Obamamania Continues

Every time I begin to write a blog post, the same old stuff comes out -- or doesn't come out. Either I ramble into my annual bitching about the same issues (see last post) or I want to gush about the Gentleman Caller. I haven't focused enough to jump on another Douglass post, although I feel one coming on sometime later this week. Then, there are the myriad issues that are far too tangled right now to write about publicly or coherently, even for someone like myself who seems to have no sense of boundaries or privacy. I'll get to that eventually, but right now it's all in the muck and doesn't yet have a shape.

Meanwhile, I shall share with you some more examples of the Obamamania kitsch. The Gentleman Caller came to visit weekend before last (again, wow!), and I went to pick him up at the airport (where we engaged in Hollywood movie levels of PDA). While waiting for his plane to arrive, I wandered around the airport and discovered a shop that sold all sorts of "patriotic" paraphernalia. Needless to say, I was in kitsch heaven!

First Pooch Bo has become quite the popular plush item. Here we have him in a box decorated with images of Himself happily wagging his tail on the White House lawn:
This is a slightly larger, free-range Bo:
This version creeps me out with those big eyes that remind me of those old pictures. You know, the ones with waifish children and animals, usually in the rain, staring dolefully out of the image with freakishly large eyes on the verge of tears? I hated those.:
In the Smithsonian gift shop, I found similar plush animals representing zoo residents, so this may be some sort of new trend. Were I a child, I would either feel tremendous sympathy for the toy, to the point of tears in the store (I was a depressive even at age 4), or I would have avoided it and refused to go into that shop.

There seems to be more creepiness seeping into some of the other Obamamania items. In this picture, you have the magnetic dress-up Obama in the foreground. That isn't so bad, if you don't mind having the Commander-in-Chief and Leader-of-the-Free-World staring back at you in his skivvies when you go to the fridge for your morning juice. That should be Michelle's private domain, don't you think?

What is creepy is the package of nuts next to the Magnetic Obama. It says something to the effect of "Nuts for Obama.":

You know how you sometimes glance at something, and the signals from your eyes to your brain misfire, so you only register parts of what you saw and the parts that you register give you a weirdly different message? Well, on first glance, I thought that the bag said "Obama's Nuts." I truly apologize, Mr. President.

Of course the store had bobble-heads. Both the president and the First Lady:

The President Obama bobble-head is about as dignified as a bobble-head can be; but that Michelle Obama bobble-head is downright creepy, even for a bobble-head. That smile is about a millimeter away from evil-clown territory.

As with the Douglass and Tubman actions figures, I have to ask, "why is the guy serious and the woman grinning?" Not smiling, mind you, but grinning. I ask that especially in both of these cases because both Harriet Tubman and Michelle Obama were and are just as -- if not more -- badass as their male counterparts. Is the smile supposed to make them more appropriately feminine and non-threatening? Indeed, wasn't the hideous Hillary Clinton nutcracker also grinning?

To be fair, the Bill Clinton corkscrew also grinned, but that item didn't have the same sexist subtext as the Hilary nutcracker. Also to be fair, the First Lady does have to grin and nod quite a bit -- much like the bobble-head. Still, in the end, these three women are not at all the grin-and-not types.

Note also the "Nope" t-shirt in the background. The shop was relatively equal opportunity, as we can see in this:Yes, that is an Obama-in-the-Box. Not only does the doll wear a full-blown evil-clown grin, but the box depicts Obama in the very pose that Nixon struck as he left office in shame. That last detail is disturbing. Maybe I'm making a leap here, but the reference to Nixon and the proceeding for his impeachment also calls to mind the Clinton impeachment. The unearned vitriol now being spewed against Obama, reviving the careers of the hate-mongers who appeared during Clinton's administration, and the efforts to somehow connect Obama to corruption, cause me to wonder what the makers of this toy are trying to say. Do they think Obama should be impeached for something? Or do they simply want to tie up this administration with an impeachment much as was done during Clinton's administration?

Yeah, I know, it's just a toy. Still, I can believe that the makers of the bobble-heads and the Obama action figures (which were also there) and the beanie babies and so forth are just trying to make a buck off of Obama supporters; but this is clearly designed for Obama-haters. Most of the Obamamania kitsch that I've covered has been in fun, if sometimes in poor taste (literally, in the case of the Safeway cookies), and always to make a buck. Now, I suppose we shall see the opposition's take. Poor taste will probably take on whole new dimensions there.