Celebrities as symbols

No More Fake News -

 

Let’s start here. A museum. A show of photographs of celebrities. If you didn’t know who they were, if you hadn’t been “prepped,” most of the photos would barely register. You’d yawn and walk past them.

But because you have separate knowledge, the photos mean something. They refer to a whole host of material and background on famous people.

“Oh. That’s Jay Leno eating ice cream.”

Again, subtract that material and background and the photos are meaningless.

“That’s some guy eating ice cream. So what?”

The photos are symbols, in the sense that they refer, they point to something that isn’t there.

The photos have power because YOU make the jump from symbol to meaning. You’re doing it.

“Oh, look at that photo. That’s Jay. Tonight Show. Tells jokes. He and Letterman compete for ratings. Jay replaced Johnny Carson.”

Then there are your opinions and feelings. More background.

“Jay’s not that funny. They should have stayed with Conan. Television, what a waste of time. A distraction for the masses.”

You make the simple jump from an image to what it means.

And all these photos have something in common. They refer to someone who is famous.

You could say, “Wait a minute. Let’s make a distinction here. The photos don’t refer. The photos don’t refer to anything. They’re just sitting there, inside frames, hanging on the wall.”

And that’s true. You do the referring. You connect the photo to meaning, to background.

But this is equally true of all symbols. A photo of an American flag doesn’t really refer, either. It just sits there. You make the connection to 50 states, the Constitution, the country, etc. The photo doesn’t step down from the wall and tap you on the shoulder and talk to you about itself.

People INVEST power in a photo of John Lennon sitting on a porch smoking a cigarette. However, people believe the photo itself HAS power.

Now, we’re talking about the trick involving symbols. They’re basically empty. You fill in the emptiness.

All this becomes more interesting when you realize there are PR people and propagandists working around the clock to make you impart particular meaning to symbols. They’re not satisfied to have you supply your own meaning. No.

For example, the last thing they want is you supplying your own references to photos of Hillary Clinton. They want you to think: distinguished leader, much experience, first woman president, above party politics, brilliant mind, great sympathy for the plight of the less fortunate, etc.

They want to make the symbol of Hillary as specific as possible.

This is really why the speeches of politicians are so empty. Their handlers don’t want actual information to get in the way of how the symbol is being crafted. PR people, if they could, would have a presidential candidate come up to a microphone, stand there, smile, and say nothing.

They, the PR handlers, are already shaping the symbolic meaning of the image of the candidate. That’s all they care about. That’s the difference between winning and losing.

Just as television shows are really the breaks between commercials, an election campaign is just a break between symbol-manipulations for the masses.

A scholar could write a compelling and important history of the human race based entirely on how symbols are given meanings by propagandists.

Rulers and other leaders are celebrities. Their symbolic value is established and shaped. The whole idea is to get followers to invest meaning A,B,C in the image of the celeb, rather than meaning E,F,G.

In this case, what does meaning mean? Thoughts and feelings. Strong feelings.

“Bush will restore the republic.” Feel, feel, feel.

“Obama will bring unity to all peoples.” Feel, feel, feel.

Bush and Obama are real people, but that’s where the resemblance ends to the symbolic value being imparted by their handlers.

 

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