| [an error occurred while processing this directive] |  |  |
 |  | |
| ||
| |||||||
| |||||||
|
| ||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
 Recent commentary from National Journal: Social Studies: On Same-Sex Marriage, Bush Failed The Public And Himself (March 10, 2004) President Bush's support of a constitutional ban on gay marriage amounts to a failure of moral and political vision, and of empathy and imagination. By Jonathan Rauch. Legal Affairs: Should Foreign Law Be Used to Interpret Our Constitution? (March 10, 2004) Conservatives are not alone in worrying about the dangers to our democracy of importing laws and constitutional principles crafted by intellectual elites abroad. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: The Nader Calculation (March 10, 2004) Ralph Nader draws a different lesson from 2000 than most others do. He thinks the election gave him clout. By William Schneider. Wealth of Nations: George Bush and the Labor Market: Like Father, Like Son? (March 3, 2004) If the flight of jobs overseas is not the cause of the current labor-market malaise, what is? And at what point will job growth start to match the economy's growth in output? By Clive Crook. Legal Affairs: 'Enemy Combatants': Inching Toward Due Process (March 3, 2004) The Bush administration's handling of alleged "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay shows signs of paying more heed to the rule of law. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: Positively Negative? (March 3, 2004) John Edwards needs to prove two things to Democrats on Super Tuesday. First, that he is electable. And second, that John Kerry isn't. Otherwise, he faces a long, difficult day. By William Schneider. Media: Cold Feet (March 3, 2004) We may look back one day and wonder why media coverage of the gay-marriage issue never kicked in to the old, familiar fight-for-justice story line evident in the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s. By William Powers. More from National Journal. |
Media 
A Controversial Primer
There's a method to controversies—identifiable patterns, behaviors, and tendencies. by William Powers ..... There is an economy of controversy, and we're all players in it. Every day, new controversies are brought to market and traded on the media's vast exchange. Recent successful offerings include The Dean Scream, Janet's Nipple, Mel and Jesus, and Gay Marriage. What do these stories have in common? Superficially, nothing. The controversy market appears to behave in a totally random fashion, as if each morning somebody rings a bell at the start of trading, and what happens next is anyone's guess. As if controversy were pure madness. But there's a method to this market—identifiable patterns, behaviors, and tendencies. And once you learn them, the business of controversy begins to make a funny kind of sense. So what becomes a controversy most? 1. Vulgarity. Webster's defines it as "the state or quality of being vulgar, crude, coarse, unrefined, etc." It's the oldest route to controversy, and it used to be the easiest. But in the past few decades, the vulgarity bar has been raised higher and higher, to the point where it's nearly vanished. In a world in which people have actual sex on television every day, and pornography is studied at all the best colleges, what exactly is coarse? Vulgarity still sells, but in a limited, short-term way. When Madonna French-kisses Britney Spears, the immediate cultural response is preconscious and automatic, like your leg jumping when the doctor taps your knee. Wait a minute, they can't do that! blurts the mindless, dutiful media. But after a day or two, censure becomes admiration. The lag between shock and acceptance, outlaw and icon, is now down to a few days. Paris Hilton had sex on tape!!! Horrible. Or rather, um, brilliant. Gosh, her show's funny and beloved. Hey, gang, she's America's new sweetheart! Right now we're living through an absurd little moment of vulgarity nostalgia, in which the Janet Jacksons and the Michael Powells of the world are effectively conspiring to restore vulgarity's power. The two sides of the decency debate are having this controversy together, and it's a symbiotic dance that neither really wants to end. If they can only restore vulgarity's power, think of the new business they'll each be able to book. I wouldn't bet on their chances. This appears to be the twilight of vulgarity, so tune in those FCC hearings and get your ya-yas now. 2. Manipulation. It's an odd quirk of human nature: We enjoy being manipulated. More precisely, there's a sick fascination in watching ambitious people working the system for their own selfish ends: ego, power, money. Manipulation is magnetic for a few reasons. We've all done some version of it ourselves, so when we're on the receiving end it has the awful shock of recognition. At the same time, we're constantly on the lookout for the truly naked manipulators, those who take the art to extremes that would embarrass even us. These high-wire manipulators are often chasing controversy itself, and many are very good at getting it. The surest route is to present a veneer of pure high-mindedness while letting your cynical, manipulative self just peek through. Mixed motives simply sizzle. The controversy over The Passion of the Christ began as a debate about the movie's portrait of Jews. But it got its afterburners when it became clear that Gibson was both a sincere believer and a first-rate media manipulator who knew how to push every button on the cultural control board. The more complex and layered the manipulation, the more likely it is to become a controversy. On a smaller stage, the Washington-New York media class was recently transfixed when author Naomi Wolf wrote a cover story for New York magazine, claiming she'd been sexually "encroached on" as a Yale undergraduate two decades ago by prominent professor Harold Bloom. It wasn't Wolf's claim per se that yielded this controversy, but widespread suspicion about her motives. Who was Wolf really standing up for in this big, splashy, curiously delayed controversy? Women in general, as she claimed? Or the career of one very special woman? Say what you will; here was a professional controversialist at the top of her game. 3. Clarity. While complexity is sometimes good, murkiness is always bad. A controversy may have all kinds of angles and subplots, but at the center there must be a nub, a handle you can hold. Crime and sex are the surest fonts of controversy, because they're so easy to grasp. Likewise blatant lying and hypocrisy. Controversies fail when they are based in uncertainty, judgment calls, cloudy evidence. Claims about the president's Texas Air National Guard record have not become a real controversy so far because it's hard to parse what really happened. And Halliburton has none of the clarity of Enron. A controversy needs a high concept, an outrage or a plausible allegation that can be summed up in a sentence. 4. Authenticity. The opposite of manipulation, yet just as potent a source of controversy. Has there been a more authentic human moment in this political season than The Dean Scream? Maybe the media overplayed the notorious clip, took it out of context. But we were drawn to those images, and those wild sounds, for a reason: They were utterly unscripted and unrigged—so much so, it was kind of scary. Something similar is happening right now with gay marriage. Here are all these people in love with each other—in love!—racing off to get married. And here are all these opponents loathing the whole spectacle, but with equal passion and sincerity. The only ones who seem conflicted and phony are the media and the politicians. In an age of hype, image, and staging, real moments like this are so rare, they're controversial.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Powers is media columnist for National Journal. This column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ||
|
Home |
Current Issue |
Back Issues |
Forum |
Site Guide |
Feedback |
Subscribe |
Search
| ||||
