viz.

Image Credit: Screenshot from YouTube

I was delighted to hear that the Washington State Senate passed a bill Wednesday legalizing same-sex marriage in the state. The Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger has been closely following the bill’s progress for several weeks, not only liveblogging the debate but also posting numerous excellent speeches on behalf of the bill.  Eli Sanders highlighted Republican Senator Cheryl Pflug’s speech as the best of the night, which she ended with the following words:

“And so I commend this bill to you today because it is part of our struggle to recognize that everybody, whether they look like us or believe like us, has an opportunity—should have an opportunity to enjoy those personal freedoms we hold dear.”

                                                                                   Image Credit: Archives of General Pyschiatry

When historians seek gathering metaphors to describe the French Revolution--with its violent upheavals, experiments in re-arranging calendar time, and, of course, the demands for liberty and equality that underwrote these events--they rarely describe the atmosphere or environment of the period as particularly stable or "sane." And yet the work of Philippe Pinel--a progressive French physician who helped lay the groundwork for a major shift in mental health treatment--has been nonetheless remembered as a figurative crystallization of the Revolution's lofty, humanist goals--goals which in turn influenced the trajectory of ninenteenth century psychiatry. Today, I seek to briefly explore how 19th century visual re-enactments of Pinel's participation in a highly mythicized (and mostly apocryphyl) event--a ritualized "unchaining" of the captive patients-- were used to remind French citizens of the virtues of republican government during times of national upheaval.

Image Credit: The Daily Show

While searching yesterday for video of Rick Perry’s memory issues in Wednesday night’s debate, I came across an interesting series of montages on youtube. Thinking I was about to hear Perry eloquently speak about “the three agencies of government when I get there that are gone,” instead I heard Perry saying, “Ice cream. That is cheap. Fact.” Only a moment’s pause was needed to see that these weren’t Perry words. Someone divinely competent with video editing software has taken video clips of prominent politicians (in this case, Perry), muted all sound therein, and then over-dubbed random words that seem fitting given the movement of their lips. As can be seen above, these videos work to fantastic effect. Their true success is emphasizing that, in our age, what really matters is the way a politician looks whenever he or she says something. Looking closer at Perry, it becomes clear that he’s modeling his style off that of Ronald Reagan. Perry’s team was probably taking advantage of their candidate’s Reganesque chin when they suggested that he get a Reaganesque haircut.

Image: Screenshot from occupyaustin.org

If you couldn't tell from the past few days of viz.'s coverage, the Occupy Austin protests continue, if attendance has mildly abated from this weekend's high.  This blog is not an appropriate venue for the discussion of the movement’s goals (you can find more intelligent discussion about Austin’s own version of the movement here and here).  However, I am interested in the ways in which the Occupy Austin movement represents its constituents.  The Occupy Wall Street / Austin brief—which aspires to represent 99% of the American (some Austin material intransigently claims “world”)  populace—faces a particularly clear set of representational challenges even as social networking allows its images to proliferate in ways unimaginable even five years ago.  For the rest of this post, I’ll highlight some images from Occupy Austin’s affiliated website.  

(Image Credit: Michael Nagle, Getty Images via In Focus)

During the past week Occupy Wall Street has gained increasing media attention. The movement, initially called for by the group Adbusters, began in earnest on September 17th when protesters first began to occupy Zuccotti Park. This initial act seems to have largely been met with bemused ambivalence, and while there was originally a single demand articulated by Adbusters in their July call to action—that “Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington”  (Adbusters) –things were quite murky by the time the occupation took shape. Much of the media attention that the movement has gained, especially during this surge in participation, has focused on the apparent lack of concrete demands set forth by OWS. This confusion is misplaced. While the list of hopeful outcomes is amorphous a clear sense of oppositional branding has been developed   from the wealth of signs and images created through the movement. OWS demands that we put a hold on our love affair with notions of prosperity that put us in a double bind. 

AP Photo/Chris Pizello via NY Daily News

Given the increasing hullaballoo surrounding this week’s two sex-scandal stories (Strauss-Kahn and Schwarzenegger), this image of Schwarzenegger and soon-to-be ex-wife, Maria Shriver, strikes me as paradigmatic of how these scenarios seem to play out: focus in on brooding, somber (occasionally apologetic) male politician; blurry, out-of-focus female victim in the foreground.  While the impetus behind these stories is supposedly exposing  the men that “done them wrong,” it’s often the women who suffer most from the media backlash.

via Mother Jones, "It's the Inequality, Stupid"

Infographics can provide visual drama and emotional impact to otherwise incomprehensible and dry numbers. As Ladysquire's recent post on The 12 States of America demonstrates, they can be particularly good at capturing income inequality. The image from Mother Jones above is another nice example of the striking disparity among Americans' perception of wealth distribution, what they wish it were, and what it actually is.

Image Credit: Associated Press

Via Gothamist

In January’s State of the Union, President Obama called this “our generation’s Sputnik moment.” Since then, I’ve been curious about how the administration would visualize the core message of that speech, which foregrounded science, education, and innovation. Exhibit A: the Beatles-esque tableaux above, from last week’s visit to an NYC science fair.

(Video Credit:  CSPAN)

Last week, I wrote about some striking historical and cultural shifts in anti-abortion rhetoric.  Namely, I argued that the pro-life movement has been so persuasive largely because in their verbal and visual rhetoric, they have successfully turned babies into the primary object of the viewer's identification and sympathy.  I also argued that a successful pro-choice rhetoric would return women in need of abortions to the center of the frame.  I was heartened by Representative Jackie Speier's (D-CA) speech on the floor of the house, this week, where she talked about her own experience.

Image credit: The OPCC via YouTube

H/T to Rachel for suggesting the topic sending me the clip

Although Halloween is behind us, and we've packed up the glam make-up and eaten all the goodies, I'd like to call your attention to an interesting use of bunny suits I recently came across.  Or, perhaps "interesting" isn't quite the right word... inappropriate, insincere, ineffectual... these seem more apt.  While this ridiculous domestic violence PSA has already been addressed by Irin Carmon over on Jezebel, I think there are some more fundamental issues we can tackle from a rhetorical standpoint.  Ultimately, the commercial leaves me with questions about when humor actually hits the mark and when it just goes horribly wrong.