Do We Ever Listen?
of NPR:
Later, Joe Scarborough doubled down on his tweet. "Fake outrage," he called the response, claiming that he's an equal-opportunity Smile Demander. He explained, "we've called Bernie Sanders grumpy for a year."
Well let's leave aside the fact that Clinton did smile — often — during her speech (maybe Scarborough was too busy tweeting to notice). And let's get to the heart of why this is so irksome, why it's touched a nerve for a lot of women.
Because even women who don't happen to be running for the highest office in the land are all too familiar with men telling them — not asking them, telling them — to smile.
Maybe it starts with well-intentioned grandparents when you're a kid. And then graduates to not-so well-intentioned, unsolicited sidewalk advice when you're older.
This kerfuffle over women and smiling? it's not new territory, though it IS new for a presidential campaign. Back in 1970, the feminist writer Shulamith Firestone proposed her "dream action" for the women's liberation movement: she called for "a smile boycott" in which, she wrote, "all women would instantly abandon their 'pleasing' smiles — henceforth smiling only when something pleased THEM."
Don't think that ever took off, but it's a tantalizing idea.
The Peabody-winning, thirty-year NPR hand begins her reflection, "It must have seemed like a good idea at the time."
And, sure, there's a little bit of sarcasm, there, but that's the point:
If it seemed like a good idea, why?
There are ways to discuss presentation stylistics, and even ways to do so in a useful context.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders' "grumpiness" makes for a useful comparison in a number of ways, becaue it really does separate the issues. To the one, people let the narrative get out of hand; one of their recent debates resulted in headlines about flying sparks and rising heat, while a cable-network blogger I read made the point that the most tense moment of the night erupted with a firm, "Excuse me". The contrast 'twixt the parties' pageants is astounding.
But there is a theatric and cinematic character archetype everyone is avoiding, and for good reason. The character is rarely at the center of the screen, and we haven't really seen in much in recent years; it passed muster in part because of the number of Jewish people working in entertainment, and if we track back through television we might remember that Jewish stereotypes have been close to the heart of American TV comedy from the outset. Neil Simon, the great comedic foil of Jewish-American culture, got his break writing for Phil Silvers, and if I wanted to cast Bernie Sanders in a Neil Simon play, the first thing to mind is
God's Favorite; Sanders is a little old to play Joe Benjamin, but that's less of a constriction because he's a male, and, besides, his voice and body language are nearly perfect for the role. That and
Prisoner of Second Avenue, and maybe
The Sunshine Boys, though that was most recently covered by Danny DeVito and Judd Hirsch. But that's about as close as I see it to a main character, and even those are much more dramatic styles.
Because the thing is that we're actually supposed to look down on this variation. Sure, it's only a little, but in its most extreme we would call it
exasperatingly silly ranting Jewish man; generally speaking, we get little doses from the chorus and at the edge of the frame―the point is to actually suggest crackpottery.
And I've heard it all my life, and never really noticed it until now. And we're not hitting Sanders for this for a reason. It would be hitting him for a stereotype of Jewishness. It is, actually, a pretty good exercise for people; one of the reasons stereotypes stick around is that most have other priorities that come before trying to figure out a better way of saying it.
And it is true that Bernie Sanders can sometimes be gruff and imposing; it is true that Hillary Clinton can be similarly forceful. But when we look at the moment in question, all of these generalizations fall away.
In the moment, the basic purpose of the presentation is clear: She is in front of a live audience at a rally where she is supposed to raise her voice and try to stir these people up. To wit,
that's why it's called a rally.
So it seems particularly lazy when one determined to find something to complain about settles on a woman raising her voice. Howard Kurtz's crtique is also specifically wrong. It's one thing to suggest accidental nexes of circumstance that have nothing to do with sexism, but neither are people going to believe the factors pile up like that over and over again just by accidental coincidence; these outcomes are a result of priorities. These men needed a critique; they could not be bothered to think of a useful one, so plucked easy, low-hanging nuts.
Brit Hume made the point: A woman raising her voice can only be angry. Again, the critique requires we ignore the
setting. Glenn Thrush's nonsensical bit seems to rely on a comfortable presupposition that a woman raising her voice can only be shouting and that there is something wrong with a woman behaving that way.
And Joe?
Yeah, maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Would we rely on anti-Semitism to hit Bernie Sanders?
Why should we rely on misogyny to hit Hillary Clinton?
No, seriously, if you've ever done or been witness to that bit where you wave your hands around and say something like,
"Vhat? Vhat is that? Vhat are you talking about? Ah, that is such [insert Yiddish or fake-Yiddish nonsense word here]!" then you know this trope. It really is that common. But we don't hit Bernie Sanders for caricatures of Jewishness, and that is how it should be. Why should it be fair to hit Hillary Clinton for caricatures of womanhood?
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Notes:
Block, Melissa. "Think Twice Before Telling A Woman To Smile". Weekend Edition. 19 March 2016. NPR.org. 20 March 2016. http://n.pr/1Pk6ek6
