Download Alysse Trzeciak

Alysse Trzeciak
23 October 2009
Isabelle Seligo
English 1A-06
Obama 08: ‘Celeb’ We Can Believe In
Since the beginning of television presidential candidates have used T.V. ads to
campaign for the presidency. Some ads appeal to people’s values; some attack other
candidates; some appeal to people’s humor; some do not even mention the candidate they
were made by until the end where they ‘approve this message’. All of these ads use some
type of propaganda to convince you to vote for a certain candidate. Propaganda is defined
as “information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person,
group, movement, institution, nation, etc” (dictionary.com). While some contain
powerful imagery others just show the candidate and talk about his accomplishments or
downfalls. Most campaign ads use actual words of the candidates but some use them in
ways other than the context they were intended for. Throughout history there have been
many memorable television campaign ads however, not all of them have been effective.
One of the most memorable ads from the 2008 campaign was the ad in which Senator
John McCain used the negative connotation of certain celebrities in his ad attacking
Senator Barack Obama called “Celeb” . “Celeb” was ineffective and inferred something
so outrageous that most people did not believe. That Obama would just be another Paris
Hilton.
The ad, called “Celeb”, starts out with and image of the Washington mall packed
with people while chanting Obama’s name, which continues in the background
throughout the ad, and uses images and sounds of paparazzi flash bulbs to transition from
images and video of Obama smiling and waving to crowds to an image of Paris Hilton
(an heiress infamous for her accidentally released sex tape “One night in Paris” and
constantly being featured in the tabloids), then the same flashbulb transition cuts to
Britney Spears (a pop star infamous for letting her fame get the best of her and spiraling
downward into rehab and losing her children). These images are shown while a powerful
woman’s voice says “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world.”(?) When we see these
images of Obama Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears, in sequence our minds automatically
form a relationship between these three familiar faces.
The imagery along with the voice over calling Obama a celebrity is a fusion of
two different types of propaganda, the first of which is the transfer technique. Transfer
propaganda is using imagery or sound to transfer the positive, or in this case negative,
connotation of someone else onto the candidate. Calling Obama a celebrity and showing
Hilton and Spears right after makes us transfer their wrong doings onto Obama and
question his validity. It makes us wonder what he might do if he were elected. Would he
become a target of the tabloids? It is a matter of opinion whether or not this technique is
successful or not, however in this case the latter seems to be true since Obama won the
presidency in 2008. Apparently a majority of people did not think that he was going to
act like a ‘celebrity’ in the sense that Hilton and Spears did.
The second propaganda device used in this section of the ad is name calling.
Name calling is used to associate a nickname with the candidate. One of the biggest
buzzwords of 2008 was ‘maverick’ since it was used to refer to both John McCain and
Sarah Palin in their campaign for office. In this case however they used the technique for
their benefit. The catchy nicknames used in campaign ads often make us simply think
about the name and forget about the evidence. In calling Obama a celebrity his opponents
were trying to convey the message that he was no more than a good public speaker and a
pretty face or in other words, “the popular candidate”. Opponents wanted us, the voting
public, to simply ignore any evidence of how he voted in the senate or his positions on
the real, important issues. The use of name calling in the ad seemed to be bad for McCain
and his constituents, who made the commercial, since we adore our celebrities in
America and love to idolize people. Calling Obama a celebrity in this commercial only
served to boost his popularity.
After all the flashing camera lights, pictures of Spears and Hilton, and the female
narrator calling him the biggest celebrity in the world, the narrator continues, “but is he
ready to lead?”, while large white text zooms into the screen that reads “Is he ready to
lead?”. The chanting of his name, “Obama, Obama”, continues while more images of
people in crowds to see him and hear him speak cycle through our vision. Along with the
imagery comes more narration “With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama says no to
offshore drilling [TEXT: NO OFFSHORE DRILLING] and says he'll raise taxes on
electricity?[TEXT: NEW TAXES] ” (?) Here, the film cuts from Obama speaking to a
very large crowd of people, to a video, without sound, of him seeming to say “what?”
while turning his head from right to left. The film then cuts to a picture of a smiling
Obama’s head with a grey background and to the right of his face it reads, word by word
the text flashes on the screen, cascading down “Higher Taxes, More Foreign Oil”. The
text shows up as the narrator says it, “Higher taxes, more foreign oil, that’s the real
Obama.” And with this the thirty second ad ends.
The technique used in this section is different from the techniques used in
beginning of the ad. Here, McCain’s campaign is using a propaganda technique called
card stacking. As Phil Taylor describes “Card Stacking involves the selection and use of
facts or falsehoods, illustrations or distractions, and logical or Illogical statements in
order to give the best or the worst possible case for an idea, program, person or
product.”(Leeds.ac.uk) McCain’s ad ‘stacks the cards’ against Obama by mentioning
back to back that he will raise taxes and increase our use of foreign oil. To many those
things both seem very bad causing us to subconsciously make the connection that, if
those things are true, Obama must the less qualified candidate to lead our country. This
section of the ad would be effective if people watching just voted based on what they saw
on the screen and did not really look at the facts about why Obama would do these things.
He may want to use more foreign oil sine drilling may deplete the wildlife offshore or he
may want to raise taxes to help get the country out of debt. Because the real reasons he
wanted “More foreign oil and Higher Taxes” differed from the reasons portrayed in the
ad the use of card stacking seemed to be ineffective. The ad uses card stacking again at
the very end when it places, in text, the two claims right next to Obama’s face allowing
us to get a mental picture of Obama and the words new taxes and no foreign oil engrained
in or minds as one image. The McCain campaign is probably hoping that this is the only
thing we remember when we go to vote in November. This technique was also not
effective, though used throughout McCain’s campaign, again since Obama won the
majority of the public’s votes.
The end of the ad ‘that’s the real Obama’ eludes to the mention of Obama as a
celebrity, by making him seem like the celebrities he is compared to, that there is a ‘real
Obama’ and a ‘public Obama’. This revisit contributes to the name calling technique and
is used to reinforce it at a time the viewing public are more likely to remember; towards
the end.
This ad inspired Paris Hilton to create her own campaign ad since her image was
used by the McCain campaign without her consent which is why it was one of the most
memorable ads from last year. However as we know now it was not effective. Barack
Obama won the presidency with fifty-two point nine percent of the popular vote. Calling
him a ‘celebrity’ only made him more popular, unfortunately for McCain. In hindsight, it
is true that Obama is a popular man but referring to him as the type of celebrity that we
associate with Spears and Hilton was an imaginative yet untruthful technique. This ad did
not at all hinder Obama’s campaign for the presidency and even sparked controversy for
McCain. Though it will be remembered by many it has now been proven ineffective.
Works Cited
Taylor, Phil “The Fine Art of Propaganda” Institute of communications studies, University of
Leeds, UK. 22 October 2009.
Foxhole Productions “Celeb (McCain 2008)” Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room
Candidate:
Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2008. 31 Jul 2008. 22