Because Kanye and Taylor Make Bigger Headlines than Crazy Conservatives Attacking the President

I enjoyed how my Facebook filled up with status updates containing rather strong opinions about the Kanye West/Taylor Swift debacle at the 2009 VMAs. I have no desire to recount it as it has been plastered across the internet already. I particularly enjoyed this video remix that came out shortly after the event.

 

If Kanye attacked Obama’s healthcare reform bill, might people have paid more attention to his speech? Is it strange that most people probably heard about the Kanye/Taylor debacle sooner after the fact than they did about Joe Wilson being a bigot and yelling at Obama? Is it even stranger that people have such strong opinions on Kanye  than they do about Joe Wilson?

Well it is interesting to note the power of the media machine behind the VMAs and to contrast it to that of Obama’s speech. MTV apparently had enough time between the occurrence of the debacle and Beyonce’s speech later in the night to find Taylor Swift a matching red dress so that she could match Beyonce when the latter invited her out on stage to finish her speech. That’s pretty impressive if you think about it. Imagine if Wilson came out in a matching dress and apologized to Pelosi at the end of the speech. MTV is a well-oiled media machine, and it knows how to deal with controversial events so as to maximize the amount of publicity its station receives. Obama’s team, on the other hand, might be one of the worst PR campaigns in recent political history. Crazy protestors have brought guns to his speeches, priests have announced that they actively pray for his demise, the Right have completely warped and misconstrued his ideas, nutcases have compared him to Hitler, and some bigot politician has heckled him during a Congressional speech and  yet no one seems to really care. Parts of the media seem to not really care either. Not only were most of these events underreported, FOX News actually refused to broadcast his speech and showed the premiere of the show Glee instead! Unfortunately, their tactic seemed to work: my facebook was cluttered with more comments on Glee than about Wilson’s outrageous behavior. 

I simply do not know what to make of this situation: political apathy in this country threatens to keep meaningful reform from ever becoming a reality. The rightist crazies continue to organize to attack Obama and we sit by watching it in silence. But when some meaningless bullshit like the Kanye/Taylor drama occurs, we get up in arms and righteously denounce the offender. Apparently, the prospect of expanded healthcare coverage isn’t glamorous enough to catch the attention of a public so thoroughly distracted by the manufactured nonsense of the media machine. But then again, how do you compete with an industry that is built upon manufacturing the very need that it seeks to fulfill?