Featured Article: The Fish Out of Water Myth in Popular Culture and Political Discourse
Scott H. Church, p. 4
Featured Student Article: Etiquette Education for the Goal of Marriage: The Narrative Formula of Hollywood Romantic Comedies
Amanda G. Taylor & Carolyn Cunningham, p. 10
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UJOC Featured Article
The Fish Out of Water Myth in Popular Culture and Political Discourse by Scott H. Church
10
UJOC Featured Student Article
Etiquette Education for the Goal of Marriage: White, Heterosexual, Feminine Success and the Narrative Formula of Hollywood Romantic Comedies by Amanda G. Taylor & Carolyn Cunningham
18
Ideological Window Dressing: Advertising Superman
Cinema for Religious Audiences in Post 9/11 America by Brent Yergensen
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The Trump Affect: Considering Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign as Found Art by Daniel J. Montez & Scott H. Church
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Getting to the End Zone Scoring a Touchdown Through Collaborative Learning in Online Sports Public Relations Instruction
by L. Paul HusselbeeSuggested Citation:
Church, S. H. (2023). The fish out of water myth in popular culture and political discourse. Utah Journal of Communication, 1(1), 4-9.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7796427
Abstract
This essay argues that a Fish Out of Water myth exists in popular culture and political discourse. This myth is manifested in any rhetorical space wherein the rhetor aims to emphasize a geographic, physiological, and/or ideological sense of displacement. A functional typology of this variation on the hero monomyth is advanced, bridging generic and mythic critical orientations. It includes the Unwitting Hero, the Ironic Hero, and the Conquering Hero. Finally, this essay delineates possible applications of this myth to synchronically examine popular culture and political discourse. In examining the applications of the myth to political discourse, the essay briefly addresses the presidential campaign rhetoric of Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and Donald Trump, arguing that each candidate used the Fish Out of Water myth in their speeches to construct some part of their political personas.
Keywords: Myth, Politics, Popular Culture, Film, Hero
While mythic discourse is common to many texts and discourses, including literary (Levi-Strauss, 1963), popular culture (Rushing & Frentz, 1995), and political (Flood, 2002), I argue in this essay that there exists a Fish Out of Water myth that permeates each of these texts. An analysis of its appearance in popular cinema will be useful here. For example, in the film Dave, a man is plucked, virtually against his will, from his relatively anonymous life to replace the ailing (and reductively evil) president of the United States. He unwittingly becomes a hero, despite his complete lack of political experience or training in that capacity, and yet he succeeds due to his endearing personality and sincerity. In Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, a young teenage woman is forced to act like the mother of her siblings and provide for the family due to the unexpected circumstances referenced in the title of the film. She, like Dave, survives (and even thrives) in her new situation, gaining
much corporate prestige and power. Similar stories in literature—A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, for example—use similar plotlines for the purposes of satirizing the ineptitude of elites—or essentially uncovering a kakistocracy. In short, this subcategory of the myth creates a reluctant (or unwitting) hero by manipulating the formulaic function of the ‘initiation’ rite of passage; rather than descending into the unknown (Campbell, 2008, p. 84), as does the traditional mythic hero, The Unwitting Hero ascends into the light.
This myth is a variation of the traditional hero monomyth, within which the protagonist epitomizes the three requisite “rites of passage” of mythology: separation, initiation, and return (Campbell, 2008, p. 23). The Fish Out of Water myth also presents a locus of meaning wherein we may discover elements that subvert the function of the traditional hero myth. This
monomyth, as articulated by Campbell (2008) and Levi-Strauss (1963) in their seminal monographs, is comprised of constitutive units that systematically construct a cogent narrative. While Levi-Strauss asserted that these units, arranged as bundles of meaning, constitute the structure of myths traversing cultures, Campbell wrote that these parts are constructed together to comprise a cultural and cosmic synthesis that may help cultures better understand themselves. In this essay, I will explore elements from both these psychoanalytic and structural approaches to mythic discourse. In so doing, I hope to suggest of the existence of a variation of this monomythic structure.
The Fish Out of Water myth is manifested in any rhetorical space wherein the rhetor aims to emphasize a geographic, physiological, and/ or ideological sense of displacement. The space created by this discourse allows the individual to subvert hierarchical rules and achieve success in spite of this transgression. This element of being displaced is convenient because it provides a space within which the protagonist may experience mythic conflict or the first rite of passage, separation. Often, this rite will be portrayed in a subversive manner that shows the protagonist as ostensibly incapable of fitting into the new hierarchy, but being equipped, regardless, with the right tools to succeed. Similar to the monomyth, the protagonist must appear as reluctant to depart from his or her former life or space, but still be determined to fight through it. The protagonist in this myth may also, in more sensational or dramatized incarnations, accidentally stumble into success, or indeed, perfection. In delineating and explicating these components of the myth, I will first explore the origins of the myth, advance a tentative typology based upon its manifestations in popular culture and public discourse, using both generic and mythic criticism and finally suggest its possible function in political discourse.
The phrase has been considered a cliché since the mid nineteenth century, but has been in existence much longer (Kirkpatrick, 1996). Some sources claim that the idea of the myth originated with Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (Martin, 1996), while others attribute it to the Greeks around 373 CE, and used again in the 14th century (Lee, 2005). It is possible that the metaphoric name of the myth advanced in this essay gained popularity in Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fable The Little Mermaid. In this tale, a young mermaid yearns to depart from her surroundings and become human in order to obtain a soul that can live on eternally. In her subsequent journey from the ocean into
the human world, she suffers from the pain of not having a tongue with which to speak, as well as the anxiety of the ominous possibility of losing her life, as stated by an evil sea witch. Incidentally, applying Levi-Strauss’s (1963) mythic framework to this tale, we see that the sea witch is the trickster in the story: the mediator between the little mermaid’s old life and new.
The mermaid is likewise condemned to constant physical pain as she journeys through the human world: as she walks on her new legs, “every step she took felt as if she were treading on pointed needles and sharp knives…but she bore it gladly” (Andersen, 2004, p. 29). Wrenched from her own world, she experiences pain and discomfort but still endures it in pursuit of higher ideals: she wishes to live eternally and be loved by a human man. Though this fable and the Disney film adaptation have been critiqued for their misogynistic elements (Trites, 1991), Andersen’s fable still contains dimensions that are essential to human motivation; chief among these is a desire to endure a difficult situation in pursuit of a higher ideal. It is also notable that this fairytale connotes the departure from one superior world to an inferior (but much more desirable) world—the little mermaid descends from water deities and a prolonged life to an inferior life of human mortality (as suggested in Easterlin, 2001). Conversely, this tale is also deeply mythical by way of functioning as an expiatory Christian allegory; as the mermaid suffers pain in this new world, she ultimately sacrifices her life for the good of those above the water.
In other popular films, this myth has evolved in one important direction: the protagonist is wrenched from his or her world and reluctantly endures the separation from it. The prospect of departing one’s world is not attractive to the hero, though it may either have been initially and then changes, or vice versa. Thus, though the individual does not necessarily wish to make the journey, he or she is destined to for a more noble purpose. This notion necessarily clashes from other traditional heroic myths in which the protagonist bravely departs his or her world to heroically conquer an evil entity.
Moreover, the hero in this version of the myth, whom we shall call the Unwitting Hero, succeeds irrespective of the rules of the established hierarchies. Using the Burkean (1970) framework to understand this phenomenon, the Unwitting Hero experiences the requisite guilt of not fulfilling the requirements of the established status quo, but is curiously viewed as endearing
or even erudite despite this failing. This variation of the myth occurs mostly in films within the comedy genre.
This variation of the myth is also manifest in superhero films. Though the audience views superheroes in these films as noble and virtuous beings, they may sometimes forget that the hero was thrust (usually unwillingly) into the role. The superhero Batman does not have super powers but chooses to take the mythic role because of his unusually violent childhood and his possession of an inordinate amount of money. The popular Twilight franchise also features the unwitting heroes in the role of Edward Cullen and his vampire family. His vampire sister, for instance, states in the popular book New Moon her objection to her role as benevolent vampire: “[T]his is not the life I would have chosen for myself” (Meyer, 2006, p. 534). The rogue hero Jack Bauer experiences the same reluctance to save the world in the TV series 24. Still, these heroes choose to adapt to their unsavory circumstances by pursuing the noble goals of peace and justice.
The hero in this myth may also assume the functions of Christian allegory. Like the little mermaid protagonist, the archetypal hero Superman is a godlike being who disguises himself as an ordinary man. Neo, in The Matrix, is a Messianic character who uses his powers to defeat evil. Finally, Christian symbolism is explicitly invoked in the myth of Spiderman. In the popular film Spiderman 2, the hero rescues a train of innocent passengers, during which his side is pierced. In the poignant scene following the carnage, his unmoving body is passed over the heads of the grateful passengers while assuming the crucifixion pose.
The second subcategory of the Fish Out of Water myth is The Ironic Hero. Despite this hero’s general discomfort with experiencing displacement, his or her past experience— previously deemed useless or trivial by the audience—comes to serve his or her best interest in the new hierarchy. For instance, in the critically acclaimed film Slumdog Millionaire, the protagonist is a young and poor Indian boy who wins big money on his country’s version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. While he is certainly out of place on the show, the audience learns that his unique and often horrible past experiences have given him the necessary tools to succeed in his new environment. Similar, though less explicit, depictions of The Ironic Hero exist in other films like About A Boy, Groundhog Day, Crocodile Dundee, Big, 17 Again, and Opportunity Knocks.
The third and final subcategory we will discus is The Conquering Hero. This hero, generally
portrayed in either historic or futuristic films, reluctantly pursues peaceful goals in a hostile environment and ultimately endorses an ideology of colonialism. Though this hero is ostensibly the closest to resembling the hero monomyth, the Conquering Hero is thrust into his or her situation either as a result of personal vendetta or as a robust attempt at basic survival. In popular sci-fi films like Star Trek and Star Wars, the heroes explore new uncertain spaces and ultimately anthropomorphize (and racialize) the Other. Conversely, these narratives emphasize difference; they may mock alien characters because of their ignorance about the hierarchical structure of “civilized” society (see 3rd Rock from the Sun, Alf, and ET), or portray them as terrifying and vicious (see War of the Worlds, V, and Independence Day). An ambivalence toward the Other may also pervade films about The Conquering Hero, as evidenced by films like Gremlins where the alien characters are portrayed both as cute and vicious, and seductive yet dangerous (Brummett, 1991). In sum, the defining characteristic of this subcategory is the emphasis of difference.
Taken together, these working subcategories of the Fish Out of Water myth give us an idea of how its mythic discourse may be “ideologically marked” (Flood, 2002, p. 44). Though the colonialist ideology clearly pervades many of the variations of these mythic texts, others may certainly be more subtle. In the following section, I will discuss other potential ideologies within discourses where this myth appears.
Roughly stated, this mythic discourse serves a subversive ideological function. In the initiation stage of Campbell’s (2008) monomyth, the hero descends into the unknown and often “submit[s] somehow to purgation and surrender[s]” (p. 87). In the initiation stage of the Fish Out of Water Myth, the hero ascends into a sublime and ephemeral existence, not equipped with the hierarchical tools to succeed, and yet does so due to his or her own unique tools; his or her incompetence or difference is the very means of helping him or her fulfill these expectations. However, the fact that the hero metaphorically stumbles out of obscurity and into a synoptic space carries with it some cultural implications. First, it promotes a kakistocratic ideology; it questions the status quo of life in a meritocratic society by promoting an individual’s transcendence from banality to sublimity simply by virtue of his or her difference from the status quo, a hierarchy governed by ineptitude. This difference is the fruition of the hero’s refusal to learn (or accidental ascent over) the established hierarchy. Therefore, the myth challenges the
monomythic notion that an individual must work to succeed. However, when the existence of difference becomes the primary factor in the structural formation of a hierarchy, there runs a risk that an overarching heterogeneity may induce a destabilization of that hierarchy thus weakening its totality (Hall, 1998).
Finally, the myth also challenges the human impulse for transcending chaos and disorder to achieve order and perfection (Burke, 1970). Within the present mythological discourse, it is precisely the guilt of the individual of not being able to live up to the hierarchy that allows him or her to succeed and even thrive, without the requisite expiatory cleansing that is required first. Further, Burke’s notion of guilt and redemption is highly dependent upon the unifying concept of an individual’s identification with the rest of the human race; because humans all experience failures, foibles, and imperfections, they are linked together in solidarity. In contrast, the Fish Out of Water myth detracts from the essential value of individual experience. Rather, it turns the idea of human experience into a burlesque parody; while most humans repeatedly fail and thus earn experience of invaluable worth, the success of the individual in the Fish Out of Water myth accidentally and effortlessly draws upon their repertoire of trivial (or incomplete) experience to succeed.
As a tentative case study to apply this myth to political discourse, I will briefly examine the discourse of the campaigns of three candidates who fashioned themselves as political equivalents of the “fish out of water” myth: former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, former US President Barack Obama, and former US President Donald Trump.
In Palin’s campaign as running mate to John McCain, much of her campaign rhetoric revolved around being a Fish Out of Water. She repeatedly utilized ethos appeals by evoking images of tough “hockey moms” who were outsiders from the Washington elite. Consider this passage from her 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nomination acceptance speech:
I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these last few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone [but]
I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to
Washington to serve the people of this great country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reason, and not just to mingle with the right people…The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it. No one expects us all to agree on everything. But we are expected to govern with integrity, and good will, and clear convictions, and a servant’s heart (Palin, 2008).
In this speech, Palin positioned herself in the role of the Unwitting Hero. She articulated that she had no interest in abiding by the hierarchical rules of the nation’s capitol. Rather, she must go there, not necessarily because she wanted to, but because she needed to adhere to the higher ideal of serving America’s best interest. Elsewhere, she continued to emphasize her status as a commoner: “I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA. I love those hockey moms. You know they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick” (Palin, 2008). As evidenced, Palin emphasized her difference throughout her speeches as key to her success. Underscoring its ubiquity in the McCain-Palin campaign, the myth of the Fish Out of Water was referenced repeatedly every time the word “maverick” was uttered.
Likewise, the myth permeated the discourse of the Obama campaign, that of his supporters, and even more frequently, that of his detractors. It was widely referenced in the public discourse of 2008 that Palin and Obama both had little executive experience. However, more salient to Obama’s campaign was his declaration of difference to the American people. Symbolically, his slogan “Change We Can Believe In” fulfilled this function, but more overt was his racial difference from the other candidates. The following statement from his announcement for his candidacy for the presidency reveals his outsider status and his desire to fulfill his concept of a higher purpose:
You…came here because you believe in what this country can be…[I] recognize that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity, to this announcement [of my candidacy]. I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change (Obama, 2007).
Thus, Obama positioned himself as a Fish Out of Water who knew the “audacity” of his venture given the limitations of his experience. However, like Palin, he later explained that his difference
would lead to his success. It was this difference that detractors of both candidates capitalized upon during the campaigns, but also this difference that made the candidates attractive to many of their supporters. Crucially, Obama also added to his outsider status the imperative that the American people could help keep him in check: “This campaign can’t only be about me. It must be about us. It must be about what we can do together…It will take your time, your energy, and your advice to push us forward when we’re doing right and let us know when we’re not” (Obama, 2007). In short, Obama—as a Fish Out of Water—acknowledges his difference and accepts course correction if his outsider status becomes a liability in the minds of the people.
Speaking of capitalizing on difference, Donald Trump was one of the primary critics of Obama, leading the “birther” cause in 2011 that questioned Obama’s status as an American citizen (Serwer, 2020). Yet Trump ultimately wielded difference in another way for his own benefit when he eventually became the Republican candidate for the president several years later.
As he campaigned for the office of US President, Donald Trump repeatedly focused on his difference from other candidates, framing Washington politicians as insiders who were corrupted by their very participation in politics. Amplifying his outsider status as a businessman and entertainer rather than a career politician, Trump effectively painted himself as a Fish Out of Water. Frequently making calls to “drain the swamp” of ostensible Washington corruption (Dawsey et al., 2020), Trump continued to use the potent myth to galvanize his supporters, even after he had assumed the office. In his first speech to a joint session of congress as president, for example, Trump reiterated his pledge to “drain the swamp of government corruption,” drawing on his outsider status to accomplish hyperbolic objectives: “Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing and hope” (Trump, 2017b). Indeed, Trump framed himself as the Conquering Hero throughout his campaign and presidency by using the language of populism. In his inaugural address, he said: “Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning because today…we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people…this moment is your moment. It belongs to you” (Trump, 2017a). In his 2015 presidential announcement address, he said:
Well, you need somebody, because politicians are all talk, no action. Nothing’s going to get done. They will not bring us—believe me—to the
promised land…I’ve watched the politicians. I’ve dealt with them all my life…They will never make America great again…Our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal (Trump, 2015).
In the early days of his campaign, Trump would often speak about his ability to make deals, earned from his years as a businessman. But the Fish Out of Water myth began to take backseat to a more populist type of discourse when Trump would focus on amplifying the ostensible failures of the Obama administration more than articulating his own virtues as an outsider. In these types of speeches, Trump used populism to galvanize the people, drawing particularly on Manichean language, or a discourse “that identifies Good with a unified will of the people and Evil with a conspiring elite” (Hawkins, 2009, p. 1042). In short, the Conquering Hero and its negative framing of The Other occurs in popular culture and continues to exist in political discourse.
In conclusion, the Fish Out of Water myth may both be resistant or oppressive (i.e., the Conquering Hero) when the hero circumvents the hierarchical structure to achieve success. It decentralizes the essential role of learned experience in discourse, thus enacting the ascent of the mythic hero from obscurity into the light. At the same time, it celebrates and amplifies the outsider status of the individual. In the brief discussion of the myth’s role in political discourse in this essay, this ascent is dependent upon the difference of the individual from the dominant ideological structure. While the Fish Out of Water may be considered a virtue, in other words, it may also be the cause of division when it is deployed in political discourse.
References
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Brummett, B. (1991). Rhetorical dimensions of popular culture. The University of Alabama Press.
Burke, K. (1970). The rhetoric of religion: Studies in logology. University of California Press.
Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. New World Library.
Dawsey, J., Helderman, R. S., & Fahrenthold, D. S. (2020, October 24). How Trump abandoned his pledge to ‘drain the swamp.’ The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ trump-drain-the-swamp/2020/10/24/story.html
Easterlin, N. (2001). Hans Christian Andersen’s fish out of water. Philosophy and Literature, 25, 251–277. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2001.0028
Flood, C. G. (2002). Political myth. Routledge.
Hall, S. (1998). Cultural studies: Two paradigms. In R. Con Davis & R. Schleifer (Eds.), Contemporary literary criticism: Literary and cultural studies (4th Ed) (pp. 663–678). Longman.
Hawkins, K. A. (2009). Is Chavez populist? Measuring populist discourse in comparative perspective. Comparative Political Studies, 42(8), 1040–1067. https://doi. org/10.1177/0010414009331721
Kirkpatrick, B. (1996). Cliches: Over 1500 phrases explored and explained. St. Martin’s Press.
Lee, K. (2005). Cartoon-illustrated metaphors: Idioms, proverbs, clichés, & slang. Environmental Design & Research Center.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1963). Structural anthropology (2nd Ed). Basic Books.
Obama, B. (2007). Official announcement of candidacy for US president. American Rhetoric. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ barackobamacandidacyforpresident.htm
Martin, G. (1996). The phrase finder. Phrases. org. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fishout-of-water.html
Meyer, S. (2006). New moon. Little, Brown, and Company.
Palin, S. (2008). Republican vice-presidential nomination speech. American Rhetoric. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ convention2008/sarahpalin2008rnc.htm
Rushing, J. H., & Frentz, T. S. (1995). Projecting the shadow: The cyborg hero in American film. University of Chicago Press.
Serwer, A. (2020, May 13). “Birtherism of a nation.” The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic. com/ideas/archive/2020/05/birtherism-andtrump/610978/
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Suggested Citation:
Taylor, A. G., & Cunningham, C. (2023). Etiquette education for the goal of marriage: white, heterosexual, feminine success and the narrative formula of Hollywood romantic comedies. Utah Journal of Communication, 1(1), 10-17. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7796433
Abstract
Many Hollywood romantic comedy films feature a scene of a woman being trained in social etiquette practices. Social etiquette education for women is seen as the end goal of serving their male counterpart (Simonian, 2010). More recently, this trope can be seen in romantic comedies featuring non-white male protagonists. This paper asks how this message promotes normative gender and racial ideologies though media representation in the top-grossing Hollywood romantic comedies?
The purpose of this work is to map out the path of protagonists in romantic comedy films seeking social mobility and the identity shift that occurs because of their social etiquette education. This research took a critical feminist lens to analyze three films where thematic categories related to social etiquette emerged around clothing, food, and greetings. Problematic messages around gender binary understandings of gender roles, heteronormativity, stereotypes, rape culture, and whiteness stood out. Keywords: Romantic comedies, critical discourse analysis, social etiquette, feminism, media depictions
What fork should I use? Should I hug or shake their hand, or bow? Should my dress hem be at the knee or to the floor?
Many questions arise when individuals enter new social contexts. They may meet co-workers at a new job, go out to a fine dining establishment with a new group of friends, or attend a gala for a non-profit group in which they are a part. Not knowing what is expected in a new situation can cause individuals anxiety or discomfort. These contexts are also reflected in many Hollywood films (e.g., The Devil Wears Prada, Get Out, Titanic, Miss Congeniality, The Butler, Maid in Manhattan, etc.) where characters need to learn about the etiquette standards that exist in each setting. Tuckerman and Dannan (1995) define etiquette as, “a ‘ticket’ or ‘card,’ and refers to the ancient custom of a monarch setting forth ceremonial rules and regulations to be observed by members of his court” (p. xi). Instead of monarchs setting rules of etiquette, these rules are rooted in history and reinforced through social norms.
Etiquette experts such as Emily Post write and record etiquette literature, but mostsocial etiquette traditions are passed down from people in dominant groups. As individuals aim to abide by social etiquette norms, they sometimes look to film representations to prepare them for situations they might confront (Maltravers, 2014). It is important, then, for filmmakers to understand the message they are portraying about the goals of etiquette education. Once more, they need to critically consider the messages around both race and gender in these films.
To understand how Hollywood films are portraying social etiquette education in films that target girls and women, three Hollywood romantic comedy films are explored. The 1990 film Pretty Woman which, according to statista. com, is still the top grossing “Rom-Com” (i.e., romantic comedy) as of March 2020 grossing over $463.3 million (Roper, 2020). Thirty years after the release of this film targeting women and girls, it continues to reach global audiences. To consider the effect of whiteness on RomComs, we also analyze the 2005 film Hitch that, while the protagonist is a Black male, speaks to how etiquette education is used toward a male’s goal for marriage. Hitch is sixth on the list for top-grossing Rom-Coms grossing 368.1 million. Finally, we consider the 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians that grossed 238.5 million and includes a female protagonist who finds herself needing to consider the etiquette of a foreign culture. In the end, we argue that the ideologies of these three films perpetuate the narrative of proper social etiquette as a path to social success.
Throughout history, there have been significant steps and social revolutions for women and people of color to have access to formal education in institutions. In a patriarchal system, education is a tool of empowerment. Social etiquette education was one of the first educational opportunities deemed appropriate for women because it positioned them as attractive for marriage and for fulfilling their social roles as wives and mothers. In the 19th century, boarding schools for young ladies called finishing schools were formed in Wester upper-class culture. These institutions, found mostly in Switzerland, were charged with educating young women on etiquette and charm for the goal of finding husbands (Simonian, 2010). Although the formalized institutions of social etiquette education for women only started becoming popular a few hundred years ago, the discourse around how a woman who receives a social etiquette education should operate has been annotated in popular culture much earlier than this.
Etiquette standards have been shaped largely by the wealthy as far back as 551 BCE. with the Chinese philosopher Confucius, whose customs are to show honor in the imperial courts. His seating arrangement around a table for banquets are still in practice today (Yang, 2016). A few of the first women on the scene of etiquette authorship in the United States were Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt, whose writings appeared around the beginning to mid-1900s. Both women were white, upper-class European Americans. Having the fiscal and social resources to perpetuate their notions of etiquette, these authors were instrumental in shaping dominant discourses of etiquette when it came to greetings, dress, nonverbal courtesies, dining etiquette, and social event conduct. Etiquette standards and motivations for receiving an etiquette education are amplified to audiences in the films that will be analyzed.
This study is predicated on the understanding that film and reality are not the same. Although the information on dominant discourse of women and social etiquette education in the section above deals with social reality, this study considers media content as representations of dominant ideologies. McQuail (2010) observes that the feminist perspective of film content is interested in “how texts ‘position’ the female subject in narratives and textual interactions and in doing so contribute to a definition of
for the Goal of Marriage: White, Heterosexual,
femininity in collaboration with the ‘reader’” (p. 344). Some media scholars look at film to understand the message and impact it is having on the audience (e.g., Cacciatore et al. 2016; Fiskey & Taylor, 1991; Madere, 2017).
Communication studies researchers have studied film content over the years through various lenses and considered how content impacts their audiences. As Hylmö (2006) observes in her study on girls on film, “film represents meaning and myth as experienced by viewers who take the role of temporary observers in the world of the film” (p. 170). For this study, it is important to look at the phenomenon of how receiving social etiquette education is postured. We look at the dominant narratives of gender and race in the following inquiries:
RQ 1: How does social etiquette education promote normative gender ideologies in these films ?
RQ 2: How does social etiquette education promote racial ideologies in these films?
When seeking to understand the power dynamic and break down dominant discourse, a feminist critical paradigm is an appropriate lens. This study seeks to map the phenomenon of protagonists in films receiving social etiquette training (thus acquiring the ticket to a higher social class or different social group). The ontological understanding of viewing films is predicated on the notion that film is not an accurate representation of reality. Feminist critical discourse analysis seeks to break down and expose dominant patriarchal discourse in order to disrupt it and bring opportunities to all gender identifications. Feminist critical discourse analysis has been utilized by researchers to understand how gender identities are developed within power dynamics (Lazar, 2014). The complex relationship between gender identity, race, and education will be explored through this epistemological lens in this analysis utilizing feminist critical discourse analysis, which seeks to better understand the underlying ideologies present in media representations.
It is useful to contemplate ontology, epistemology, axiology and voice before the research takes place. As Atkinson (2017) observes “feminist methodology is grounded in an ontological and epistemological vision focused primarily on patriarchal power structures and the lives of women (and minorities) who are marginalized and silenced by these power structures; the concept of standpoint theory helps to explain this grounding, as well as many of the overall goals of feminist research” (p. 66).
Success and the
Hollywood
Feminist epistemology is observed throughout this work since the purpose is to shine a light on gender and race depictions in Hollywood romantic comedies. The axiology is found though understanding the message this is relaying and perpetuating to audiences. Critical discourse analysis is committed to understanding power advantages and inequities in society (Tracy & Muñoz, 2011). Major themes that emerge from critical discourse analysis considers how films produce or reproduce race and gender ideologies. These thematic categories centered around etiquette education in relation to clothing, food, and greetings will be discussed, as well as the overarching motivation for the character to achieve this education.
The film Pretty Woman came out in 1990 and features a female protagonist (i.e., Vivian as played by Julia Roberts) who is a sex worker. The audience sees her participating in her social which is mainly her roommate and other co-workers. The group values are friendship, safety, and career ambition. A new client, Edward, invites her to stay in a luxury hotel and through a series of events, she is introduced to her client’s group of formal, upper-class business associates and finds herself in need of a social etiquette education to understand the code of this out-group. It is evident that Edward does not take into consideration that the social etiquette code of his upper-class business society is not the same code that Vivian is accustomed to. The hotel worker and department store workers educate Vivian on how to dress properly and what proper table manners look like in upper class society.
In the film, Vivian receives her social etiquette education from the hotel manager who has been working in the hospitality industry and knows the code of the upper social class. The scene below reflects their dialogue:
Barney: All right, Miss Vivian, one more time.
Vivian: - Dinner napkin. - Dinner napkin, laid gently in the lap.
Barney: Good. Elbows off the table. Don’t slouch. Shrimp fork, salad fork, dinner fork.
Vivian: I definitely have the salad fork The rest of the silverware is a little confusing.
Barney: All right, if you get nervous, just count the tines.
Four tines: dinner fork.
And sometimes there are three tines in the salad fork. And sometimes— (Script-o-Rama, 2020).
At the dinner meeting, the first course that comes is pâté, and Vivian does not know what fork to use. It is explained that the salad is served at the end of the meal as a palate cleanser in traditional French cuisine fashion. Seeing Vivian’s struggle, one of the businesspeople, Mr. Morris, says that he never understands what fork to use and picks up his pâté and toast with his hands. This is a non-verbal signal that Vivian can do the same and feel comfortable. Later in the meal, Edward instructs Vivian to try the escargo as it is a delicacy. One escargo shell accidently slips from Vivian’s snail tongs but is caught by a nearby server. These scenes reflect the ideology that women should know all of the different intricacies of how to approach different food that is only served at the fanciest of restaurants. Those who do not understand these nuances stick out for their lack of understanding, reinforcing class differences. Overall in the dining scene, Vivian tries her best to follow fine dining etiquette rules, and the men in the scene (including the server who catches an escargo shell as Vivian accidently flings it into the air) attempt to make her feel comfortable while talking about more serious issues of business. Vivian desires acceptance into this world for her client, however, it might also be for her own desire of social mobility.
One of the most infamous scenes in this film happens around clothing. Vivian originally wears a blue and white mini skirt dress, kneehigh black leather boots, and blonde wig. When walking into the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel, Vivian receives stares from staff and patrons as this clothing insinuates her career as a sex worker. When Edward and Vivian were negotiating the contract of her staying as Edwards’ companion, he articulates:
Edward: You’ll need something to wear.
Vivian: Like what ?
Edward: Uh, nothing too flashy. Not too sexy. - Conservative. You understand ?
Vivian: Boring.
Edward: Elegant. Any questions ? (Script-o-Rama, 2020)
When Vivian goes shopping on Rodeo Drive, she is met with disapproval and asked to leave by the shopkeepers. Barney (the hotel manager) instructs Vivian to “dress a little more appropriately” (Script-o-Rama, 2020) if she is going to stay in the hotel. Vivian tells him of the problems she had shopping on Rodeo Drive and Barney connects her to a friend to find a cocktail dress that is appropriate for her first date to which Edward responds that she looks ‘stunning’. She then must buy more clothes, and Edward helps her maneuver the elitist world of shopping on Rodeo Drive by telling shop keepers they are spending a lot of money.
This transformation that Vivian has, from wearing clothes that were seen as inappropriate to wearing clothes that are seen as elegant, reinforces the notion that clothing signifies gender norms of appropriate sexuality. As she learns to dress in a more acceptable manner, she sees herself as more than a sex worker. In the infamous scenes of shopping, the display of wealth speaks to the capitalist ideals of money leveraging power in society. The money allows for a sort of revenge for Vivian. The new clothes provided a way for normalization and a ticket into society. Completely ignored in the almost all White cast is the intersectionality of lack of access for racially marginalized groups. Where the film depicts class as a main obstacle, it does not make any mention of the White privilege the protagonists. Vivian seems to aesthetically “fit” into the upper-class circles as soon as she changes clothes.
The film Hitch provides an alternative perspective to social etiquette education as the protagonist is a Black male, Will Smith, who provides coaching to other men that want to develop long-term relationships with women. In the film, many greetings are specific to gender. For example, most of the clients Hitch meets are men who stand (or halfway rise) and shake hands while making direct eye-contact. One of the other protagonists and clients, Albert (played by Kevin James) is instructed that while on his first date with his love interest Allegra (played by Amber Valletta) to:
Hitch: Lean in, place your hand on the small of her back... and say it in her ear like a secret. Watch your hand placement. Too high says, “I just wanna be friends.” Too low says, “I just wanna grab some ass.” (Script-o-Rama, 2020)
Hitch also instructs Albert to shake hands “hard” with other men that are talking to her and to speak up. This is later seen playing
out with Allegra talking to other men. In the process, Hitch is teaching Albert how to navigate the differences between etiquette norms for same gender and mixed gender interactions. Hitch’s instruction for men to adapt their communication style to be more forceful shows how men need to navigate these norms to be attractive to women.
Appropriate dress for women is a theme in the film. In one scene where Sara, played by Eva Mendes, is sitting in a bar, Hitch gives his analysis of her as sending the right signals that she is not interested by:
Hitch: no earrings, heels under two inches, your hair is pulled back... wearing reading glasses with no book, drinking a Grey Goose martini... which means you had a hell of a week and a beer just wouldn’t do it. If that wasn’t clear enough... there’s always the “fuck off” that you have stamped on your forehead. (Script-o-Rama, 2020)
The insinuation here is that women only dress to attracet (or not attract) a male. However, one of Hitches’ potential clients describes himself as:
Vance Munson: Power suit, power tie, power steering. (Script-o-Rama, 2020).
Thus insinuating that male dress has everything to do with power and not necessarly attracting a partner. We can see from this scene that the coaching on the appropriateness of the touch is sending the message that with women a touch is either very strategic or non-existent with a greeting. When men are greeting men, it is always with a handshake. The coaching of a hypermasculine firm handshake with a loud voice of Hitch implies a perpetuated theme of women being attracted to traditional depictions of a binary, hypermasculine male gendered role.
Women are also assessed as what they wear sends a message about their level of sexual interest. This is a problematic message as it has been the rhetoric contributing to rape culture in poisoning a woman to be more responsible for an attack if she is wearing more sexual clothing (Becker & Boynton, 2020). This is especially a problematic message when considering Sara is played by a Black woman. Another problematic message was the overt nature of heteronormativity where it was expected that all male clients were seeking women. While the diverse representation in the cast of Hitch is important, the storyline of a Black man is in the service of white, patriarchal, heteronormative culture is the main theme that stands out.
The film Crazy Rich Asians was based on a book by Kevin Kwan and the first in his trilogy. This film was unique because although The Joy Luck Club (1993) featured an all-Asian American cast, Crazy Rich Asians was the first to have an allAsian cast. This is important because Hollywood has a long history of casting White actors in the parts of Asian characters in a phenomenon known as yellowface (Phruksachart, 2017). This film took efforts in representing Asian and Asian American characters through anti-yellowface casting (Wong, 2020). As the protagonist, Rachel Chu (played by Constance Wu) is preparing to visit her boyfriend’s (i.e., Nick Young played by Henry Golding) home city of Singapore, she is shopping with her mother, Kerry Chu (played by Tan Kheng Hua), and holds up a dress she thinks might be appropriate to meet Nick’s family in:
Rachel: What do you think?
Kerry: No! No! No! No! You can’t wear that to meet Nick’s Ah Ma. Blue and white is for Chinese funerals. Now this, this symbolizes good fortune and fertility.
Kerry holds up a conservative RED dress.
Rachel: Great! I was really going for that ‘lucky baby-maker’ vibe.
Kerry: Hey! You are the one who asked for my help picking out a dress to meet Nick’s family.
Rachel: It’s only ‘cause I hardly know anything about them. Every time I bring them up Nick changes the subject.
Kerry: Maybe he’s embarrassed. Maybe his parents are poor, and he has to send them money. That’s what all good Chinese children do.
Rachel chuckles and they keep searching for the right dress. (Bedard, 2021).
This interaction shows that etiquette education is important for making a first impression. Rachel asks her mother for a second opinion on what she should wear to meet her fiancé’s family for the first time. It is evident that color of clothing holds different meanings and symbols, and as the desired outcome is to make a good first impression to future family, etiquette education is used here to empower the female protagonist in her desire for positive relational outcomes.
On arriving in Singapore, Rachel learns that her boyfriend’s family has a lot of money and is in
the public eye. She learns to navigate what is expected dress code mostly through her friend, Peik Lin Goh (played by Awkwafina). There are many traditions that were outdated or not suitable for the socio-economic class expectancies of Nick’s family. For example, the red dress her mother helped her pick out was not appropriate for meeting Nick’s grandmother.
Although all of the characters show an interest in high fashion in Singapore, the one that stands out in particular is a male who has an eye for fashion. Young’s cousin Oliver T’sien (played by Nico Santos) is a member of the LGBTQ+ community. The other characters who seem to be depicted as being particularly interested in fashion are all female characters. There is one scene where women go to an island for a bachelorette party and the first activity is a free shopping spree. After the “go” sign is given, the group of women run to the boutique and grab as many things as they can the following scene takes place:
It’s chaos as women grab and fight over clothes. Francesca and Celine are in a tug-o-war over a caftan.
Francesca: Bitch, I saw this first!
Celine: But you have ping-pong tits!
Francesca: Oh, what about your mosquito bites?
Celine: No!
Francesca: You know it’s true!
Celine: You’re such a bitch!
Araminta: One more minute! You keep what you can carry. One more minute. You keep what you can carry.
With little time to spare, women FIGHT OVER outfits.
Rachel has a new dress she’s just tried on. She watches the carnage, confused. Amanda clocks this.
Amanda: Yep, no one loves free stuff more than rich people. re: dress
Just the one dress for you?
Rachel: I don’t wanna lose an arm. (Bedard, 2021).
This exchange reinforces the gender trope that women engage in catty fights that demean each other’s bodies to get the best deal while
shopping (Kumar et al., 2022). This scene depicts women against women for the desired outcome of monetary possessions. It is positioned that this is what rich people do as they use their positions of privilege to fight over outfits. This scene with the group of women fighting over free clothing had as much to do with gender in perpetuating the ideal of the “cat fight” that pins females against females as it does with class and capitalism. The one male in the film who shows an expressed interest in fashion and is a part of the ‘make-over’ scene is a part of the LGBTQ+ community. This perpetuates the stereotype of all gay men being interested in fashion as he is one of the only characters in the film who discloses that he is part of the LGBTQ+ culture.
Greetings are also strongly emphasized throughout the film. Peik Lin hugs Rachel after not seeing her for a long time. Nick’s friends (who are close to his age) hug Nick and Rachel. Although this is their first meeting with Rachel, the hug seems to be an extension of the way Nick was greeted as they are around the same age and wanting her to feel comfortable. This changes when Rachel meets Eleanor Young (played by Michelle Yeoh) who is Nick’s mother:
Rachel: Oh, my gosh! I, I’m so happy to meet you, Mrs. Young. gives her a big hug Or, uh, Auntie. Right? giggles I’m learning the lingo.
Eleanor smiles, subtly scans Rachel, evaluating her.
Eleanor: I’m very glad to finally meet you, too. And I’m sorry Nick’s father couldn’t be here. He was called to business in Shanghai. (Bedard, 2021).
One can tell from the scene that Eleanor is very uncomfortable with the hug but does not make a scene. Gestures were an important depiction here as familiarity seems to be the main component of the nature of appropriateness of the greeting. When Nick’s mother is horrified however when she receives a hug from Rachel whom she just met, it reinforces a class distinction and demonstrates the elitist ideals around social etiquette practices. This shows how etiquette can be used to keep out a group of people such as middle or poor socio-entomic classes. Greetings are not given to staff (e.g., maids, butlers, etc.) by the Young family, however, greetings are given by the staff. This signals that people who give greetings (i.e., well intentioned, or not) are in a subordinate station. Genuine displays of affection seem to need to be stifled to maintain the air of being well bread.
In the first film that was analyzed, Pretty Woman, the main character Edward played a mix between an authoritarian father figure that instructs Vivian, the sex worker, on matters of etiquette and a romantic interest. Barney, the hotel manager, also plays a part in instructing Vivian on how to dress and on dining etiquette. Vivian is expected to dress and act appropriately in social settings and then have sex when they are back home. This perpetuates a gendered ideal of women being only esthetically useful in public scenarios and then expected to have sex at the whim of the male counterpart. Edward also reiterates a fatherly tone throughout the film as he instructs Vivian not to fidget throughout the film or to chew gum when they are going shopping. This reinforces the message that women want to be dominated by their male counterparts.
The film Hitch reinforces the trope of Black people working toward helping the white male. The relationship between whiteness and desired success is positively correlated in that the audience is rooting for Hitch to give Albert the necessary etiquette tools to win over Allegra. Behind the scenes of this film, Andy Tennant, has directed predominantly White films such as Sweet Home Alabama, Anna and the King, and Ever After: A Cinderella Story. According to Women and Hollywood (2022), women only account for 34% of the characters who have speaking roles in Hollywood. This is important because when women do appear, they are portrayed in stereotypical ways. The majority of Hollywood films feature white characters and promote the ideology that whiteness is the dominant culture, without critiquing these portrayals. Humor operates in a way to reinforce these stereoetypes: when characters stray try to achieve access to the dominant group, they often stumble in ways that the audience finds funny precisely because they are doing this against an ideal. Etiquette education is used as a tool in this film to stereotype women for the man to achieve the desired outcome of a romantic relationship targeted by the male. However, in the end, Hitch understands that this coached manipulation of women is wrong and breaks the fourth wall to tell the audience there are no basic principles when it comes to women.
In the final film, Crazy Rich Asians uses etiquette education to show the gap between socioeconomic classes. The difference in greetings is a nonverbal way to divide the classes and prove one’s superiority. Harmful tropes of women were reinforced in portions of the film such as when women were shopping and body shaming each other, however, this also emphasized the dangers of capitalism in changing motivations.
However, to what extent is this representation perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes? Rachel’s mom, Kerry, teaches etiquette education in the form of color of dress to empower her daughter.
This research only looked at specific romantic comedies that were top grossing on charts. More nuances could be derived from these films as well as others that are newer or seen more frequently. It might be interesting in future research to use this research as a launching point to conduct focus groups to understand if these messages were coming across clearly to audiences. That is, are audiences picking up on the problematic messages and enjoying the film because of other reasons such as nostalgia?
Overall, this study revealed a problematic message that Hollywood films are sending to their target audience of women and young girls. All three films portrayed heteronormative romantic relationships. The narrative pathway of etiquette education with the goal of women fitting into the ideal romantic partner (i.e., an aesthetic, delicate actor) is problematic in that the goal in these messages portrays a potentially harmful understanding of female success. These messages also communicate that women who dress in a specific way are inviting or not inviting male advances. This is especially problematic in considering how society has positioned violence against women of color being at fault depending on their dress (Crenshaw, 2023; Naples, 2020). Media outlets have taken action to fight back against rape culture and challenge the discourse that the way a woman dresses makes her an easy target, absolving the perpetrator of responsibility (Salvatori & Mendes, 2023; Yurko et al., 2023). It is important that filmmakers and writers critically consider how the messages are calling women to use an etiquette education to enter the dominant group.
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Suggested Citation:
Yergensen, B. (2023). Ideological window dressing: Advertising Superman cinema for religious audiences in Post 9/11 America. Utah Journal of Communication, 1(1), 18-27. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7796439
Abstract
This study explores contextualized ideological window dressing, or simultaneous appeals to niche audiences while still advertising to the general public, with focus on the heightened, and consequentially ongoing, trajectory for religious advertising in post 9/11 America. With the then growing market of Christian popular culture, cultural marketing for differing audience readings were driven by the opportunity to offer polysemic audience experiences, sparked in post 9/11 with reawakened religious ideologies connected to American Christianity. The religiously interpretable 2006 Superman Returns teaser trailer uses a crescendo format with the rhetorically charged and nostalgic voice of Marlon Brando, an increasing religiously symbolic discourse, and explicit religious iconography. The balancing of secular popular culture while still pursuing Christian marketability continues, despite generational resistance to religion, and yet contemporary Superman marketing suggests he will remain in his religiously symbolic form.
Key Words: Advertising, Superhero, Window Dressing, Superman, Religion
With an iconic hero who leads the masses, is tortured by his enemies, has his arms flung out at one point as if he’s on a crucifix, and even has a resurrection of sorts, Superman Returns could have been called ‘The Passion of the Clark.’
- Film critic Richard Roeper (2006)Three months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, The Pew Research Center concluded that “The Sept. 11 attacks have increased the prominence of religion in the United States to an extraordinary degree”
(Pew Research Center, 2001). Further, in times of war, religiosity easily and readily aligns with the prevalence of superhero narratives (Jewett, 1984). The power of these rhetorics and narratives appeal to niche audiences of mass culture. Specifically, after the 9/11 attacks, the re-emergent American heroism discourse drew upon America’s historical religious tones, awakening a new age of theological themes in political discourse and popular culture (Taylor, 2005). The trajectory of those moves led to an ongoing religious appeal in advertising, social
media, and branding, such as the contemporary “He Gets Us” campaign, referring to Jesus, and captures the heavy presence of religious popular culture, even to the degree in which the “He Gets Us” campaign costs $100 million, and “Aims to Make Jesus the ‘Biggest Brand in Your City’” (Baer, 2022). Coinciding with the densely religious themed Superman Returns (Singer, 2006) film several years after the 9/11 attacks, and subsequent American wars in the Middle East, Christian popular culture found rich opportunity for marketing toward believing audiences who are drawn to Christian heroism.
Because of the massive Christian culture that is intertwined with non-religious popular culture as, albeit less explicit, sites for religious engagement, I argue that the post 9/11 secular market was enabled to adopt polysemic meanings to include heightened religious resonances, illustrating an ideological window dressing based on an available religious audience that was ripe for Christian iconography. By window dressing, I mean that advertisers code advertisements enough for the religious audience reading while still maintaining a general secular form, enabling diverse interpretations and meanings. Such ideological window dressing enables filmmakers to advertise their secular productions to the prominent Christian culture that is obsessed with Christian iconography as central to tales of heroism.
On December 9, 2005, the trailer (DC, 2013) for Superman Returns was released with the opening of Walt Disney and Walden Media’s biblical allegory The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Adamson, 2005). The grand opening of this children’s fable that is rich with Christian symbolism followed the heavy marketing that Walden Media did in churches before the film’s release (Berkowitz, 2005), and simultaneously introduced the new Superman film. The trailer is rich with Christian symbolism, yet not so overt as to alienate its potentially non-Christian focused audience. Following the Superman Returns teaser trailer, Christian window dressing continued subsequently in Man of Steel (Snyder, 2013) trailers and television ads (Warner Brothers Pictures, 2012; Warner Brothers Pictures, 2013).
Superman mythology provides intertwined associations between Christian faith and superhero iconography, described by Stephen Skelton (2006) in the same year Superman Returns his theaters as Superman cinema being “epic, mythic, even evangelistic” (p. 11). These themes emerge more apparently as the trailer was released with Narnia, whose hero also dies and resurrected, similar Superman’s own demise and victory in the Superman Returns film itself. Thus, the transcendence over death theme is taken seriously and treated epically, even reverently,
and is delivered as the key climactic moments of both films, with both instances following the precursory theological nature of the Superman Returns trailer.
Two historical contexts heightened the post 9/11 opportunity for Christian advertising with the release of the first Superman Returns trailer. First, Christian audiences were freshly serviced by the deep affect experiences of Mel Gibson’s (2004) The Passion of the Christ two years earlier (Chang, 2004), where the emotional film and its large profits captured the weighty success both commercially and critically for religious media (Brown, Keeler, & Lindvall, 2007). Second, the presence of religious resonances in the George W. Bush presidency reawakened the hyper-religious fervor that was declining in the decade before his presidency (Thompson, 2019). ABC News (Yang, 2006) described the religious depth of Bush’s leadership as an energized focus on Christianity with his prioritizing “faithbased initiatives.” Further, during the Bush administration’s tenure, overtly celebrated Christian cinema paralleled Bush’s awakened religiosity and assisted in the re-establishment of religious priorities, which Ted Turnau (2012) calls Popologetics
Hence, post 9/11 theological heroic discourse showed an awakened American hero complex (Jewett), bringing obsession with Christian themed popular culture products (Chidester, 2005). Gregor Goethais (1990) described this trajectory of evangelical popular culture as “The traditions that historically rejected images have, ironically, made the greatest use of television,” bringing “new electronically vivified icons” (p. 126). This takes place in window dressing opportunities with religiously interpretably symbols, specifically with Superman.
Leading up to 9/11, the weight of Christian iconography in film was pervasive in academic studies (Hurley, 1970; Martin & Ostwalt, Jr., 1995; Tatum, 1997; Baugh, 1997; Benne, 1997; Kupfer, 1999; Godawa, 2002). In post 9/11, the religious iconography turned toward emphasizing the dichotomy of having a savior figure dueling with an opposing devil figure, thereby driving an ideology that further bifurcated the world into good and evil (Birzer, 2002; Higgins, 2003; Dalton, 2003; Seay & Garrett, 2003; Meyer, 2003; Richardson).
Danae Clark (1993) described the advantages of appealing to dual audiences in advertising, “consumer culture thrives on” audiences whose ideologies are catered to by “institutions by taking its cues from their fixations,” with the key to such efforts being display through ambiguity and allowing polysemic readings
where “consumers do not notice these subtexts,” which enables advertisers “to reach various audience markets without ever revealing their aim” (p. 188). Subcultural themes of advertisements provide easily noticeable appeals to market to for the sake of economic gain by drawing in those niche consumers, “Much of what gets negotiated, then, is not so much the contradictions between the so-called ‘dominant’ and ‘oppositional’ readings, but the details of the subcultural reading itself” (Clark, p. 192).
The timing of the trailer’s release in post 9/11 America, just as the digital world was emerging (Westera, 2012), allowed for Burkean identification to thrive between audience and theologically laced texts, particularly in the catering of messages that enable political associations between timed and easily aligned worldviews of Bush-themed politics amid war (Burke, 1969). Amid the years following the trailer while the digital world grew with the emergence of social media, Christina Foust (2008) described the digital turn as the end of the explicitness of typography and the emergence of “the colorful still and moving images, sound, hypertext, and experimentation of the digital aesthetic,” of which the Superman Returns trailer was at the forefront (p. 124).
Linell Cady (2008) offers insight into the Bush presidency’s re-focus on religion in post 9/11 America, which empowered religion against growing secularization, thereby bringing the heightening of “religious resonances” into public discourse and popular culture (p. 184). Yogi Hendlin (2021) describes this identification process as “evoking emotions which lead to commitments,” which can lead audiences to “fundamentally reconfigure lifestyles” (p. 532). Similarly, Chi-Ying Yu (2021) describes cinematic identification as triggering “a transcendental transformation of the psyche” (p. 913). Getting to these influences, movies trailers are carefully crafted, associative texts of worldview identification.
While contemporary trends remove deity themes from the superhero figure (Benjamin, 2018), the older, predigital era was theologically driven in the post 9/11 world, and displayed a more celebratory and honorarium appeal to depictions of superheroes, such as Spider-Man as observable savior (Richardson, 2004). Other theological superhero resonances of Christian iconography are noted in Charles Bellinger’s (2011) reading of The Dark Knight, “Christ is not a character in the movie, but he is present throughout” (p. 10). Diane Corkery (2011) calls this religious iconography “Christic resonances” (p. 13). The Superman Returns trailer crystalizes this post 9/11, theological world that was in the infancy of the digital turn.
Subcultural aesthetic appeal of window dressed ads is observable in ideologically engrained themes, written into the more generic storytelling but still produced with enough delicacy to avoid controversial backlash that would accompany advertisements that are overtly ideological. As the trailer was released with Narnia, religious resonance appeasement was available and masterfully crafted. Foust describes this as, “aesthetics help conjoin contemporary conservatism,” which was heightened in the Bush presidency’s era of religious priorities available for coverage and often celebrated in media (p. 128).
Movie trailers are high quality productions, offering “a unique form of narrative film exhibition” in their appeal to audience pleasure (Kernan, 2004, p. 1). Scholarship in recent years on movie trailers has increased. Jon Ruiz (2012) calls this “the growing attention towards movie trailers” because of “the creative work of trailer makers and their artistic virtues” (pp. 1877-1878). As part of the study’s theoretical foundation, I explore the Superman Returns trailer not as an isolated text, but as an answer to the exigence of a rhetorical situation, where the cultural elements surrounding the trailer allow the trailer to respond to and represent cultural trajectories where “a specific time and place” accords “opportunity to speak on some urgent matter” (Bitzer, p. 2). Thus, rhetorical situations, such as a heightened religiosity, are “invite[d]” in a religious presidential administration and war age for American audiences. The exigence in post 9/11 America was an appeal for heroism in a reawakened Christian-themed American era.
Movie trailers are loaded with cultural representations, masterfully created for big screens, and played repeatedly, operating as “multimodal discourse genres because they combine meaning manifested through different semiotic modes such as moving and still images, sound, music, written and spoken language,” which enables them to be captured moments of cultural taste and appeal in an advertised format (Pollaroli, 2014, para. 4). As sites for scholarly endeavor, trailers serve as opportunity to explore the “wider analytical context” because trailers carry a “multilayered relationships with verbal and aural” meanings (Maier, p. 159). In essence, trailers are timestamps of social priorities. The movie trailer serves as connection between audience and their appeased sentiments. Burke describes this intimate appeal of identification where “the speaker draws on identification between himself and his audience” (p. 46). Finding Burkean identification within trailers allows for conceptualizing the window dressing
of ideologies, and done in specific moments of time, or rhetorical situations.
The study of a single movie trailer offers both challenges and opportunities. In the study of mediated texts as the cultural milieux, scholars typically study texts with more content as well as thematics across numerous texts. While this cultural text is studied in its brevity presentation to the public, scholarship focused on the significance of film trailers allow heavy cultural baggage to be unpacked as trailers serve as amalgams of advertising tastes, storytelling craft, popular themes and appeals of style and music, while being representations of larger stories, and packaged with state-of-the-art production quality. Further, other studies that methodologically focus on a singular trailer include the use of sound for emotional resonance (Noad & Barton, 2020), the pursuit of women empowerment (Lozoya, 2020), and of video game characters depicted in film (Schaefer, Grebin, & Giudice, 2013).
Focusing on both dialogue and imagery of the trailer, the display of ideological window dressing grows increasingly apparent within the advertisement, offering a systematic crescendo of increasing engagement of religious resonances, or the “synergy that builds identification substantially and stylistically” (Foust, p. 132). Three statements in the one-and-a-half-minute advertisement are delivered as voiceover by Jor-El, Superman’s father, allowing the voice to provide an “ontic experience” (Ehret, 2018, p. 160). The voiceover’s nostalgic use of Marlon Brando’s voice, reverberating from the 1978 Superman (Donner) film, is accompanied by the crescendo musical score in the trailer.
Jor-El’s first statement, “Even though you’ve been raised as a human being, you are not one of them,” serves as an attention appeal for the upcoming film. Although not initially exposing that the subject is Superman in the first moments, the trailer teases a pending satisfaction to the Christian need for transcendence as the plot is establishing a theme available in both theology and science fiction: a single visitor arrived on Earth and dwelt among humanity. By introducing the trailer with a statement that establishes that distance between humans and a mysterious other, the advertisement primes the religious viewer for a ‘covenant’ experience into a brief, passive, but readily religious experience with the trailer, described by Burke (1970) as the permanent religious nature of rhetorical discourse.
The opening statement’s accompaniment of a blank image offers polysemic opportunity for diverse audience experiences, particularly with the use of Marlon Brando’s famous acting voice, which is recognized as exemplifying both “powerful emotions” and “promises” (Kinney, 2014). The trailer’s opening statement, “Even though you’ve been raised as a human being, you are not one of them” also taps into the public fascination with alien civilizations following 1990s popular culture (Bader, 1995), offering a simultaneous alternative initial understanding of the trailer experience. Clark describes this polysemic abstraction as key in advertising to dual audiences: keeping one of the forms of reading available in an ambiguous state, and thus initially subdued, while still drumming interest as the opening statement lingers for forty seconds before another phrase from Brando’s God-themed voice is heard.
The subsequent but temporary ambiguity of images of Superman are displayed before the explicit and later religious statements emerge, which by being delayed enable polysemic readings and avoid overly religious expression in the trailer’s early stages. The opening phrase comes in the first few seconds of the trailer, openly inviting a multiplicity of ideological interpretations with the careful pacing of wording, specifically the delayed explicit religious parallels that could, if offered too early in the trailer, alienate non-religious consumer, thereby showing a strategic abstraction in interpretability. Burke (1969) describes this nostalgic capacity for identification through the successful use of rhetorical craft, “we must think of rhetoric not in terms of some one particular address but as a general body of identifications that owe their convincingness much more to trivial repetition and dull daily reinforcement than to exceptional rhetorical skill” (p. 26). The cumulative effect of biblically laced identifications in the trailer demonstrate that repetitiveness in the movement toward worldview reinforcement, or the opportunity for ideological window dressing.
The second phrase in the trailer captures the appeal of Superman, who at that point has been identified repeatedly through imagery as the subject of the film, “They could be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be,” enabling the non-religious audience to simply observe the return of the nineteen-year absent from cinema superhero. Yet, the religious audience is geared, in the progression of the end of the trailer, to see accumulating religious iconography in the trailer in the context where 9/11’s events created the “heroic structure” that takes on “a primordial form of the epideictic speech,” or what Michael
Hyde (2005) describes as a heroic-themed oratorical voice, which is demonstrated in the significance of using Brando’s voiceover charge to his son Superman to act heroically (p. 1).
In the second sentence, the religious-interested consumer is pulled deeper into the upcoming film as a Christian allegory as the advertisement draws upon the then market for popologetics, while still being a less ideologically driven secular, science fiction adventure. With the theological assumption in humanity’s ‘fallen’ state, or of humans as sinners and in need of aid from something godlier than themselves, they therefore live with desire to overcome their fallen state, to “be a great people,” as Jor-El identifies humanity. Utilizing Superman’s less common name, Kal-El, which is his real name given to him by his father that is speaking in the voiceover, mirrors the New Testament description of Jesus as intimately connected to God.
For religious audiences, the appeal to transcend their fallen state as they hear Jor-El’s echo-y Marlon Brando voice brings intimacy between the long estranged, savior-like hero who is being charged by his father to lead lesser beings. This nostalgic and epic-themed use of voice with an echo format enables Christian notions of transcendence for a religious audience who is primed for a religious experience following Gibson’s more explicit Jesus story, and is ripe with 9/11’s aftermath and the theme of “The Rhetor as Hero,” manifest in Jor-El’s charging his son to look after humanity (Hyde, p. 1).
The third and final statement in the trailer, “They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I’ve sent them you, my only son,” presents Superman as a messenger, a teaching theologian to address humanity’s assumed fallen state, as suggested earlier in the trailer. The trailer situates Superman as recipient of a saving mission, capturing the 9/11 religious rhetoric that offered “a moral directive heard as a call of conscience” (Hyde, p. 1), dictated by Jor-El to his son to “show the way.” Superman becomes an emotionally charged allegory of Jesus as “the light,” situated to be a source of transcendence in a symbolic narrative of, as theorized in Burke’s theoretical treatment of symbolic action as theological in nature, a fall state. The visual “interactive” aesthetic of nostalgic voiceover with imagery creates what Burke described as audience finding, “vicariously,” the “role of leader” in the Superman iconography (1969, p. 227). This pervasive theme in rhetoric’s tendency to reflect theology is also described by theologian Jack Kuhatschek (1995) as The Superman Syndrome, or the linking of daily life to religious audiences’ conception of grace—a
suggestion prescribed increasingly in the trailer’s narrative.
As Jor-El’s statements become increasingly religious as the trailer progresses, the religious resonances climax with Jor-El’s statement that paraphrases “The Most Popular Bible Verse”, John 3:16 (O’Neal, 2018, May 13). The near perfect matching wording in Jor-El’s phrase with the John verse demonstrates the seriously religious nature of the trailer, a continual movement toward encapsulating the religious mindset as the Superman Returns trailer’s final phrase, “I’ve sent them you, my only son” mirrors John 3:16’s “That he gave his only begotten son.” As the most recognized scripture in the Bible is paraphrased in this trailer, along with its release to audiences who gathered to watch a rather overtly Christian allegory in Narnia, the religious implications of JorEl’s appeal to a Christian audience illustrates the appeal of the Jesus story being observable in blue tights and a red cape, appealing to religious audiences in the coded context of 9/11’s “evocative nature” that was ripe with rhetorics of heroism (Hyde, p. 1). Barry Brummett (1991) describes this intimate identification process as “audience identifies with those texts that parallel their own particular experiences” that, in the text, are “articulated so that we understand that we are not alone” (p. 112). That comfort is bolstered as scriptural paraphrases are accompanied with the emotive power of music amid religious and war-themed cultural discussions. Within such a rhetorical opportunity, Bitzer describes the abstract but available interpretability of texts as comprising cultural milieux that is “loosely structured,” where a rhetorical situation is presented as “simple” (pp. 11-12). Simplicity serves the brief, ninety-second theological resonance.
The trailer’s imagery is also ripe with symbols that become more explicit as a window dressing advertisement in its progression toward more blatant religious iconography. Three specific sequences in the trailer situate Superman with the sun, which, as a manifestation of nature, allows inanimate objects to drive the religious “rhythm” of the trailer and the film it previews, giving symbolic meaning to both the trailer’s plot and images (Levine, 1974, p. 3). The first image of the mailbox of the Kent farm after the first phrase of the trailer, “Even though you’ve been raised” situates the mailbox, which display’s Superman’s given human name, Kent, next to the sun as it rises above the horizon. As the shot comes directly after this first phrase, it begins the trailer’s ongoing association of Superman with the sun, a manifestation of the Jesus description in the Gospel of John as
the “light of the world” (King James Version Bible, 2022, John 8:12), from which the trailer’s frequent use of Superman being associated with the sun offers religious resonance through biblical symbolism (Levine).
Imagery of Superman’s association with the sun continues as he, as a young boy, elevates above corn fields. In this shot, Superman jumps directly in front of the sun, eclipsing it as the Superman theme increases in volume and speed, demonstrating his symbolic transcendence into heroism in comparison to the shot of the sun situated next to Kent farm. Foust describes the “active cognition and physical engagement” as the process where visual symbols replace the written word (p. 124). The religious symbolism of Jesus with the sun is illustrated in Kevin Duffy’s (2022) analysis of the biblical Jesus being described as life sustaining, like the sun, and described as reigning over the earth, with which the trailer exhibits Superman as symbolic.
The third and most significantly iconographic image of Superman as the metaphoric light of the world, in his association with the sun, comes as the last phrase from Jor-El begins to be heard. In this shot Superman is majestically hovering above golden clouds and rising to eclipse the sun for a second time within seventeen seconds as Jor-El’s wording, “They only lack the light to show the way” increases in volume as the brass Superman score intensifies at the moment Superman is placed in front of the sun, suggesting Superman’s accepting his place as humanity’s “way.” Reflective of the biblical description from Jesus as “I am the light and the life of the world” (John 8:12), the Bible’s similar declaration that the believing will be “in the clouds” to “meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17), offers an increasingly explicit theological interpretation and display of religious window dressing as he is charged by Jor-El to guide humanity. Demosthenes Savramis (1987) calls this the “salvific personage” of Superman in film, as he offers a would-be “utopic universe near to popular religiosity” (p. 77).
In his final association with the sun, Superman slowly ascends to and stops in front of the sun as his father explains that Earth’s people “lack the light to show the way.” Through this, the crescendo nature of the trailer harmoniously combines imagery, sound, and biblical metaphor, thereby tracing Superman’s ascension into a savior figure—all showing Superman’s capacity to elevate first above cornfields, to being amongst clouds, and finally, in the last shot, above the earth and overseeing it as a protecting god-figure as his eyes are closed while he listens intently for the cries of humans who need him. As the John Williams 1978 Superman
score increases along with the increasingly explicit religious iconography, Superman has been shown to grow in from boy to man, and increasingly eclipsing the sun, illustrative of the biblical description of Jesus, that “He will grow in wisdom and stature,” and potentially readable as such, if not in the moment of viewership, then in interpretable discussion (Luke 2:52).
Late in the trailer a large body of people are standing in stunned awe as they look up at the sky, illustrative of what Gilles Deleuze (1986) calls the affection-image, a cinematic strategy where audience is prepared to experience other shots that are subsequently shown, thereby situating audience to experience both emotional and physical stimuli where “our immobilized receptive facet absorbs” what characters are experiencing (p. 66). Intensifying the affectionimage’s association between religious audience and the trailer’s imagery, the shot of bystanders is accompanied with Jor-El’s phrase “They only lack the light to show the way.” At this moment a post 9/11 religious audience is offered similar enrapturement, identifying vicariously with the trailer’s humans in seeing Superman in the sky as the affection-image’s subsequently transferred shot is of Superman rising to and hovering in front of the sun. Thus, the affectionimage displays the act of looking up into the sky at Superman as he is “the light to show the way” that Jor-El’s voice articulates with ever-increasing volume in his voice and the score. By identifying with the people standing in the street as being “a great people” as their enraptured posture and expressions direct the affect experience, the religious association of an American icon character who will “light the way” is a growing explicit representation of the biblical description of Jesus as the “light of the world.”
The trailer’s last image of Superman comes directly after the image of him in front of the sun and in the clouds. In outer space, Superman is above the earth as his head appears higher than the top of the Earth, overlooking it. This omnipresent depiction of Superman is accompanied with Jor-El’s final statement, “For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I’ve sent them you, my only son,” paralleling the famous John 3:16 verse in sequence with a Christthematized being hovering above the earth as he waits for crying humans to save. In this shot Jesus’s position over the earth is that of the sun, more explicitly aligning him as the representation of ‘Jesus the Sun,’ spelled ‘sun’ in reference to the aged association of Jesus with the sun (Duffy). As a demonstration of Burkean identification, the offering in these scenes provide “the possibility of communion” with the text’s capacity to parallel audience psyche with the presentation of symbolism (Burke, 1969, p. 115).
With Jor-El’s final phrase, “my only son,” his voice becomes shaky, implying a greater presence of emotion, illustrating the seriousness of Jor-El’s sending his “only son” to Earth. This moment capstones the ideological window dressing as the John 3:16 paraphrase accompanies Superman, with his eyes closed in concentration, listens with concern for the world’s needs, demonstrating how “The metaphor that informs the eloquence” as the trailer’s nostalgia, symbolism, orchestra, and crescendo “lends it further force” in American audiences’ post 9/11, hero-centric years (Hyde, p. 1).
Noteworthy is how the trailer’s religious iconography continues in the film itself, released the following year. In the final sequences of Singer’s film, Superman dies in space in a crucifix position, the same setting where he oversees the earth in the trailer. He is then later resurrected. Thus, the religious intimacy of the trailer, its film that was released a year later, and the appeal to dress films for polysemic readings allow Superman, as America’s central icon, to be simultaneously religiously interpretable (Gordon, 2017), yet also allow the character to operate secularly as American popular culture’s “final elixir” for identifying social trajectories (Stucky, 2006, p. 9).
Seventeen years after the release of the Superman Returns trailer, religious voices remain and are met with equally strong nonreligious responses. Yet, campaigns such as the “He Gets Us” keeps theological appeals alive. At a center point between Singer’s films and 2022 came another Superman tale, Man of Steel, which was also richly enmeshed in religious iconography in both the film itself as it also portrays Superman in a crucifix position and receiving a heavenly voiceover charge to save humanity, along with similarly portraying his death and resurrection in its sequels (Snyder, 2016; 2017). The continuation of these religious themes further bolster the interlinking of the Jesus narrative into Superman as a central icon in American religious culture. Thus, the appeal of Superman as crucified savior-symbol never seems to waiver.
Yet with the growing resistance to religion, as prognosticated in Singer’s 2006 film in Lois Lane’s continual claim that “the world doesn’t need a savior,” the appeal for religious resistance is prominent. Millennials and Generation Z are less religious than Baby Boomers and Generation X (Pew Research Center, 2018), the latter of whom Superman Returns would have been the film’s target audience. As current younger generations are commonly more resistant to
religious faith, an element of the ‘Generation Wars’ (Bristow, 2019), Superman’s form and purpose continues to be a site to identify the debate for American identity.
Man of Steel (Snyder, 2013) actor Henry Cavill’s return as Superman has long been debated and speculated as unlikely due to Warner Brothers’ efforts to create more diverse versions of Superman in recent years, specifically as a Black hero (Behbakht, 2022), and also as bisexual (Betancourt, 2021). Yet, religious-focused responses continue in this battle for utilizing and advertising Superman as a symbolic Jesus. Superman returns in the post credits scene of DC Comics’ Black Adam (Collet-Serra, 2022), appearing as the traditional figure (Abdulbaki, 2022) who, only a few years ago, was placed into crucifix positions and died, was resurrected, and more recently returned in the classical religious form of the hero with his appearance in Black Adam (Holmes, 2022), continuing the history of Cavill treated as a Superman Christ figure. Thus, for now, the appeal for a religious audience seeing Superman in his religious iconography continues amid cultural identity and generation debates while advertisers labor to find the right modes to window dress the ideologies of their audience tastes.
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Suggested Citation: Montez, D. J., & Church, S. H. (2023). The Trump affect: considering Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as found art. Utah Journal of Communication, 1(1), 28-35. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7796446
Abstract
Found art is an artistic movement that appropriates non-art items to challenge traditional art and stimulate public discourse. While this concept has been applied to aesthetics and socio-political movements, we argue that Donald Trump’s rally performances throughout his 2015–2016 U.S. presidential campaign employed similar strategies, transferring affect and eliciting audience participation. Using elements drawn from literature examining found art and the Happenings during the 20th century, we conduct an aesthetic criticism of various spectacles during Trump’s presidential run to understand how his campaign communicated with audiences, despite its appeal to the negative sublime.
Keywords: found art, Donald Trump, spectacle, sublime, affect
In 2015 and 2016, American celebrity Donald J. Trump managed a victorious presidential campaign that was unprecedented in contemporary politics. Although Trump ran under his popular slogan “Make America Great Again,” the former reality television star and real estate mogul appeared to outwardly contradict this feel-good maxim, making headlines during the 2016 presidential primary season for what former presidential candidate Mitt Romney described as “the absurd third
grade theatrics” (Politico, 2016, para. 22). At best, Trump’s political discourse and conduct was unconventional. Others’ condemned his apparently calloused wielding of Twitter as a tool for promoting a “politics of debasement” through his “dark, degrading, and dehumanizing discourse” (Ott, 2017, pp. 59, 62). The unconventional grandeur of Trump’s persona was derived, in part, from his personal history as a real estate mogul turned reality television star with his hit show The Apprentice. As
one journalist put it at the time of his first presidential campaign, “his claim to fame is not politics. It’s reality television. So he’s running his campaign as if it were the 15th season of ‘The Apprentice’” (Bennett, 2015).
The staged representations of reality television share performative characteristics with the early 20th century aesthetic movements of found art and the Happenings. Both of these art styles challenged the rules of art, subverting the division that philosophers had assigned between everyday life and art. Found art appropriated everyday objects (e.g., flowers, mass-produced urinals) as exhibitions (Berleant, 2009); the Happenings inserted art performances into everyday life and abandoned the notion of a predetermined objective (Drucker, 1993). Both movements owed their potency to the use of the sublime, an aesthetic means of evoking affect within the spectator, ranging from the extremes of awe to those of terror (Berleant, 2009; Morley, 2010). Still, found art and the Happenings also contained a communal element, in which “both the artist and the beholder attain[ed] their sense of having discovered something significant” (Parkinson, 2010, p. 61). Hence, found art illustrated the merging of art, affect, social movements, and communication.
Our study aims to use this 20th century aesthetic movement as a heuristic to shed light on the inexplicable political communication of Donald Trump in his presidential campaign during 2015 and 2016. This essay will draw upon representative examples of Trump’s performances along the campaign trail that illustrate the Trump campaign’s affective potential. Primarily, we examine Trump’s 2015 public mocking of Serge Kovaleski, a physically impaired reporter for the New York Times. Our examination of Trump’s campaign through its parallels with aesthetic theory will offer scholars in media studies a novel vantage point through which the cultural implications of Trump’s presidential campaign may be illuminated. We will first discuss the function of affect in political discourse and art movements. We then describe the hyperreal patterns of reality television that Trump exhibited during his campaign and how his spectacles compare to transgressive art forms.
Unlike feelings or emotions, Brian Massumi (1987) stated that affect “is a prepersonal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another” (p. xvi). Affect is “purely transitive” and “experienced in a lived duration that involves the difference between two states” (Deleuze, 1988, p. 49). In this sense, affect is a physiological
response to one’s immediate environment. Certainly, political information can evoke personal feelings within the voter, be that anger, anxiety, or enthusiasm (see MacKuen et al., 2010). However, to study the material experience of politics, the critic should account for the pronounced ability of the political spectacle to transmit affect—first to the audience and then back at the politician.
In regards to political spectacles, Papacharissi (2015) suggested that affect has been an overlooked aspect of spatial politics because it disrupts democracy’s main tenet of an informed public and informed decision making. Nevertheless, she argued that even if information were processed cognitively in environs of high affect, “how we feel about things may give shape to how we process information” (p. 12). In other words, despite intentions in a democratic society to place emphasis on rationality, affect has an inexorable role in political decision-making. Persuasion and subsequent decisions are influenced by affective energy present in distinct public spaces of communication (Papacharissi, 2015).
In art and politics, the nature of the spectacle is contingent on its ability to help the audience feel like it is a participant. “Persuasive discourse works when it can efficiently tap into the tacit knowledge held by the audience” (Hariman & Lucaites, 2007, p. 10), communicating social knowledge through both image and discourse. To enact the spectacle in the context of political discourse, the politician provides his or her audience with a backdrop of familiarity through entertaining and possibly lurid content, even if the underlying message is terrifying. It is the surprise and drama within the spectacle that carry viewers into the unknown (Edelman, 1988). An overabundance of uncertainty derived from an aesthetic experience can push rational comprehension within the viewer to its limits; this aesthetic phenomenon is called the sublime.
Kant (1790) argued that the sublime occurred when aesthetics breaks the limits of numbers, enabling the object of contemplation to essentially surpass the viewer’s rational faculties. Traditionally, the term “sublime” refers to that which is beautiful and divine, alluding to either religiosity, art, or nature. Kant, nonetheless, proposed that the sublime moves beyond the borders of mere beauty. Morley (2010) argued that because the sublime occurs when “when we are faced with something we do not have the capacity to understand or control”, it was ultimately a negative experience of limits (p. 16). Uncertainty regarding the unknown paints the darker side of the sublime. Berleant (2009) envisioned similar psychological anguish as the result of the aesthetics of
terrorist demonstrations; terrorism, which relies completely on chance and the determination of time and location, powerfully infuses spectators with fear, magnified by media coverage. The tremendous potential of terrifying and troublesome responses result from what has been seen as the negative sublime (Berleant, 2009). It is this interpretation of found art that we will use in analyzing examples of the negative sublime in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
The artistic movement of found art emerged in the early twentieth century as a method for redirecting the spectator’s attention away from traditional art and toward something besides the object (Parkinson, 2010). The experience of found art was enhanced by the level of credibility the audience gives the work, which “rest[s] on the external similarity between found works and traditional works of art” Fowkes, 1978, p. 164). In other words, found art assumes that a piece of driftwood placed on a mantle must be analyzed as possessing aesthetic characteristics comparable with more traditional artwork.
Among the first works of found art was Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), a defaced and unusable urinal that, when placed side-by-side with the esteemed art works in the museum, sparked immediate confusion and outrage among the audience (Lanham, 2006). In this manner, experimental artists challenged the notion of traditional art, while focusing their audience’s attention on the unusual experience taking place before it. Because their art was aggressively unorthodox, Lanham (2006) has called these artists economists of attention, individuals with a knack for knowing how to capture the attention of the audience (p. 42).
This “abuse” of the traditional arts continued with the Happenings of the late 1950s and early 1960s, public spectacles poised between the threshold of protest and art by Western counterculture (Berleant, 2009). Unlike conventional art, Happenings were not productor object-oriented; they took a clear stance against the autonomy of traditional art and, as a consequence, had no preconceived goal (Drucker, 1993). The Happenings used transgressive methods involving audience interaction and space in which it was performed to entertain and elicit a reaction from the audience (Drucker, 1993). Among the most prominent examples of these spectacles was Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in Six Parts (1959) which required his audience to perform certain tasks over a period of time, thus focusing its attention on the ephemerality and discontinuity of the events taking place. Like the economists of attention
above, Kaprow and his cohort set out to make the case that “Art is whatever the artists wished to call to our attention.” (Lanham, 2006, p. 43).
Found artists appropriated existing systems, then exploited them for the performative spectacle. Berleant (2009) even compared found art to the acts of worldwide terror organizations, arguing that a terrorist act engages viewers at a highly visceral level, providing an affective experience that complicates the current reality and political system. Although certainly rejecting civic or ethical values, terrorist acts retain an aesthetic value, much like disturbing artistic depictions of nature or destruction.
It is imperative here to consider the spatial politics that enable transgressive performances to transmit affect and elicit audience collaboration. The instrumentation of found art, Happenings, or deviant uses of technology depends on how audiences rely more on affective experience than on informational sources or ideological agreement. With this affective orientation in mind, Trump’s rally-like speeches and events take on a new type of significance, becoming examples where campaign support could be harnessed in unprecedented methods within a liberal democracy via the level of spatial affect present during Trump’s campaign spectacles. From this viewpoint, the antiestablishment of the Happenings and destruction by terrorists are equivalent, as the negative sublime is comprised of highly dramatic acts that consume the spectator by their affective potency. Found art exploits the affective elements of spectacle in the service of its ultimate objective.
Reality television predated the Web 2.0 participatory culture that we now occupy and was for many growing up during the 2000’s the closest thing they got to media involvement. RTV’s supposed real nature allows viewers the opportunity to experience the reality of others (Lundy et al., 2008). Although viewers may actively participate in their exposure to RTV, many are able to detect unreal moments and even find the content to be “staged” (Lundy et al. 2008; Hall, 2006). But that stagedness is exactly what they are seeking. Early research indicated that audiences most liked the genre for the contradiction of real and unreal circumstances (Rose & Wood, 2005).The “staged-ness” of reality television makes it a highly accessible hyperreal venue. According to Jean Baudrillard (1994), hyperreal representation, or the simulacrum, was not something completely devoid of reality, but rather like some forms of mental illness in which symptoms once simulated (i.e. losing one’s temper, obsessing about an event) had
developed into a “real” illness.
The reality TV program The Apprentice was launched upon a similar hyperreal premise. Like many competitive reality television programs, The Apprentice featured a cutthroat environment where Donald Trump expected aggressiveness juxtaposed with sound business reasoning to succeed. The competition was all within the authoritative control of Trump, as each episode ended with him firing one (sometimes multiple) contestant/s from their apprenticeship. The “real” element of the Apprentice became blurred with educational models for real life scenarios shortly following its original hype, when the University of Washington offered a course entitled “Management Lessons from The Apprentice” (Gyenes, 2004). Comparatively, Hearn (2006) comments that the Apprentice was its own branded commodity, not only selling more traditional marketable goods but selling its own culture. In other words, the Apprentice, like many other reality television programs, made a commodity of itself. These qualities can also be attributed to Trump himself, whose prominence in the business world and entertainment has long been represented as the enviable embodiment of both fame and fortune, interspersed with elements of spectacle. Trump’s campaign shares this quality, dependent on the essence of his original reality television show and behavior, in order to resonate with his audience and persuade them to be satisfied with a revered substitute of reality.
While making this claim it is important to remember that, like any other found art, the figure’s existence must rely on extant material, or a system of established norms. Consequently, Trump’s political platform was akin to the contemporary hyperreal programming of reality television from which he emerged; his objective in politics, however, appeared to be more than to merely entertain. Rather, it was to challenge his audience’s perception of traditional American politics.
The purpose of this paper is to laterally compare key elements derived from found art and transgressive art forms (e.g. Happenings) to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. In particular, we will examine spatial politics (e.g. immediacy of the event) and audience collaboration of Trump’s spectacles. Drucker described the collaborative thesis of the Happenings as being “performative, ephemeral, and transient, and aimed not at any produced outcome or even specific effect, but at a multisensory situation” (p. 53). We use these same elements of transgressive art to apply to our own analysis as well as Berleant’s (2009)
conceptualization of the negative sublime to describe not only how Trump’s performances transferred affect and elicited collaboration, but did so in such an incomprehensible fashion with American political rhetoric.
These concepts will be employed to specifically examine Trump’s comments about The New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski. According to an August 2019 Bloomberg poll (Carmon, 2016), this incident was considered by a majority of voters to be Trump’s worst offense. We chose this event from his campaign as a representative case of Trump’s aesthetic tactics because of Trump’s visual performance of Kovaleski’s impairment and his audience’s visible reactions. By observing this case, it is not our intent to present Trump as an aesthetic savant, but rather as a (perhaps unwitting) conduit of these artistic elements. Moreover, this event set a precedent for future controversial occurrences throughout Trump’s campaign, where Trump allegedly humiliated other marginalized individuals in front of an engaged audience. We must emphasize that this analysis is not an attempt to examine Trump’s inflammatory communication as the current U.S. president. Rather, we focus our analysis on his campaign’s unconventional rally performances, which appeared to anticipate his controversial methods for attracting attention employed later during his presidency.
On Tuesday, November 24, 2015, while speaking to his supporters at a rally in South Carolina, Donald Trump attempted to defend his debunked claims that thousands of Muslim immigrants celebrated in the streets of Jersey City, New Jersey, immediately following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001. Trump referred to a Washington Post article, printed a week after the attacks, co-authored by Serge Kovaleski and Fredrick Kunkle, indicating that local authorities had investigated suspicious behavior by several Muslim residents. The original article stated that local law enforcement had “detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river” (Kovaleski & Kunkle, 2001, para. 3). Although there is no mention of extensive numbers of celebrators in the article, Trump cited the article as evidence of his professed witnessing of Muslim-intiated celebration and ridiculed Kovaleski’s alleged retraction.
By this time in his campaign, Trump’s defiance of the press had become a well-established norm. What was shocking about this spectacle was Trump’s mimicry of the physical limitations
of Kovaleski, representing the reporter as physically disabled. The event was followed by an immediate reaction from Trump’s audience, some of whom appeared to enjoy Trump’s representation of the reporter (BBC News, 2016). During the rally, Trump said the following:
So, what happens is The Washington Post writes an article, and one of the paragraphs it says, and by the way this was right after September 11th, this was September 18th, and right after, sort of an amazing thing, right after, a couple of good paragraphs and it’s talking about ‘Northern New Jersey Draws the Probers’ Eyes’. Written by a nice reporter. Now the poor guy, you gotta see this guy, ‘Uhh I don’t know what I said! Uhh I don’t remember!’ He’s going like ‘I don’t remember!—aww dohh— Maybe that’s what I said!’ This is 14 years ago— he’s still— they didn’t do a retraction! 14 years ago. They did no retraction!
(Transcribed from BBC News, 2016).
Among the more striking visual elements of Trump’s mimicry of Kovaleski was his imitation of Kovaleski’s right arm and hand disability, in contrast to his frequent left hand movements with the palm visibly open. Before Trump’s impersonation, he freely uses his right hand in the open position when explaining the Washington Post’s article, but quickly changes position when impersonating the reporter. This representation is at odds with Trump’s subsequent statements that he had never met Kovaleski but was depicting a “groveling” reporter (Phelps, 2015). Furthermore, Trump imitated the reporter with a bewildered face, eyes wide open and mouth agape, apparently to connote mental incompetence.
While the implications of Trump’s representation of Kovaleski may not have been initially recognized by his audience, the video coverage reveals an affective transference between Trump and his supporters. In observing the audience reaction, facial expressions of his supporters visible through the unfocused background complement Trump’s freestyle attempt at ridicule. As Trump mocks Kovaleski, one woman smiles and laughs. An older man above her seems to be smiling or laughing. Additionally, a man on the bottom left of the screen smiles, laughs, and turns to a companion at his side in apparent bewilderment. While among the more mild audience responses that Trump evoked throughout his campaign, these reactions provide a pattern of standard engagement during Trump’s rallies. Instead of focusing on his own conduct in the moment, Trump’s audience is fixated on his visual cues, both verbal and nonverbal, thus becoming the
recipients of his profuse affective transfer. These highly affective conditions cultivate a persona for Trump that draws its political power from its shared experience.
We contend that the immediacy of the event was essential to its affective potency. Unlike typical American political events of the time–more often decorous events designed to look good for the media–Trump deviated from standard political practice, appearing to relish the moment as one that existed distinctly (and exclusively) in that time and place. In other words, Trump’s rally performance depended on the affect derived from the temporal nature of the event; it exploited the irrationality that accompanies the sensory reception of messages rather than a rational, intellectual understanding of a situation that can be viewed apart from the rally itself. This rally, and Trump’s campaign in general, derived its communicative power from the messages being felt, not heard.
To illustrate, the immediate experience of the audience is most apparent when considering the reaction of the aforementioned laughing woman. As Trump begins mocking the reporter, the woman’s gaze is diverted away from the presidential candidate. As Trump continues his mocking portrayal, the woman noticeably fixates her attention on Trump, laughs, smiles, then returned to her aimless search. Her scattered attention, and subsequent attraction of that attention, appears as a result of a visceral response from the audience, reacting to the present spatial affect of Trump’s delivery. It is a fleeting reaction that exists only within an environment of high affect. Trump’s performance functions similar to found art, which “invite[s] and encourage[s] the viewer to attend...without any concern for the presence or absence of an inner meaning” (Fowkes, 1978, p. 159)
The raucous tone of the event was derived from its status as a political spectacle. Trump was entertaining and ostensibly humorous (based on the visual reactions of his audience). The absence of deeper concern on the part of the laughing woman and the rest of Trump’s audience was partially driven by Trump’s go-to mechanism of humor, which is effective at distancing audiences from the more repressive nature of the political spectacle (Edelman, 1988, p. 128). Trump employed humor regularly to stimulate his audience and as an avoidance mechanism from critical issues. An impromptu example of Trump’s off-hand humor took place at a town hall rally in Rochester, New Hampshire on September 17, 2015. When asked by one young man how he would bring back the American Dream, Trump replied:
Look. We can bring the American Dream back. That I will tell you. We’re bringing it back. Okay? And I understand what you’re saying. And I get that from so many people. ‘Is the American Dream dead?’ They are asking me the question, ‘Is the American Dream dead?’ And the American Dream is in trouble. Okay? It’s in trouble. But we’re going to get it back and do some real jobs. How about that man with that beautiful red hat? Stand up! Stand up! What a hat! (transcribed by author; C-SPAN, 2015).
While his audience had a good laugh, they were distanced from the deeper meaning of a sincere question. If Trump intended to implement these ideals for a greater America, they remained at great odds with the reality of his campaign rhetoric. For example, among the visual components of Trump’s mimicry of Kovaleski was everyone’s determination to “Make America Great Again”, evidenced by individual audience members holding small MAGA posters. The mantra is literally upheld while they laugh at Trump’s representation of the reporter. Trump’s dependence on humor and humiliation are defining characteristics of the political spectacle conceptualized here. Yet it is uncertain as to what this interpretation of the American dream could imply for future generations when the beacon of American prosperity, the office of president, can target even the most vulnerable at such a personal level.
In addition to evoking an affective reaction from his immediate audience, Trump’s mimicry of Kovaleski was rewarded with much attention by the press. As has been suggested, affective responses may validate negative events, such as terrorism, as art, while audiences struggle to process the unexpected nature of the experience at hand of the experience. Trump’s success in pushing his audience past the limits of what they were previously hesitant to condone is evidence of the negative sublime in action. Much of the same could be said for his political opponents, establishment politicians that could not adequately cope with Trump’s dissention from candidate protocol or his own party’s values.
Many of his attacks and insults, as in the case of his mimicry of Kovaleski, were accompanied by cheers and laughing, such as when he made threats to hostile protesters in January 2016, telling his supporters, “Knock the crap out of ‘em, would you? Seriously, OK, just knock the hell. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise, I promise” (Bump, 2016). During a March 2016 rally, a Trump supporter, John McGraw, acted on this plea, punching a protester who was being led out by police. When media
asked McGraw if the protester deserved to be hit, McGraw responded, “Yes he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him” (Bump, 2016). It is this violent behavior and audience collaboration, incited by Trump, that qualifies his rallies as the negative sublime, stunning visuals that grab the public’s attention via negative qualities rather than through the divine and beautiful.
The negative sublime was most noticeably exhibited through terror (Berleant, 2009), and for our argument Trump’s performances do not cease to provide examples of destructive evocations. Despite the turmoil the United States has experienced during the last several years from domestic terrorist actions and gun violence, Trump bombastically claimed during a rally in Iowa in January 2016 , “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” which generated audience laughter (Diamond, 2016). While these statements were shocking, Trump stood correct in his assumption that his followers were loyal to him. His transgressive political behavior emulated the negative sublime of found artists and for that he became an experience of negative qualities that continued to push voters to new limits of consideration and collaboration.
Though much hand-wringing and opinioneering has been spent on this fact that Trump was ultimately elected president, we believe that this question goes beyond partisan ideology, strength of competition, or even verbal and mediated incivility. Throughout this analysis, we have examined how found art and the Happenings effectively transmitted affect and feelings related to the negative sublime. The affective exchanges facilitated by Kaprow’s ephemeral Happenings events are comparable to the calls for violence exhibited in Trump rallies, whether physically or verbally. Relating Trump’s campaign events back to aesthetics, the driving force behind the negative sublime’s effectiveness is its concentration of affect, which may circumvent the rational message receptors within the spectators, thus allowing the magnitude of the spectacle to drop their defenses. In like manner, Trump’s rally performances promoted a mutual exchange of affect with his audiences, allowing him to evade immediate scrutiny for his political transgressions. Much like the parallels between the Happenings movement, the affective potency of Trump’s rally spectacles is not solely generated from the object, whether that be Trump or the physical space in which he operates. Affect is driven by the lived experience enjoyed (or suffered) by the viewers as participants in the spectacle. This observation is most readily apparent through a visual
Trump Affect: Considering Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign as Found Art analysis of Trump’s public mocking of a disabled reporter.
In this way, Trump’s campaign was more of an aesthetic spectacle than a political one, harnessing the power of the negative sublime to disrupt perceptions of traditional American politics. Like the affective environments cultivated by found art exhibitions, Trump’s presidential campaign employed the negative sublime for disruptive purposes. These affective environments could be observed in his campaign’s calls for violence and attempts at humiliation to transform anti-establishment behavior into a sensual affective experience for his audience.
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Suggested Citation:
Husselbee, L. P. (2023). Getting to the end zone: Scoring a touchdown through collaborative learning in online sports public relations instruction. Utah Journal of Communication, 1(1), 36-42. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7796450
The Course
Public Relations in Sports is a 3000-level undergraduate course that focuses on using public relations techniques and tactics to develop beneficial relationships with stakeholders and publics on behalf of sports organizations. Topics include integrating public relations with strategic management; combining print, broadcast, online, and social media with nontraditional tactics, such as newsjacking and guerrilla marketing, to create effective public relations campaigns. The course also emphasizes crisis management techniques and corporate social responsibility.
The syllabus describes the class as a football game and introduces the appropriate lexicon. Students are players; the instructor is the head coach. Learning objectives are the game plan. The text is known as the playbook, while the modules are called strategies. Individual assessments are the statistics; they are part of the overall assessment known as the box score. Assignments and graded activities are listed on the scoreboard, which includes weekly content quizzes, or Field Goals, and the collaborative
class activity, known as the Touchdown Project. The Touchdown Project is divided into eight group assignments known as First Downs; each First Down assignment includes a collaborative group discussion called a Huddle.
By design, this course is available online only. The online learning platform is Canvas. Huddles (group discussions) make liberal use of the Canvas discussion forum. Smaller work groups known as squads sometimes meet via Zoom based on the players’ convenience and preference. However, because the course is asynchronous, squad Zoom meetings are optional.
One of the key objectives in the game plan is for players to be able to articulate appropriate applications of print, broadcast, online, and social media to public relations tactics, and to combine those tactics with non-traditional tactics (newsjacking, guerrilla marketing, etc.) in development of effective public relations campaigns on behalf of clients and sports organizations. Public relations practitioners
frequently collaborate as members of teams or groups assigned to conceive and execute campaigns and the tactics that drive them. Often, campaign teams work remotely; it is not uncommon for practitioners to live and work in different states. This course engages students in collaborative, hands-on learning; the Touchdown Project is designed to require the students to work together in a remote setting to apply the curriculum to a real-world challenge: a major sports public relations campaign.
Research suggests that collaborative learning and engagement are essential to effective teaching of hands-on skills in diverse fields, including visual design (Coorey, 2022), language acquisition (Ujhelyi-Wojciechowski, 2022; Barth, 1999), and public relations (Coombs & Rybacki, 1999; Fraustino, Briones, & Janoske, 2015; Moore, 2014). While collaborative learning and engagement are similar, there are key differences. Laal and Laal (2012) defined collaborative learning as education involving “groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product” (p. 491). As such, collaborative learning is interactive (Moore, 2014). Finn and Zimmer (2012) argue that engagement goes beyond collaborative learning; engaged students cooperate, but they are also tasked with selfdirection and self-governance in collaborative projects.
Smallwood and Brunner (2017) wrote that, when instructors combine collaborative learning with engagement in group projects that emulate real-world application of knowledge and skills, they work alongside students; however, they also encourage and compel students to be active participants by delegating responsibility for decision-making. Within reason, they allow students to make and learn from their mistakes. Ujhelyi-Wojciechowski (2022) recommended that teachers serve as facilitators by creating conditions that ensure balanced participation and mutual respect, listening to ideas from engaged, collaborative learners, and guiding students in their reflections and choices. In this vein, Barth (1999) wrote that faculty must become “le médiateur entre l’éleve et le domaine des savoirs” — the mediator between the student and the domain of knowledge (p. 55).
Blumenfeld et al. (2016) argued that the way groups are organized has a significant effect on the efficacy of their work. Other factors include the tasks themselves, learner participation, and accountability measures. Instructors, they wrote, “must consider the purposes in designing group work and address potential problems of process if group work is to be successful” (p. 37).
Fostering collaboration and engagement is more challenging when courses are taught entirely online. Moore (2014) argued that the need for collaboration and engagement is more pronounced in online public relations courses because the nature of the profession requires hands-on training and experience, as well as independent thought.
The group assignment that serves as the term paper in this course is a realistic public relations campaign aimed at promoting an underdog candidate, Southern Utah quarterback Tyson Justice, for the Heisman Trophy. In reality, of course, there is no Tyson Justice. However, he is based on a former SUU quarterback who allowed his likeness and image to be used for the campaign. Using images and game film supplied by the sports marketing arm of the SUU Athletics Department, the instructor brought Tyson to life by creating realistic media resources, such as newspaper and magazine articles, video highlights, radio interviews, and press releases. In addition, a contrived media-guide profile provides personal information, annual and career statistics, career highlights, honors and awards, etc. Although the campaign team is aware that Tyson is a fictitious person, every effort has been made to humanize him by as a standout athlete, a superior football player, an excellent studentathlete, and the epitome of a kind, considerate, moral person.
When Tyson is introduced to the class, players are instructed to consider themselves employees of Excelsior Group, a fictitious Las Vegas sports marketing and public relations firm, and that they will work under the direction of Jim Naziam, Vice President for Campaign Services (and former SUU star basketball player). Moreover, they learn that Tyson is considered “the real deal” — a bona fide NFL prospect whose statistics, performance, and moral character merit consideration for the Heisman Trophy. Finally, they are told that an anonymous donor has earmarked a $100,000 contribution to SUU Athletics on the stipulation that it be used to promote Tyson Justice for the Heisman Trophy. Jim Naziam tells Excelsior employees that he expects their campaign plan to earn the bid from SUU Athletics to execute the campaign.
The semester begins with the players, who are now members of the campaign team, in possession of the ball at their own 20-yard line. To reach the end zone and score a touchdown, they must create an effective campaign — one that persuades national college football media voters to include Tyson Justice as one of three players they’re permitted to name on their Heisman Trophy ballots. The strategies
(curriculum) are designed to engage players as they cooperate on eight First Down assignments that will take them to the end zone. Each First Down assignment includes a Huddle, wherein participation in a focused discussion encourages collaboration. As part of each Huddle, players are divided into squads and tasked with specific duties that contribute to achievement of the First Down objectives. Once those duties are completed and submitted to the group, players reconvene in the Huddle to consider and critique one another’s ideas and performance.
The first module of the semester provides an overview of what goes into the individual steps of creating an effective sports public relations campaign plan. Subsequent modules and their accompanying assignments are designed to engage players in such a way that they cooperate and collaborate while putting what they learn in action. Here is a summary of the eight First Down assignments:
First Down 1 — Secondary Research. Players begin this assignment by using the media resources provided in a Google Drive folder to become acquainted with Tyson Justice. These resources include newspaper and featurelength magazine articles, video highlights, radio interviews, podcasts, pages from the SUU football media guide, press releases, etc. After becoming familiar with the campaign, players conduct secondary research on the Heisman Trophy, its origins and history, when and how it is awarded, the process for selecting the winner and who is involved, selection criteria, etc. They seek and summarize academic research on issues such as voting trends and accompanying fluctuation, regional bias in voting patterns, and statistical probabilities in the three-tiered ballots cast by voters. When the secondary research is complete, players work in squads to write research summaries that serve as guidelines for articulating the goals and objectives of the campaign. Parts of these summaries are later repurposed for inclusion in the campaign plan.
First Down 2 — Goals and Objectives.
Guided in part by the research summaries written for the previous assignment and what they learn about formulating campaign goals and objectives, players collaborate to identify the campaign’s specific goals and objectives. The primary goal — to execute a campaign that results in Tyson Justice winning the Heisman Trophy — tends to be obvious to most players. However, identifying and articulating secondary goals, the supporting objectives, and desired outcomes associated with each goal requires cooperative effort. The head coach engages players in this Huddle to help guide their efforts
to keep the campaign team from going down a rabbit hole that will sink the entire campaign from the outset.
Guided by the goals and objectives articulated in the previous assignment and what they learn about identifying stakeholders and target publics, players collaborate to select the target audiences for campaign messages, both on a wide scale (stakeholders) and a more focused scale (publics). Each stakeholder group and its accompanying publics must be described in specific detail; justification of choices based on secondary research is required. At larger stages of the campaign, players sometimes realize they have failed to identify a key public at this stage. They are permitted to return to First Down 3 and add that public to the campaign plan, although doing so sometimes results in corresponding adjustments to subsequent First Down assignments.
First Down 4 — Key Messages and Channels.
Guided by secondary research, campaign goals and objectives, and target audiences, players collaborate to develop the key messages of the campaign. Then, based on what they have learned in class about public relations channels and tactics, they must select appropriate channels for communicating key messages. Appropriate channels often include directcontact, indirect-contact, and non-traditional channels borrowed from marketing. As with First Down 3, players sometimes realize later in the campaign that they have failed to identify key messages or channels at this stage. They are permitted to return to First Down 4 to reconsider and/or add key messages or channels. Again, sometimes this requires additional work in subsequent steps, especially budgeting.
First Down 5 — Budget.
As noted previously, an anonymous donor has pledged up to $100,000 to fund the campaign. The players understand that they may spend less, but they may not spend more. Also, they are informed that unused funds from the $100,000 pledge will not be absorbed by the SUU Athletics Department budget. Therefore, they should not skimp on the campaign to reallocate funding for other department initiatives. In this assignment, players work together to prioritize messages and channels, setting a realistic budget with detailed descriptions of cost breakdowns required to execute the campaign. An effective budget includes realistic cost estimates for human resources, primary research activities (surveying or focus groups), delivery of key messages through mediated channels, other public relations tactics, and materials/supplies.
First Down 6 — Strategies and Tactics.
This step is easily the one the players enjoy the
most. It engages them in collaborative learning and cooperative formulation of the creative ideas that serve as the meat of the campaign —the proposed strategies and tactics designed to achieve each objective and attain the overall goal. In this assignment, students work together to produce message exemplars for a wide-ranging gamut of mediated and non-mediated channels. These exemplars are described in detail in the campaign plan itself and are provided as part of an appendix.
Because this is a course in sports public relations, the players are exposed to the importance of crisis communication. In this assignment, they tasked with working together to develop a crisis plan to be activated in case of an unexpected situation or occurrence that could significantly damage Tyson Justice’s credibility and candidacy for the Heisman Trophy. After the plan is complete, the head coach springs an unexpected surprise on the students in the form of a TMZ Sports report about Tyson Justice that has the potential to explode into a fullblown crisis for the campaign. The players work together to activate the crisis plan and deal with the simulated crisis. The crisis plan itself is later included in the campaign plan.
Near the end of the semester, the players work together to create a campaign plan that includes edited or repurposed content from the previous seven First Down assignments. The campaign plan must demonstrate familiarity with Tyson Justice; understanding of Heisman Trophy tradition, history, and selection process/criteria; campaign goals and objectives; identification of stakeholders and target publics; key messages and channels; thorough description of strategies and tactics, accompanied the exemplars; a crisis plan and how it would be executed, if needed; specific steps and a sequential timeline with target dates for executing the campaign and accomplishing each objective; and specific, measurable criteria for evaluating whether the campaign was effective and achieved its goals. When the campaign plan is complete and perfected, it is converted to a PDF file and shared with the players so that they have something for their portfolios. The campaign plan bears the name of each team member. In the future, when prospective employers ask, “Have you ever worked on a sports public relations campaign?” players will be able to share the Touchdown Project campaign plan with pride and confidence.
Each First Down assignment includes a Huddle, convened in a Canvas discussion forum created specifically for that assignment. With a First Down assignment pending, players report to the Huddle early in the week. One of the players is designated to serve as the quarterback; he/ she/they is/are responsible for leading the discussion, in consultation with the head coach. The head coach engages the quarterback in individual instruction before the Huddle and is present during the Huddle to comment or offer advice as needed. However, it is clear to the players that the quarterback cannot be expected to carry the ball without blocking. All players must contribute to the Huddle; part of the statistics (assessment) includes depth and quality of participation in the Huddle.
Unlike an actual football huddle, the quarterback is not the only person permitted to speak in the Huddle. Cooperate and collaboration are critical as players engage one another and exchange ideas. In most cases, after the initial Huddle dialogue, the quarterback “calls the play” by assigning players to smaller groups known as squads and assigning each squad to fulfill specific responsibilities associated with the First Down assignment. Squads and responsibilities are generally assigned in consultation with the head coach, but the quarterback actually calls the play in the Huddle. Each player is then responsible to work with the other members of his/her/their squad to contribute to the First Down assignment. After each squad fulfills its responsibilities, the results are posted in the Huddle forum, and players return to the Huddle for additional discussion and revision. Consensus is achieved when all players agree that the overall First Down assignment is complete.
Quarterback responsibilities are rotated to provide leadership opportunities to as many students as possible. Also, by consulting with the quarterback before the play is called, the head coach tries to ensure that players are assigned to work with different teammates, emulating conditions in a real-world sports public relations agency.
In general, most groups create an excellent campaign plan, beginning with detail summaries introducing Tyson Justice and describing the Heisman Trophy, its origins and history, when and how it is awarded, the process for selecting the winner and who is involved, selection criteria, etc.
Typical goals and objectives include the following:
Goal 1 — To execute a public relations campaign that results in Southern Utah quarterback Tyson Justice winning the 2023 Heisman Trophy.
Objective 1a — To promote Tyson Justice as a legitimate candidate deserving of the Heisman Trophy to the national sports news media, especially those members of the media who cast Heisman Trophy ballots.
Objective 1b — To create awareness among past Heisman Trophy winners of Tyson Justice as a quality football player and as a man of character and integrity.
Goal 2 — To promote SUU football as a national college football brand.
Objective 2a — To create awareness among influential people in college football that SUU is a quality program that should be considered on the same level as other top FCS schools.
Objective 2b — To dispel regional bias toward Tyson Justice, FCS football, and the Western Athletic Conference among national media representatives, Heisman Trophy voters, and other college football opinion leaders.
Typical stakeholders and publics include the following:
Stakeholders, Objective 1a — The national sports news media who cover or otherwise publicize college football. These people are opinion leaders in the sports world whose coverage and commentary will influence which players are considered as legitimate candidates for the Heisman Trophy.
Target Public — Members of the national sports news media who cover or otherwise publicize college football and cast Heisman Trophy ballots.
Stakeholders, Objective 1b — Opinion leaders who do not work in the sports news media but nevertheless influence public attitudes and views regarding college football. These individuals have clout; when they talk people listen.
Target Public — Former Heisman Trophy winners, especially those who have expressed concern about the shame and embarrassment that have tarnished the award based on the actions of Heisman recipients in the relatively recent past.
Stakeholders, Objective 2a — Opinion leaders in the sports news media and others who influence public attitudes and views regarding college football.
Target Publics — National sports news media who cover college football and vote in the weekly Associated Press Top
25 poll during the regular season; and members of the American Football Coaches Association who vote in the weekly FCS national coaches poll during the regular season.
Stakeholders, Objective 2b — National sports news media and college football opinion leaders in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, South, and Southwest regions.
Target Public — All Heisman Trophy voters in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, South, and Southwest regions.
Typical key messages and channels include the following:
Key Messages, Objective 1a
• Tyson Justice is one of the most effective college football players in the country; he performs at an elite level on the field each week.
• Tyson Justice is a catalyst for team success based on his exemplary peformance on the field and leadership on and off the field.
• Tyson Justice’s superior skills are reflected in his statistics, which compare favorably with the statistics of previous Heisman winners.
Channels
• Direct-contact: Organizational media (media guide, media day, personal and media interviews, photo ops, SUU Athletics website with blog)
• Direct-contact: Social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)
• Indirect-contact: Broadcast and electronic media (radio/TV interviews, highlight packages, podcasts)
• Non-traditional contact (guerrilla marketing, newsjacking)
Key Messages, Objective 1b
• In addition to his superior athletic performance, Tyson Justice embodies the personal traits and characteristics that make him an ideal Heisman Trophy candidate, including the following:
» He is an exemplary leader who places the interests of his team and teammates ahead of his own.
» He represents commitment to SUU, his family, and his religious faith through his words and actions.
» He is a kind, humble, pleasant individual who demonstrates respect and concern for other people.
» He is committed to social justice and racial equality, using his national platform as a standout athlete to encourage meaningful change.
» He reflects the values of the Heisman Trust in such a way that he will be a model ambassador for college football
in the future, perpetuating the tradition established by previous Heisman winners.
Channels
• Direct-contact: Organizational media (personal and media interviews, photo ops, SUU Athletics website with blog)
• Direct-contact: Social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)
• Indirect-contact: Broadcast and electronic media (radio/TV interviews, highlight packages, podcasts)
• Non-traditional contact (Partnership/brand ambassadorship, Stand for Something, newsjacking)
Key Message, Objective 2a
• SUU is a formidable football team and program that features skilled players who can complete at the national college level.
Channels
• Direct-contact: Social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)
• Indirect-contact: Broadcast and electronic media (radio/TV interviews, highlight packages, podcasts)
• Non-traditional contact (guerrilla marketing, newsjacking)
Key Messages, Objective 2b
• The quality of competition in FCS football and in the Western Athletic Conference is such that SUU football consideration on both regional and national levels.
• As one of the best players in the history of FCS football and the Western Athletic Conference, Tyson Justice merits consideration on both regional and national levels. As such, he has earned serious consideration as a Heisman Trophy candidate.
Channels
• Direct-contact: Social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)
• Indirect-contact: Broadcast and electronic media (radio/TV interviews, highlight packages, podcasts)
• Non-traditional contact (Partnership/ brand ambassadorship, guerrilla marketing, newsjacking)
Typical strategies and tactics for all goals and objectives include the following:
• Social media campaign featuring a carefully planned message calendar for Twitter, Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook
• Organizational media, including an abbreviated media guide focusing on Tyson Justice’s candidacy for the Heisman Trophy; a proposed media day or media event, accompanied by a media kit; ideas for proposed photo ops; and a website accompanied by a blog (purported to be written by Tyson Justice but in reality,
ghost-written by a member of the SUU Athletics marketing staff)
• Earned media content achieved through personal contact with print, broadcast, electronic, and online media, including stories, feature-length articles, interviews, highlight packages, podcasts, blogs, etc.
• Partnership/brand ambassadorship achieved through an NIL agreement with an appropriate sponsor who will, in turn, provide additional free publicity and earned media content to promote Tyson Justice for the Heisman Trophy
• “Stand for Something” social-issues campaign in which Tyson Justice speaks out against sexual assault on college campuses, particularly in cases where intercollegiate athletes are accused perpetrators
• Newsjacking through monitoring of live sports news as it unfolds and spotting opportunities to hijack the story by inserting Tyson Justice at the center of subsequent conversations through expert commentary and social media messages
• Guerrilla marketing to increase awareness of Tyson Justice’s brand through unconventional marketing strategies that add to an existing urban/sports environment and attract attention by their mere presence
Perhaps the best example of the latter tactic came from a group that proposed waiting for Tyson Justice to have a particularly outstanding performance, going to the site of ESPN’s College Game Day broadcast the following Saturday, and setting up a larger-than-life mannequin dressed to look like Tyson and posed in the manner of the Heisman Trophy near the Game Day set. The obvious goal is to attract the attention and notice of both the Game Day broadcasters/producers and targeted stakeholders and publics. Other than a few tweets to get the ball rolling from contrived Twitter fan accounts, the campaign and SUU Athletics marketing staff remain silent on the stunt until after it has become national news.
Whether the Touchdown Project is an effective learning vehicle usually hinges on two factors.
First, the “buy-in” of learners is a critical factor. In one case in particular, students seemed to lack the motivation or willingness to participate whole-heartedly in the term project. No amount of instructor enthusiasm, solicitation of student input or feedback, or big-picture illustration of the project’s potential benefits proved effective in getting this particular team off the bench and into the game. So-called “Come-to-Jesus” conversations, individually or collectively, were equally ineffective. This group was not interested
in doing anything more than mediocre to belowaverage work. Midway through the semester, the Touchdown Project was converted into an individual project, with predictably belowaverage results.
Second, the number of learners enrolled in the course has can affect how well the assignment fulfills its purpose. The ideal class size is 12 students. This is a manageable number of students that allows two-thirds of the class leadership opportunities as quarterback of one of the Huddles. (The remaining one-third of the class is assigned leadership duties in terms of writing, editing, and designing the campaign plan or overseeing the presentation to the client.) A class of 12 students also allows for parts of First Down assignments to be delegated to four squads of three players each or three squads of four players each. Obviously, classes of 10 to 14 students are manageable, but 12 is the ideal number. In larger classes (20 to 24 students), we have two campaign teams, which actually becomes more fun because the teams compete with each other and play their cards close to the vest in terms of identifying goals, objectives, stakeholders, publics, key messages, channels, strategies, and tactics.
References
Barth, B.M. (1999). Comment avons-nous appris ce que nous savons? Transversalités, 71, 51-72.
Blumenfeld, P. C., Marx, R. W., Soloway, E., & Krajcik, J. (2016). Learning with peers: From small group cooperation to collaborative communities. Educational Researcher, 25(8), 3740.
Coombs W.T., & Rybacki K. (1999). Public relations: Where is pedagogy? Public Relations Review, 25, 55-58.
Coorey, J. (2022). Cooperative learning in design education. International Journal of Design Education, 16(1), 117-126.
Fraustino J. D., Briones R., Janoske M. (2015). Can every class be a Twitter chat? Crossinstitutional collaboration and experiential learning in the social media classroom. Journal of Public Relations Education, 1, 1-18.
Laal, M., & Laal, M. (2012). Collaborative learning: What is it? Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 31. 491-495.
Moore J. (2014). Effects of online interaction and instructor presence on students’ satisfaction and success with online undergraduate public relations courses. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 69, 271-288.
Smallwood, A.M.K., & Brunner, B.R. (2017). Engaged learning through online collaborative publications projects across universities. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 72, 442-460.
Ujhelyi-Wojciechowski, L. (2022). Guianza de estudiantes hacia un aprendiaje autónomo del Latín a través de proyetcos pedagógicos. Forma y Función, 35(2), 1-21.
The UJOC Managing Board is now accepting manuscripts for the next two issues of the UJOC, which will be published in Novemeber 2023 and May 2024, respectively.
The UJOC aims to be a general forum for communication scholarship, and all theoretical approaches and methods of scholarly inquiry are welcome. Submitted manuscripts should make original contributions to academic research in communication studies and address critical, theoretical, and empirical questions in communication relevant to scholars within and across specializations.
The UJOC is an open access journal available to all at no cost. While articles by scholars living in Utah, as well as articles covering topics particularly relevant to Utah are especially welcome, we encourage authors from all places to submit their work to this issue of the UJOC. Every paper receives full consideration regardless of any Utah connection. At least one article of each issue will be reserved for a current masters or doctoral candidate.
All submitted manuscripts should include an abstract of 100-200 words and five keywords. The standard article length is 3000-4000 words, including references, tables, figures, and notes. The organization is mainly dependent on the methodological tradition used. However, all submitted manuscripts should include a title page, an introduction, a literature review, a methodological summary, a report of results and findings, a discussion that explains the impact and analysis of the study, and a conclusion that considers the study’s limitations and implications for future research. The UJOC adheres strictly to the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA 7). Submitted manuscripts should include:
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Books under review should have been published within last three years. The subject of book must be relevant to the field of comunication, as well as the the focus and scope of the UJOC. The subject of the book should also be relevant to the expertise and field of study or practice of the reviewer; one must possess adequate knowledge or background in the subject. Reviewers should also avoid books written by an author they know personally, or for which there may exists some real or perceived conflict of interest. Reviewers should also avoid subjects about which you feel strong emotion or that you do not believe you can review fairly and professionally.
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GIFTs
Occasionally, the UJOC will publish “Great Ideas For Teaching” articles that focus on innovative pedagogy. Articles include original teaching ideas, lesson plans, semester-long activities, and classroom assessments.
Communication educators in all contexts are invited to submit original teaching activities for classroom implementation. Activities may address any communication course, including research methods, technologies, theory, interpersonal, intercultural, instructional, mass, organizational, public relations, media studies, and public speaking, whether introductory or advanced. Single Class submissions should generally contain no more than 1500 words.
This may entail an original teaching activity that takes place throughout an entire class unit that spans several days or weeks. A unit activity should follow the same format as the single class activity, and should contain no more than 2000 words.
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Communication educators in all contexts are invited to submit original assessment research. Assessment involves systematic reflection upon and analysis of instructional practices and challenges communication educators to monitor student learning as well as improve the quality of specific courses or overall programs. Assessment articles should be data driven, qualitative or quantitative. Assessment research provides educators an opportunity to modify their instructional practices based on the results of such studies. Submissions should generally contain no more than 3,500 words.
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Manuscripts considered by the UJOC Managing Board to be of sufficient quality and in line with the UJOC mission will be sent to two members of the UJOC Editorial Board. The editorial board editors will serve as the peer reviewers of the double-blind review for those works deemed ready for external review. Publication judgements will be based on reviewer feedback and the Editorial Board’s own reading of the submission materials. All reviewer feedback is then sent to the UJOC Managing Board, which will send a final decision letter to the corresponding author. In most instances, authors can expect decisions on initial submissions within 30 days. Because manuscripts receive expert review, this time may vary. The UJOC Managing Board retains the right to make changes in accepted manuscripts that do not substantially alter meaning, as well as for grammatical, stylistic, and spatial considerations.
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Utah Journal of Communication
Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2023
Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Hayden Coombs
Content Director: Dr. Braden Bagley
Editorial Consultants: Dr. Matthew Barton, Dr. Kevin Stein, Dr. L. Paul Husselbee
ISSN: 2834-5592
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Publisher: Zenodo
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Copyright 2022, Utah Journal of Communication
All articles published in the UJOC are included free to the public and open-access under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
“Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.”
- Gerald R. Ford
