Sex sells. It's an old adage, albeit not one usually applied to presidential campaigns. Until now.
John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, has enough sex appeal to apply the tried-and-true-axiom to the process of selling tickets to the offices of two of the most powerful, executive positions in the world.
What's this have to do with photography? Glad you asked.
Interestingly, some might say "sadly," search engines are reporting queries for photos of Sarah Palin outweigh searches for her bio or other (relevant?) info about her. It might turn out that photography (with the added element of sex appeal) will play a greater role in selecting our next president than the issues and/or the candidates' actual qualifications. I hope not, but there it is. After all, this is the first time most of us have heard the term, "She's hot!" applied to a presidential-ticket candidate.
The recent Jill Greenberg controversy, here and here, is another interesting example of the power of photography as it applies to this presidential campaign. I should note the Greenberg story is sans the sex appeal element. Unless, of course, your idea of a stud muffin is a stodgy, white-haired dude with the nose of an aging pugilist.
Note: I ain't trying to politicize this blog. It's about photography, not politics. Please also remember--as with this and other updates--I'm just saying. So take it for what it's worth, if anything.
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2 comments:
There are lots of people ready to cash in on that mantra. As you probably already know, the photo above is fake.
See Snopes.com
The internet has a long history of cut and paste jobs to fake celebrity photos. I personally don't understand the attraction to celebrity nudes. There are plenty of better looking, smarter and more interesting people I meet everyday.
Hey BigV! Yeah, I knew it was a manipulated image. I probly should have mentioned manipulated images, along with photos in general, as having a powerful impact on people and, potentially, on a presidential election. I DL'd the fake Palin image from trendhunter.com, an online ezine whose editors may or may not realize the image is a fake.
Jill Greenberg's site is called manipulator.com. I think that says it all. That's fairly telling, don't ya think? I've been to snopes before but thanks for the link. I had forgotten the name and url address of that site.
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