This realization cause me to consider the celebrity standing of American politicians. Do Americans want to meet politicians? Get their autographs? Do people only want to meet the politicians they agree with?
I can speak for myself when I say I think it would be pretty cool to have a picture with the President of The United States of America. Yet, I had this opportunity, and passes it up. Once upon a time, around 2 years ago I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Israel and Jimmy Carter walked right by me. He and I were the only two people in the lobby, other than his very very small and non-presidential like posse. I let him walk right by, with no attempt at even shaking his hand, let alone taking a picture with him. I was so uncomfortable with his recent politics that the site of him repulsed me. It was a sad moment in the joint history of the USA and Alex Lux.
Hopefully next time a president walks by it will be someone I admire.... I know Reagan is out there somewhere :)
Haha I wonder what your reaction would be if you were to walk by President Obama. That being said, I would agree that politicians are like rock stars in a sense, because people are always impressed if they sight them, even if they don't like their music. For most people, being in range of someone famous is something worth a nice lil picture, and I must say that your reaction with regards to Carter is, in my opinion, very unusual. Instead of meeting a famous person and looking forward to sharing that with the people you know, you actually thought about the man standing in front of you, his policies, and his opinions, and you snobed him. Now that's original!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I am going to agree with Ben here. Its a natural feeling to want to meet "celebrities" and famous people. To tie this up with media and politics, I think thats a huge goal of politicians. Politicians would love to have a celebrity like following. This was one of JFK's greatest legacies, he deftly used the media to portray the White House as the new "Camelot", when of course we all know his personal life was full of adultery and physical injuries. And I think that a lot of democrats were trying to tap into that appeal by mentioning JFK in their ads. But no democrat has been charismatic enough to fully utilize that, except for Obama, who has been great at it.
ReplyDeleteBoth interesting comments, thanks.
ReplyDeletensjaphet: Though I know this is tangential, do you think that JFK's affairs hindered his image in anyway? I think it may have added to his celebrity status...
Ben: If obama walked by I would certainly stop and say hello though my opinions don't align with his. There is a difference between respectfully disagreeing and writing someone off.
The initial reaction to want to shake the hand of a famous person, even a politician, is something that I suspect might be universal among most people. However, I would have to say that if I were to encounter in person a politician that I don't agree with as Alex did I might react the same way. On the other hand, if that politician went out of his way to interact with me, or if I was in his presence in any official capacity I would be respectful, as I assume any of us would be. After all, you can disagree with someone, you can even hate them, but they still deserve some measure of respect merited by their political authority and status as a fellow human being. I remember a scene from the West Wing series that best illustrates this point: when the president walked into a room for a press conference or some type of meeting, (only) one of the reporters didn't stand up. The president then switched his intended speech to an improvised one in which he basically said that despite personal feelings, one is obliged to show proper respect to authority figures, especially the leader of a country such as the president.
ReplyDelete