Wednesday, October 15, 2008

McCain-Obama debate preview!!


Hat tip: TPM

Update:
I think part of the brilliance of imagining that clip as a rendition of McCainism is that the old Sixties "Batman" series was, to the best of my knowledge, the first time a genre parodied itself -- the corny dialogue, the improbable scenarios, the ridiculous clean cut nature of the heroes, etc.

Which is of course exactly what McCain's campaign is doing to the Atwater-Rove style of campaigning. I mean, isn't Palin a perfect camp version of GOP's archetype of the true American? She's beyond parody -- which is exactly the definition of campy.

Just the same way that the Batman series was actually making fun of the whole thing, I can't help but wonder if McCain isn't doing the same thing, albeit unwittingly. Then again, as Susan Sontag noted in her magisterial essay on the topic, "you can't do camp on purpose."

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That clip also shows how ineffective it is to try to seriously respond to this kind of thing. I think that's John Kerry in the Batman costume.