Before there was Twitter or Comedy Central , or even TV, radio, or phonographic recordings , we had a pop culture . For politics, one of the main creators and influencers of pop culture was the editorial cartoon . Just as The Daily Show provides a four times a week skewering of our political and journalistic âsomebodies,â newspaper and magazine editorial cartoons did the same on a regular basis prior to the development of electronic media. While Donald Trump may feel bullied by the âfailing mediaâsâ âfake newsâ portrayal of him and that late-night talk show treatment of him, whether by Trevor Noah , Stephen Colbert , Jimmy Kimmel , John Oliver , or Samantha Bee , is more than unfair, he would feel much the same as Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall did as the target of a ruthless onslaught of attacks at the hands of editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast . According to Hess and Northrup (2017), Tweed sought to pay Nast to leave the country for a while and go study art in Europe. As far as we know, Trump has yet to offer such a deal to any of his late-night nemeses.1
One of the most notable political cartoons of the late nineteenth century is the one that jabbed at Grover Cleveland for his alleged promiscuity. The cartoon, titled âAnother Voice for Cleveland,â depicted a small child in the arms of his mother declaring âI want my Pa!â This cartoon, in The Judge on September 27, 1884, along with a popular campaign song that echoed the refrain Clevelandâs opponents usedââMa, ma, whereâs my pa?â2âwere a part of the popular culture of that fall and were that periodâs equivalent of todayâs late-night talk shows.
It was, however, Nastâs repetitive depiction of Boss Tweed in his editorial cartoons that cemented the image of the typical political boss in the minds of Americans using the most popular medium of the day. Nastâs drawings were so well-known that it is said that one satirical image of Tweed grabbing two symbolic youngsters by the scruff of the neck to demonstrate his cruelty to the poor led to his detention on kidnapping charges . While the modern images of the donkey and the elephant as representative of the two major parties has become an indelible part of our culture, both can be traced back to representations made by editorial cartoonistsâthe Republican elephant being credited to Nast in 1874 and the Democratic donkey to an anonymous artist in 1837 (Hess and Northrup 2017).
Later depictions of the same political machine âwhether Tammany Hall or its Republican counterpartâfurther fortified what we all believed a political machine looked like and how it operated. This was in spite of the fact that political machines were perhaps as varied as the environments from which they grew. Certainly, they all had a set of common traits and that is perhaps why Nastâs drawings and later Broadway musicals, were so easily recognized by so many readers and playgoers.
Fiorello ! , a musical opening on Broadway in 1959 was based in large part on the book Life with Fiorello by Ernest Cuneo (1955), popularized the story of the reform-minded Republican Congressman from New York who later became that cityâs mayor. With songs like Politics and Poker and Little Tin Box , the play describes, with humor and great relatability the processes of politics, contributing to the publicâs understanding of how the system appeared to workâeven if it was an erroneous, caricaturized view. Still, the presence of Tammany Hall and its Republican counterpart were part of the everyday life of those interested in politics regardless of the city in which they lived. This was, I would argue, not so much a scandal as ongoing corruption âongoing for decades. How is it possible that it isnât a scandal? We need a definition of our terms before we begin examining the relationship between scandal and pop culture. We also need to ask ourselves the proverbial chicken and egg questionâwhich comes first, scandal or pop culture?
Since we are looking at one subject (political scandal) as a part of another larger one (popular or pop culture) it is perhaps most appropriate to define the larger subject first. Following a definition of pop culture, I will provide a definition of political scandal , particularly how it will be used in this study. One aspect of that definition will be how we should differentiate âscandalâ from, and I hesitate to say it but, âordinaryâ corruption.
Pop Culture Defined
Popular culture, or âpop culture,â is a somewhat loose term and any discussion of it needs to include a definition so that the participants understand what exactly is being discussed. This is particularly important for this discussion since we are addressing what it takes for a political scandal to become a part of pop culture. For most of us, pop culture would include a range of things from music to food to fashion to comedy and so forth.
David Haskell (2015) of Wilfrid Laurier University argues that âcultureâ refers to both the operational mechanisms of a society and its âaesthetic elements.â Pop culture as defined by Haskell, has a large audience , is ânovel,â has a âregular formula,â and makes successful use of all available media. Given this final component, we could argue that pop culture is highly dependent on the media available at the time of its emergence. For example, Tammany Hall corruption in New York City in the early twentieth century was given a pop culture treatment decades later with the success of the previously mentioned musical , Fiorello ! and Congressman Anthony Weinerâs behavior was given comedic treatment on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report . Internet memes that appear on such outlets as Facebook , Twitter , and others are another current form of the pop culture treatment of political scandal.
There are any number of definitions of pop culture, many of which focus on younger consumers at the time of the phenomenon. One generationâs pop culture includes the Beatles , while a more recent generationâs pop culture includes BeyoncĂ© . Tim Delaney (2007) notes this fluid nature of pop culture and asserts that â[a]s the âculture of the peopleâ, popular culture is determined by the interactions between people in their everyday activities : styles of dress, the use of slang, greeting rituals and the foods that people eat are all examples of popular culture. Popular culture is also informed by the mass media.â Delaney also notes that there is an ability of pop culture to transcend local custom and culture. âPopular culture,â he points out, âallows large heterogeneous masses of people to identify collectivelyâ (121).
According to Dominic Strinati (2004), eminent social scientist Theodor Adorno (1991), best known in political science for his work on the authoritarian personality , thought of aspects of popular culture as a form of âsocial cementâ that holds society together. Hermes (2005) makes a similar observation noting the bonding aspect of pop culture. He writes: âpopular culture makes us welcome and offers belongingâ (3). Bonding, according to Hermes is about creating a common experience, but also about community building and our ability to reflect on the manner of the bonding experience. It is the discourse in which we engage over the contents of pop culture where true democratic discourse takes place. Hermes argues that discourse in pop culture may be more important to democracy than discourse within government.
For our purposes, pop culture is the advancement of ideas or events through various forms of entertainment and media. Certainly, Liesbet van Zoonen (2005) cautions that we should not rely too heavi...