Politics: Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover
By
Year13
“Politics is show business for ugly people,” said American journalist Paul Begala in the early 1960s. Many have repeated the joke since, probably because there’s some truth in it. Very few famous people are ugly, and very few ugly people are famous, but politics is one of the few professions of public life where looks really don’t matter.
Politicians are ridiculously well trained at holding facial expressions that make them look serious and powerful. And countless hours of public speaking and debating makes them resilient and hardened, traits that can be seen in their deadpan faces. When you’ve watched enough politicians speak, it becomes difficult to think of them as actual people, with emotions and empathy, and you start to view them as robots or reptiles.
This is why Nic Walker, a photographer for Fairfax Media, has undertaken an ambitious project with Instagram and Facebook to “humanise the politicians”. Walker used a teleprompter—which is the device that allows television anchors to read the news while staring down the barrel of the camera—to show politicians images of their children and grandchildren, their partners and their political enemies. As the images flashed before them, Walker filmed the politicians’ reactions, hoping to get a human result from their faces.
Walker said, “The moving portraits allow Australians to peek behind the curtain and see an unfiltered, human side of their leaders as they go to the polls this weekend.”
A video posted by The Sydney Morning Herald (@sydneymorningherald) on Jun 26, 2016 at 11:25pm PDT
A video posted by The Sydney Morning Herald (@sydneymorningherald) on Jun 28, 2016 at 6:59pm PDT
This stunt is surely aimed at young people. We’re used to seeing images of people—friends, family, idols—via Instagram and Facebook. We’re totally comfortable with the idea of scrolling through someone’s photos and, as a result of what we see, choosing whether to follow them.
It makes you wonder if the Australian election on July 2 could be swayed by smiles alone…
Will young people be more likely to vote for Malcolm Turnbull simply because his face is a little bit less frog-like than Bill Shorten’s? Or will these men’s fatherly faces and smiling eyes inspire voters to carefully compare each candidate’s policies? How will these candid, close-up, videos affect the way young Australians vote?
Of the ten politicians on display, Julie Bishop’s video has by far the most views, with over 64k at the time of publishing. Maybe it’s because she’s more animated and lively on screen or maybe it’s those gold earrings. Either way, people seem to like looking at her face (which is rare for a politician).
It may not be the most reliable way of polling the election, but it seems relevant to note that Julie Bishop has almost 16k followers on Instagram, while Bill Shorten only has 8.7k and poor old Richard Di Natale only has 2.5k.
Turnbull has 61.5k followers, so if social media reach is anything to go by, it looks like Turnbull’s got it in the bag.
But everyone knows that becoming Insta-famous is no easy feat. Unless you’ve got killer photos like @natgeo, or you’ve got a budget for guns, models and private jets like @danbilzerian, you probably have to resort to selfies in order to get more followers. And Turnbull certainly has a pretty solid selfie game.
