Excuse me, a Senate candidate from Missouri did what in his ad?!
Plus: Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” manuscript and tour wardrobe will be at the Obama Library
Hello, in this issue we’ll look at…
Excuse me, a Senate candidate from Missouri did what in his ad?!
Why Kaws did the art for New York magazine’s “Canceled at 17” cover story
Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” manuscript and tour wardrobe will be at the Obama Library
Excuse me, a Senate candidate from Missouri did what in his ad?!
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens’ U.S. Senate campaign released an ad Monday showing the Republican with an armed team that breaks into a home to hunt so-called “Republicans in name only,” or “R.I.N.O.s.”
“Join the MAGA crew, get a R.I.N.O. hunting permit, there’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country,” Geitens says in the ad, which promotes a $25 “R.I.N.O. hunting tag.”
Facebook removed the ad for violating its terms of service and Twitter put a label on the tweet saying it violates rules about abusive behavior, although it remains online.
Greitens, who resigned as governor in 2018 amid scandal, told KCMO in Kansas City “it's clearly a metaphor,” but other Republicans worry the candidate could cost their party a Senate seat, according to the Washington Post. Even former President Donald Trump — who sent a mob to the Capitol that chanted that they wanted to hang his then-Vice President Mike Pence — thought the ad went too far, two people familiar with his reaction told the Post.
The ad is just the latest in a series of escalating Republican ads featuring guns, but this is the first I’ve seen that suggests hunting people. Shana Kushner Garadian, professor and chair of the political science department at Syracuse University, said the use of guns, explosions, and violence in ads is due in part to getting voters’ attention.
“It is harder and harder to get people’s attention, and one of the ways that you can get people’s attention in a very busy media environment that we live in is to do like the movies do, which is to explode stuff,” Garadian said when I spoke to her late last year.
Politicians are also trying to convey that they are tough people for tough times, she said. “There’s a lot of anger in politics right now.”
In 2015, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) filmed a video with Independent Journal Review cooking bacon on a machine gun as a sort of parody, but it seems that other Republicans saw it and thought, that’s a good idea, gotta write that down. [Note: I previously worked at IJR but wasn’t involved in the video.]
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp released a tongue-in-cheek ad in 2018 titled “So Conservative” meant to show off his politically incorrect credentials with an explosion, his gun collection, and his truck, which he said he’d use to round up “criminal illegals.” Last year, former Nevada gubernatorial candidate Michele Fiore released her “Three Shot Plan” showing her with a firearm and bottles representing vaccine mandates, critical race theory, and voter fraud that all get blown into smithereens.
Interestingly, moderates approach guns and shooting from less aggressive positions.
Like an Alaskan Artemis, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, shoots an arrow in her recent ad. The word “Tough” is written across the screen as she aims and fires, lest voters think she’s a pushover for choosing archery instead of pulling the trigger on an assault rifle or something. Early in the ad, she’s shown walking on a hunt with a firearm, so the bow-and-arrow bit feels like an intentional softening of a trope.
And before Greitens’ “R.I.N.O. hunting” ad, fellow Missourian and Democrat Jason Kander put out one of the most infamous gun ads without firing a shot.
In “Background Checks,” Kander assembles a firearm while blindfolded as he talks about how he learned how to use his rifle in the Army, supported Second Amendment rights in the state legislature, and believes in background checks.
“The really interesting thing about the ad is that he’s blindfolded and he’s putting together a service weapon, so it’s very much, the kind of message here, I’m a Democrat, but I’m tough, I’m a veteran, you can trust me, and I can serve people in this state as I’ve done in other public service,” Garadian said.
Sarah Palin’s SarahPAC was criticized for using crosshairs over locations for targeted House Democrats in a 2010 graphic.
While the graphic wasn’t linked to violence, and war metaphors are nothing new in politics, one would imagine the instances of violence that have occurred since it came out — from the 2011 Arizona shooting that left six dead and then-Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) injured, to the shooting at the congressional baseball practice in Virginia in 2017, to Jan. 6, 2021 — would give campaigns pause before using metaphors for murder.
Without singling out Greitens specifically, RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn told the Post “threats of violence have no place in our politics.”
Why Kaws did the art for New York magazine’s “Canceled at 17” cover story
New York’s June 20 cover story explores the social fallout for boys included on “people to look out for” list posted in a girls’ bathroom of an unidentified U.S. high school. Headlined “Canceled at 17,” Kaws provided an illustration for the cover? Yes, Kaws provided an illustration for the cover.
Based on his 2019 sculpture “Separated,” the illustration shows the artist’s “Companion” character sitting on a skateboard with its head in its hands.
In the story, a principal said “students are acting as judge, jury, and executioner for other students” based on allegations of sexual misconduct, and a vice principal said “Assault has a very specific meaning in the ed code. So sometimes difficult conversations arise when we say, ‘I acknowledge you feel uncomfortable and unsafe, and we should attend to that. This wasn’t assault.’”
The story has been criticized, including for treating a teenage boy who shared a nude photo of his girlfriend without consent as a victim. Kaws said he did the cover because he’s a father.
“As the father of two young children, imagining what life might be like when they become teenagers, I understand the concern that comes with navigating the complexity of relationships and how that is layered with the realities of the pandemic and social media,” he told New York.
Kaws’ original “Separated” sculpture was made “as a reminder of the increasingly toxic nature of public discourse and rise of disillusionment in our times,” according to Artsy.
Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” manuscript and tour wardrobe will be at the Obama Library
The Obama Presidential Center is scheduled to open in 2025, and director Louise Bernard said they’re working with the National Archives and Records Administration to collect items that will make up the core exhibition galleries.
They’re collecting items like campaign buttons, banners, shirts, and posters, as well as items from the former first lady’s “Becoming” memoir and book tour, Bernard revealed.
“Mrs. Obama’s memoir was a huge phenomenon,” she told ARTnews. “We are collecting the book manuscript material, garments that she wore from her [book] tour because of her engagement with fashion as art.”
The Becoming Tour saw Obama break out from her J. Crew-heavy wardrobe she was known for as FLOTUS into more adventurous outfits, like the gold Balenciaga boots she wore to a stop in Brooklyn.
Bernard said the museum collects items through donations, auction houses, and eBay, and a collections curatorial group meets weekly to go through possible items to consider.
“We are careful about the number of objects that we take in, so that we are not over duplicating materials, although some [objects] meant to be rotated need duplicates,” she said. “Then we try to think about preservation considerations: if something is in very poor condition, it may not be the best investment. We would rarely discard anything. We try to think about prosperity. A button may have greater meaning in the future.”
In other Michelle Obama news, the former first lady said Friday in a statement that she was heartbroken over the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“I am heartbroken that we may now be destined to learn the painful lessons of a time before Row was made law of the land — a time when women risked losing their lives getting illegal abortions,” Obama said.
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Okay, someone must have told Greitens how ill-advised that ad was, right? Or did he know and then filmed it anyway knowing it would get shared because of how ridiculous it was?