Sex Scandals, "Responsible Fatherhood" and the 2008 Election Campaign:
When "Sex Talk" Trumps Race and Class
After reviewing the 2008 election campaign season, a newcomer to U.S.
politics could reasonably conclude that Americans are obsessed with sex.
The media kept up a steady stream of sex scandal coverage. And with each
breaking story, the press and blogosphere ferreted out the seediest
details, the miscreant offered his penitent confessions, and his
long-suffering wife stood by her man. Whether it was Sen. Larry Craig
(R-ID) being arrested in a sting operation after soliciting an
undercover police officer in the men's room of the Minneapolis airport,
or Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York being caught in a
wiretap investigation arranging dates with the sex workers of a high-end
escort service, or John Edwards being pressed to confess an
extra-marital affair with a campaign worker after exiting the Democratic
Party's nomination race, there were entire weeks in which mainstream
news outlets talked non-stop about sex.
From a feminist perspective, this coverage falls far short of the
mark. In this paper, I want to make two arguments about the 2008
campaign. First, that coverage of the sex scandals is actually
symptomatic of neoliberalism, the right-wing ideology dictating that
virtually every public matter could be properly resolved if we gave free
rein to the capitalist market. In particular, sex scandals in America
are a product of a corporate media that puts profits first and social
justice last. Second, that there were, in fact, serious sexual politics
issues at play in the election. I am especially interested in how the
family values agenda of the religious right is being re-packaged as
centrist, and the complicated ways in which race is deeply woven through
issues as diverse as single mother-headed families and abstinence
education. However, these crucially important openings for feminist
critique are being all but ignored in the corporate media's
sensationalist sound-byte (or nano-byte) coverage. To take but one
example, I will touch on President Obama's "Responsible Fatherhood"
initiative. The race and class politics deeply embedded in this
invocation of "family values" need to be recognized and brought to the
fore.
Sex Scandals in the U.S. Media: The Neoliberal-Imperialist
Interest in "All Monica, All the Time" Coverage
The use of sexual humiliation techniques at Abu Graib and Guantanamo
ought to go down in history as the most significant sexual scandals of
our period. However, the corporate press does not prioritize human
rights in its coverage of American politics; it is oriented instead
toward profit-seeking, audience-capturing, and the perfection of
multimedia synergy (the complementary promotion of a single
conglomerate's cultural products, whether in publishing, the recording
industry, film, television news, consumer goods, weapons systems, and so
on.) Thus, we are fed a junk food diet of sex scandal, sensationalism,
and celebrity drivel. The lines between "news reporting," commercial
advertisement, and mindless entertainment are almost imperceptible.
Why is sexual scandal so well suited to the commercial agenda of the
corporate media in the U.S.? After all, we could imagine a completely
different culture in which other distractions would fit the bill, and
the popular media operates differently in other countries. Here we must
remember not only the Puritanical dimension of the dominant paradigm for
thinking about sex in the U.S. but also our anti-feminist and
apocalyptic context. Sexual scandal gives us an opportunity to indulge
in the pleasures of voyeurism, even as we claim to condemn immorality.
It provides a compelling stage upon which we can organize women into
their proper roles: either as Jezebels (e.g., the sex worker or the
adultress) or the handmaidens of God (e.g., the politician's
long-suffering wife). Lee Quinby argues that we Americans inhabit a
common secularized apocalyptic paradigm: we are all influenced, more or
less, by the idea that we are living in the "end times." The clash of
mighty civilizations is upon us.[1]
Virile masculinity will go forth to
triumph, albeit in a manner suited to our post-feminist times. As Iris
Marion Young puts it, today's brand of rediscovered masculinity is
uplifted through its chivalrous relation with feminine moral virtue.[2]
Within the apocalyptic paradigm, sexual scandals indicate that the
final battle and the salvation of true believers are imminent. To the
extent that they consume sexual scandals from this perspective, the
Americans who are struggling with declining real incomes, job loss,
steep increases in fuel costs, and mortgage foreclosures can find some
solace in them. These images of moral descent are the harbinger of
Armageddon. Traditionally, American culture frowns upon the economic
"losers" as work shy and morally suspect. However, the apocalyptic
paradigm teaches us that there are morally good persons who are
scattered among the economic "losers." Because we have descended into
the decadent condition of end times, our judgment is now clouded; the
corrupt elite has unleashed evil forces that are unjustly persecuting
the good and the bad alike. Signs of the apocalypse, to individuals
humiliated by economic failure yet proud of their upstanding moral
character, indicate that this confusion is coming to an end. Their
status as members of the chosen people will be recognized, and they will
finally prevail.[3]
Indeed, the apocalypse narrative can be marshaled by
skilled populist demagogues on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill
O'Reilly, to create the impression that they alone have the capacity to
unmask the evil-doing elites and ensure that the true sentiments of the
people will prevail.
The spectacular collapse of the newspaper industry is only
accelerating the corporate media's exploitation of apocalypticism and
its failure to call demagoguery to account. Even the "serious"
national newspapers are pressed to imitate the bottom-feeding tabloids,
the worst gossip bloggers, and the most lurid punditry by their
corporate directors. The form of the coverage declines from restrained
and cautious disclosure to a "flood the zone" effort designed to give us
"all Monica,[4] all the time."
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