining trait. I do not believe that there should be extra focus on Obama just because he is black, but if people are going to judge Hillary because she is a woman, what is the difference?

The difference is that race is such a taboo subject in America. People are so worried about being deemed racist if they use any sort of racial remark; however, no one is ever hesitant to say "oh she's that way because she's a woman." Further, I am not sure if the general population is even aware that this often occurs. It does seem pretty obvious when the coverage of the Democratic is analyzed though. There have been numerous debates over whether or not Clinton is too hard and cold, but there has not been too much debate over whether or not Obama is black enough. While there was some discussion months ago about this notion of Obama's blackness it has quickly faded. Lately there has been more focus on Obama's experience, not his race; however, the focus on Clinton as a woman has not faded.

By looking at the discourse surrounding these two candidates it is interesting to see how comfortable America is discussing gender but not race. It is alright for people to attribute feminine characteristics to a woman, but it is not alright for people to characterize a man just because he is black.