How Theatre Can Help Us Understand Donald Trump And Brexit

Image via Shutterstock

By Hans-Ludwig Buchholz, University of Aberdeen

When it comes to the chaotic policies of Donald Trump or the seeming irrationality of Brexit, traditional political explanations can fail to produce satisfactory answers.

Political science may help to solve some of these riddles, but far from all. For example, scholars may be able to argue that those disappointed or marginalised by the US political establishment voted for Trump’s promises. Or they could claim that people voted for the UK to leave the EU because it was seen as the project of a rich elite.

But they cannot fully explain why millions believe in “alternative facts”, or why the arguments for these are made so passionately. Perhaps unexpectedly, theatre can be an instrument for thinking about politics and making sense of Trump, Brexit and other political upheavals.

The type of theatre we’re talking about here isn’t Shakespeare’s historic plays or modern TV dramas in the style of House of Cards or The West Wing – they can make visible what happens behind closed doors. What we really need to do is take a step back to understand what is going on in the whole of society – and in ourselves. And it is theatrical comedy that opens up this way of thinking.

The Swiss dramatist and author Friedrich Dürrenmatt is considered an international writer of classic plays, but is popular only in German-speaking countries. However, Dürrenmatt can teach us how to make sense of irrational policies through the use of literature, and especially comedy. He shows us how everyone can use art to think politically.

Dürrenmatt’s position is that our complicated, chaotic world, where a clear morality no longer exists, has to be translated by literature into an understandable narrative. Theatre can represent certain aspects of the world and place them in a concrete story.

As the audience, we can step back from our own prejudices, and fear for or laugh at the figures on stage. In comedy especially, we can watch something we don’t need to take too seriously – only to realise afterwards that we behave in our own lives exactly as the characters on stage do. Our own frustrations and foibles are revealed to us as the play unfolds. By experiencing the drama, we have unwittingly considered, mocked and judged ourselves. Dürrenmatt once said: “I love to trick the audience into thinking about their own case, which is always political”.

So, how can this theory be applied?

Play for today
Dürrenmatt’s most famous comedy The Visit (1956) tells the story of Claire Zachanassian, a wealthy old woman who visits the now-impoverished village of her youth. She offers the villagers the sum of one billion Swiss francs under the condition that someone kills the owner of the village shop.

As a young woman, Zachanassian had loved this man, but he had jilted her when she was poor and pregnant. Now she wants to exact her revenge and see justice done. At first the villagers reject the immoral offer. But soon they start to talk about how the money could alleviate their poverty and suffering. Then, figuring they deserve it, the locals begin to buy expensive things on credit in anticipation of their wealth, making the shop owner increasingly nervous. In the end – spoiler alert – they accept the offer and kill him.

Of course, the comedy discusses big questions of justice, but as we watch, it mainly makes us laugh and judge. The characters on stage are portrayed in ridiculous ways: their obedient bow to the rich old woman is idiotic; their greed is farcical; their willingness to put aside loyalty is weak; their poor excuses for taking the money are laughable.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s play is a subtle but devastating critique of human nature and society. Amazon, CC BY-SA

After the play ends, we may ask ourselves how we would have reacted to Zachanassian’s offer. We can use it to think about the choices in our lives, like accepting high interest rates that are too good to be true from dubious banks; or voting for politicians who are only acting for those rich or British enough; or for parties advocating low taxation.

And suddenly all our usual excuses and justifications are toppled. In the course of the play we dismiss the villagers as laughable, ridiculous and shameful. But as Dürrenmatt claimed, we have been tricked into thinking about our own lives all along.

Through the parallels of the play to our own lives, we are led into thinking politically without the usual prejudices. Now we begin to understand why people believe lies and vote for irrational politicians. In this situation it is easy to avoid responsibility with feeble excuses – because everyone’s doing it and it’s necessary to survive. It is possible to convince yourself to vote for a necessary evil, just as the impoverished villagers decided to kill the shop keeper.

Dissolving limitations
Appalling lies are swallowed in order to make the chosen evil acceptable. The people hit by Trump’s travel bans, or Britain’s European neighbours, are the necessary sacrifices for what surely must be the only option left, some might reason.

Literature in politics can only hint at how we should think. Otherwise we repeat the problems of political science, which is stuck with a rigid way of thinking designed to produce absolute truths. Thinking about difficult moral questions with the help of literature is more playful, and dissolves all limitations.

Taking literature too seriously – making messages absolute and ideological – would destroy this possibility. Instead, literature has to be vague, emotional, and open – used as an opportunity to explore our sense of morality and justice. Literature may not be able to fully explain Brexit, but it can help make sense of it.

Brexiteers are Claire Zachanassian figures in that they promise to save Britain and the NHS – if Europeans living in the UK and British people living abroad are made to suffer the necessary sacrifice. Like the villagers in the play we are then asked the difficult question, and the answer we give should help us see ourselves more clearly – if we are honest.

About Today's Contributor:
Hans-Ludwig Buchholz, PhD candidate in Modern Thought, University of Aberdeen

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

'Horseshoe Theory' Is Nonsense – The Far Right And Far Left Have Little In Common

Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen (Guillaume Horcajuelo / Frederic Scheiber / EPA)

By Simon Choat, Kingston University

After the first round of the French presidential elections, several liberal commentators condemned the defeated leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon for refusing to endorse the centrist Emmanuel Macron. His decision was portrayed as a failure to oppose the far-right Front National, and it was argued that many of his supporters were likely to vote for Marine Le Pen in the second round. Comparisons were drawn with the US presidential elections and the alleged failure of Bernie Sanders supporters to back Hilary Clinton over Donald Trump.

Underlying these claims is a broader and increasingly popular notion that the far left and the far right have more in common than either would like to admit. This is known as the “horseshoe theory”, so called because rather than envisaging the political spectrum as a straight line from communism to fascism, it pictures the spectrum as a horseshoe in which the far left and far right have more in common with each other than they do with the political centre. The theory also underlies many of the attacks on the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who is accused of cosying up to authoritarian and theocratic regimes and fostering antisemitism within his party.

Taken one by one, these claims do not withstand scrutiny. Did Mélenchon give succour to Le Pen? No: he explicitly ruled out supporting Le Pen, and most of his supporters voted for Macron in the second round. Are there antisemites in the Labour Party? Yes: but there are antisemites in every British political party; the difference is that repeated incidents of racism in other parties go unremarked (as does Corbyn’s longstanding record of anti-racist activism).

Fans of the horseshoe theory like to lend their views weight and credibility by pointing to the alleged history of collusion between fascists and communists: the favoured example is the Nazi-Soviet Pact. But – aside from the fact that the Soviet Union played a vital role in defeating the Nazis – it is patently absurd to compare Stalin to present-day leftists like Mélenchon or Corbyn.

Can we instead find convergence between far left and far right at the level of policy? It is true that both attack neoliberal globalisation and its elites. But there is no agreement between far left and far right over who counts as the “elite”, why they are a problem, and how to respond to them. When the billionaire real-estate mogul Donald Trump decries global elites, for example, he is either simply giving his audience what he thinks they want to hear or he is indulging in antisemitic dog-whistling.

For the left, the problem with globalisation is that it has given free rein to capital and entrenched economic and political inequality. The solution is therefore to place constraints on capital and/or to allow people to have the same freedom of movement currently given to capital, goods, and services. They want an alternative globalisation. For the right, the problem with globalisation is that it has corroded supposedly traditional and homogeneous cultural and ethnic communities – their solution is therefore to reverse globalisation, protecting national capital and placing further restrictions on the movement of people.

Trump and Sanders both attacked globalisation – for different reasons. Michael Vadon, CC BY-SA

Is there a more fundamental, ideological resonance between far left and far right? Again, only in the vaguest sense that both challenge the liberal-democratic status quo. But they do so for very different reasons and with very different aims. When fascists reject liberal individualism, it is in the name of a vision of national unity and ethnic purity rooted in a romanticised past; when communists and socialists do so, it is in the name of international solidarity and the redistribution of wealth.

Given the basic implausibility of the horseshoe theory, why do so many centrist commentators insist on perpetuating it? The likely answer is that it allows those in the centre to discredit the left while disavowing their own complicity with the far right. Historically, it has been “centrist” liberals – in Spain, Chile, Brazil, and in many other countries – who have helped the far right to power, usually because they would rather have had a fascist in power than a socialist.

Today’s fascists have also been facilitated by centrists – and not just, for example, those on the centre-right who have explicitly defended Le Pen. When centrists ape the Islamophobia and immigrant-bashing of the far right, many people begin to think that fascism is legitimate; when they pursue policies which exacerbate economic inequality and hollow out democracy, many begin to think that fascism looks desirable.

If liberals genuinely want to understand and confront the rise of the far right, then rather than smearing the left they should perhaps reflect on their own faults.

About Today's Contributor:
Simon Choat, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, Kingston University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

James Bond Needs A New Attitude, Not A New Actor

Sexist and altogether out-dated, the same old James Bond. Anthony Devlin/PA Archive/PA Images

By Nicola Bishop, Manchester Metropolitan University

As someone who has recently taken to reading Ian Fleming’s books, I am drawn into the debate surrounding Joanna Lumley’s comments about actor Idris Elba not being the James Bond that Fleming created.

Film writer Caspar Salmon’s column in the Guardian made several valid points. The most persuasive being that we should abandon the “emotionless character that belongs to a grotesque tradition”. Bond is a “hero” who is heterosexist, misogynistic, and racist – so inherent in 1954’s Live and Let Die that getting beyond the first chapter proved too much for this reader – more needs to be done than just another change of actor.

Yet the “who-will-be-the-next-Bond” discussions never stop. According to the press, Elba is equally not interested, a contender, and a sure thing. We’ve even had a “Jane Bond” social media campaign which saw Gillian Anderson throwing her metaphorical hat in the ring.
Given that the creative minds behind the BBC’s Doctor Who – a series predicated on the doctor’s ability to regenerate, which gives completely free reign over the actor who is cast – have managed to reincarnate the good Doctor a mere 13 times as a white man, do the chances of real diversity seem beyond even science fiction, let alone upper-class Cold War imperialism?

The eternal playboy
Historian Tim Stanley argues that to give Bond “breasts” would be to “lose the magic behind the character” – so we can safely assume that Bond is merely a powerful metaphorical penis. In keeping what have become the stock symbols – the fast cars, expensive suits, the Martinis and the exotic locations with their equally exotic women – the films have arguably become more one-dimensional than the novels. Books which, for all their issues, can still be located within a different social and historical context. So what is our excuse now?

In the conclusion of 2015 film Spectre, there is an inevitability to which the final shot – of Bond and Madeline Swann walking across London Bridge – seems fated to result in the kind of brutality with which Teresa di Vincenzo met her abrupt end in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963). In the novel, if not as explicitly on screen, Bond’s joy at the planning of his future wedded bliss extends to the imagined home-making in his London flat, long and loving phone conversations between them as he works to bring down super-villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and the growing awareness that his life finally holds richer meaning.

Teresa, like Madeline, was Bond’s match: flighty, adventurous, fearless, daughter of a high-ranking criminal with an understanding of the necessity for “real men” to carry concealed weapons. Both women are victims of their own violent pasts – they are strong but need rescuing from themselves. Bond, however, has to be a playboy, he can save them, avenge them even, but he cannot be “tamed” by them.

Self-destruction
Spoof spy character Austin Powers ridiculed the constant disruption of the spy’s romantic bliss in the beginning of The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). His new wife turned out to be a fem-bot, which must self-destruct or risk bringing down the spy himself. Even Judi Dench, after 20 years as M, met her end as a foolish female victim – how could the head of the secret intelligence service inexplicably use a torch on a dark Highland escape? Forget a female Bond when so few of the women in the films last beyond the end credits.

Perhaps the bigger question is not who should play the next Bond but why haven’t we moved on? Looking back at the original stories, and even ignoring the problematic 1950s cultural landscape, they are a mixed bag. Some are gripping, well-paced and thrilling, others loose and unwieldy, slow or confusing. Casino Royale (1953) is almost entirely focused on a card game that no one understands any more (when not playing cards, Bond is busy calling Vesper Lynd a “bitch”). Moonraker (1955) takes place in Dover not California, Venice or Rio. There are episodes in which even Bond is bored; chapters where he sits at his desk and complains about paperwork, moving it from in-box to out-tray.

All of this is a far-cry from the jet-setting man of mystery in our cultural imagination – the whirlwind of cocktails and casual sex, heightened by theatrically high kicks and slow-motion punches, casual Western imperialism, and upper-class patriarchy. More important than who will play him, is the question of why we have unnaturally prolonged the life of Ian Fleming’s spy.

Guardian readers were quick to call Salmon’s assertion that Bond is effectively the same age as Prince Philip unfair, and they’ve got a point. We don’t hold Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple to their fictional birth dates. We do, however, recognise the need to update the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, taking the essence of their detection and applying it in modern ways. Bond, on the other hand, has all the latest gadgetry, new global enemies, and even an invisible car, but his “essence” has sadly stayed the same.

About Today's Contributor:
Nicola Bishop, Senior Lecturer in English/Film and Television, Manchester Metropolitan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

From Wannabe To President: How Emmanuel Macron Beat Marine Le Pen To Win The French Election

Macron sweeps to victory. EPA/Thomas Samson

By Paul Smith, University of Nottingham

After a tense and often antagonistic election campaign, Emmanuel Macron is to become the next president of France. The result is, of course, in all sorts of ways extraordinary. In a little over a year, the 39-year-old former finance minister has gone from being a wannabe to the future tenant of the Elysée Palace. He struck out alone to form his own political movement and while much of the froth surrounding the election has focused on his opponent, the enormity of his achievement needs to be acknowledged and cannot be underestimated.

Even before the first round, all the polls had Macron pegged to win the second round 60/40. But then, between the rounds, Le Pen seemed to be nibbling away at Macron’s lead – not by much, but by enough to cause some butterflies among her opponents. Macron appeared lacklustre at a crucial time. Fears of a low turnout and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s refusal to formally endorse Macron also threw a number of unknowns into the mix.

Macron addresses supporters in Paris. EPA/Thomas Samson

A high abstention rate would play in Le Pen’s favour, went the reasoning. Her electors, as far as anyone could tell, were more committed. In the end, turnout was indeed lower than expected (and there were 4m spoilt ballots), but it did not hinder Macron. Quite the reverse. With an estimated 65.1% of the vote to Le Pen’s 34.9%, Macron has come away with the second highest second round score in the history of the Fifth Republic.

So, now France has a president whose priorities are to tackle chronic unemployment by relaxing labour legislation and introducing a raft of measures to help young people into work, to reduce primary school class sizes to 12 pupils per teacher, to relaunch the European project in collaboration with France’s partners and to simplify the mind-bogglingly complex tax and pension set-up for French citizens. 

What happened Marine?
Deep down, Le Pen knew she didn’t have the tail wind to take her to victory after a disappointing first-round result. She had hoped to go through in first place but finished second behind Macron and only 650,000 votes ahead of François Fillon.

This goes some way to explaining her extraordinary performance in the presidential debate on May 3, where she cast aside the opportunity to present her programme in favour of a non-stop attack on Macron. He might not have looked presidential all the way through the debate, but she certainly looked like she was making a bid to be the leader of the opposition rather than the tenant of the Elysée. In any case, it looks like the debate cost her 5% of the vote. It certainly caused consternation among her supporters.

And yet her score is historic. Throughout the campaign she was the one candidate we all assumed would get through to the second round. Her total of 11m votes is twice what her father managed in 2002 – and 5m more than she herself scored in 2012.

Le Pen delivers her concession speech. EPA/Ian Langsdon

On Sunday evening, about ten minutes after the result was announced, Le Pen made a two-minute speech to a small group of party activists, accepting her defeat, but also launching herself as the head of the “première force d’opposition” and promising a transformation of the Front National for the general election in June. She neglected to explain what that means, but she will almost certainly seek to destabilise Les Républicains by appealing to the right of the party.

A discarded voting slip says it all. Paul Smith

Meanwhile, after a celebration at the Louvre on Sunday night, Macron awaits his formal investiture as the eighth president of the Fifth Republic at the beginning of next week. By tradition, the incoming president announces the name of the prime minister only on the following day. Macron may break with this and make the announcement a little earlier, but there are still calculations to be made.

The electoral process isn’t quite over for the French. Can they survive the risks of electoral burn-out? For now, at least we can all savour what has been an extraordinary campaign and reflect on where France goes now.

About Today's Contributor:

Paul Smith, Associate Professor in French and Francophone Studies, University of Nottingham

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Bonus Gifs

via franceinfo

via franceinfo

Can Environmental Documentaries Make Waves?

Tasos Katopodis / EPA

By Michela Cortese, Bangor University

Trump’s first 100 days in office were, among other things, marked by a climate march in Washington DC that attracted tens of thousands of demonstrators. No surprises there. Since the beginning of his mandate in January, Trump has signed orders to roll back the number of federally protected waterways, restart the construction of contentious oil pipeline, and cut the budget from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Among the various orders and memoranda, the one signed to overhaul Obama’s Clean Power Plan is probably the most remarkable, along with promoting coal extractions all over the US.

A good time, then, to follow up Al Gore’s iconic documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which was released 11 years ago in a similarly discouraging political climate. At that time George W Bush, who is remembered for undermining climate science and for strongly supporting oil interests, was in power. In his own first 100 days at the White House, Bush backed down from the promise of regulating carbon dioxide from coal power plants and announced that the US would not implement the Kyoto climate change treaty.

This summer sees the release of An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. More than ten years have passed and the documentary looks likely to be released in a very similar context. With republicans in power, war in the Middle East, and regulations on the environment to be reversed, this inconvenient sequel is a reminder that the climate of the conversation about global warming has not changed much in the interim.

But the strategies needed to grab the attention of the public certainly have. In the fast-paced, ever-evolving media landscape of the 21st century, knowing how to engage the public on environmental matters is no easy thing. The tendency of the environmental films that have mushroomed since 2000 has been to use a rhetoric of fear. But how effective has this been? Certainly, environmental activism has grown, particularly with the help of social media, but the role of these productions is unclear, and there is a lack of research on audience response to these films.

Personal planet
The selling point of An Inconvenient Truth was its personal approach. Although it had a lecture-style tone, this was a documentary that was all about Gore. He told his story entwined with that of the planet. It was extraordinary that people paid to go to the cinema to watch a politician giving a lecture. This was a big shift in cinema. Arguably, this format was enlivened by the way in which Gore opened up about his personal history.

The documentary opened with the politician’s notorious quote: “I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States.” In November 2000 Gore had lost the presidential elections to George W Bush with an extraordinarily narrow defeat. The choice to run with a very personal rhetoric was certainly strategic – the right time for the former vice president to open up six years from that unfortunate election. Gore told the story of global warming through his personal life, featuring his career disappointments, family tragedies and constantly referring to the scientists he interviewed as “my friend”.

This was a very innovative way of approaching the matter of climate change. We are talking about a politician who decided to offer an insight on his private life for a greater cause: to engage the public on a vital scientific subject. The originality of the documentary led to An Inconvenient Truth scoring two Oscars at the Academy Awards 2006.

Today, An Inconvenient Truth is seen as the prototype of activist film-making. Founder of the Climate Reality Project in 2006 and co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (with the IPCC), Gore and his movement soon became the core of environmental activism, gathering several environmental groups that, despite their differences, today march together for the greatest challenge of our time.
New hope?

Eleven years on, the revolution under Gore’s lead that many expected has yet to be fulfilled. The next decade was beset with disappointments. More recently, the 2015 Paris Agreement has marked a new era for climate action, proving that both developed and developing countries are now ready to work together to reduce carbon emissions. But today there is a new protagonist – or antagonist – in the picture. The trailer for An Inconvenient Sequel shows Gore watching Trump shouting his doubts about global warming to the crowd and announcing his plans to strip back the EPA’s budget.

It will be interesting to see how the tone of the film moves off from that of the original. The “personal reveal” tactic won’t work so well the second time round. And a change in the narrative is certainly evident from the trailer. The graphs of the previous documentary are replaced with more evocative images of extreme weather and disasters. While statistics about carbon dioxide emissions and sea-level rises were predominantly used to trigger emotions in the audience, this time round Gore can show the results of his predictions. One example of this is the iconic footage of a flooded World Trade Centre Memorial, a possibility which was discussed by Gore in the 2006 documentary and criticised by many for being a “fictional” element at that time rather than an “evidence” of climate impact.

Unfortunately, I am not sure how much this shift will affect the public or whether the sequel will be the manifesto of that revolution that Gore and his followers have been waiting for. The role that the media have played in the communication of climate change issues has changed and developed alongside the evolution of the medium itself and people’s perception of the environment. The last decade has seen an explosion of sensational images and audiences are fatigued by this use of fear.

Many look for media that includes “positive” messages rather than the traditional onslaught of facts and images triggering negative emotions. It has never been more difficult for environmental communicators to please viewers and readers in the midst of a never-ending flow of information available to them.

About Today's Contributor:

Michela Cortese, Associate Lecturer, Bangor University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Strong And stable Leadership: Inside The Conservatives' Election Slogan

Do you even lift, Jeremy? PA/ Jane Barlow

By Scott Taylor, University of Birmingham

If you’ve heard an interview with any Conservative politician during the current election campaign, you’ve probably heard the phrase “strong and stable leadership”. Theresa May used the phrase three times in seven minutes on the day she announced the vote.

It was clearly a key slogan – and therefore a key aspect of the campaign – right from the start. Since then, Buzzfeed has tracked May’s use of the phrase (giving up at 57 times in ten days). It even featured in the political cartoon for the first edition of the London Evening Standard under its new editor.

It would be easy to dismiss this as just one of those irritating political hooks that are part and parcel of any election. Political history is littered with some far worse campaign slogans (remember the Conservatives’ 2005 “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” – an obscure slogan, to which the public’s answer was a clear “no”). But everything we know about leadership tells us that language is central, so we have to take this careful repetition seriously. What does Theresa May mean by “strong and stable leadership” – and why is it important?

Constructing a reality?
Linda Smircich and Gareth Morgan, two of the world’s most prominent and insightful analysts of organisation, argued in the early 1980s that “successful” leadership (that is, persuading someone to do something they wouldn’t normally do) depended on a leader persuading people of a specific reality. This process of social construction happens mostly through language. That makes language central to politics, as a means of persuasion as much as a means of communicating ideas or policies.

“Strong and stable” tells us that the Conservative party strategists want us to think of all other options as weak and unstable. Social theorists have been telling us for a long time that the meaning we derive from language is relational. The idea of “strong” is therefore understood in relation to an implicit idea of “weak”. Conservative-sponsored adverts in this election and the last in 2015 are keen to tell us the parties and leaders who are weak and unstable.

There’s usually a hierarchy in this way of constructing meaning. The implication here is that strong is better than weak. This is especially true of the idea of leadership. We are bombarded daily with implicit and explicit messages that strong leadership is the ideal. You don’t have to be a believer in “servant leadership” to doubt the idea of strong leadership. There’s plenty of evidence of the damage that strong leaders, in politics and in workplaces, can do.

The strong man?
There’s another factor at play here, too. The repetition of “strong and stable” is becoming important because it carries a series of assumptions with it. Who do you think of when someone talks about strong leadership? Someone tall, able-bodied, probably white, speaking in a deep pitch – and probably male. This ideal is reinforced by corporate commissioned leader portraits and by the representation of leaders in popular culture.

Are you getting the message yet? PA/Chris Radburn

The promotion of this leaderly ideal by a Conservative party led by a woman at the moment isn’t especially surprising. We’re in the midst of a significant fourth wave of feminist activism and theory and political representation is one of the key areas of activity. British politics, with the honourable exception of the Labour party, is notoriously resistant to structural change through positive discrimination schemes such as quotas. In representing their woman leader in this way, the Conservatives emphasise their contribution to that wider social movement, but without really questioning it.

This election campaign will see a lot of discussion about whether we can trust political party leaders. Laying claim to being “strong and stable” shouldn’t mean unthinking followership. When any of us hear a politician, or someone with leadership responsibility in a workplace, tell us what kind of leadership they think we need – ask why they need to use language in this persuasive way, what they’re not saying, and what associations the linguistic images bring with them. Then maybe we can avoid following leaders without thinking. That can only end badly.

About Today's Contributor:
Scott Taylor, Reader in Leadership and Organisation Studies, University of Birmingham

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Bonus Pictures:

Image via Trumpton

Image via Trumpton

Emmanuel Macron Takes Step Closer To French Presidency With Strong Performance In Fiery Debate

On your marks. Eric Feferberg/EPA

 By Delia Dumitrescu, University of East Anglia

Emmanuel Macron was a virtually unknown figure in French politics before 2012. Now, as leader of the new political movement En Marche! he finds himself in the position of being the defender of French liberal democratic values in the second round of the French presidential elections against the far-right Marine le Pen.

Many doubted that he would hold his own during the televised debate between the two candidates on May 3, the only one before the second and final round of voting on May 7. But Macron delivered a masterclass performance in public speaking.

A relative newcomer to politics, Macron has espoused policies that are too left-wing for many voters on the right, and too right-wing for many voters on the left. Yet during the debate, he proved he could deliver a clear and coherent message. He also proved that Le Pen’s programme could not stand the light of scrutiny.

Timing, tone, and attitude
Macron’s approach during the debate was pitch perfect. With both candidates given the same amount of talking time, Macron’s mastery of his own time was remarkable. He took control of the debate at the beginning, taking more time than Le Pen to deliver a message that both played on national pride, but also accused her of telling lies and spreading nonsense. After letting his opponent talk more in the middle of the debate, Macron finished strong, unmasking Le Pen’s contempt for the French justice system, while urging the French to be optimistic about the future.

Research has shown that people remember and are persuaded more by information they receive either at the beginning of a message, or at the end, rather than in the middle. At the beginning and at the end of the debate, Macron was at his strongest.

The debate was full of accusations and insults on both sides, making it uncomfortable to watch. It is well known that people do not like incivility in debates. But here Macron was again a step ahead of his opponent. While he accused her of telling lies and not having her facts right, his accusations were for the most part specific, relating to what she had done, or had proposed to do or had said. When justified, people are more willing to accept incivility in debate.

On the other hand, he also debunked her accusations, for example when she accused him of being in charge of the takeover of a mobile phone company at a point when he did not hold elected office. At the end of the debate, she was reduced to simply shouting out the names of politicians who had endorsed Macron while he was espousing his vision for the future of France.

His nonverbal demeanour was also striking. Looking straight into the camera or straight into his opponent’s eyes, sitting slightly leant backward, shoulders straight, speaking with a clear, strong and calm voice, he exuded confidence. Opposite him, Le Pen often crossed her arms, leant forward, and lost eye contact. Research has shown that displaying nonverbal confidence is very important for voters’ impressions of a candidate’s leadership and winning potential.

Supporters of Emmanuel Macron watch the debate at a bar in Paris on May 3. Ian Langsdon/EPA

Catching up to do
Since taking over the reins of the Front National from her father in 2011, Marine Le Pen has strived to convince the public that the party has changed, that it is no longer a party catering to a niche electorate of the extreme right, but can be a party in government. Numerous analyses of her discourse throughout the year have shown this not to be the case, and that the changes are simply image based.

During the debate, the lack of viability of FN policies, such as on removing France from the euro, and Le Pen’s inability to show command of state and economic affairs, such as when she was surprised to learn that many medical drugs are produced outside of France, was obvious. She painted the FN’s familiar apocalyptic picture of France, full of despair and bleakness, mentioning key phrases such as “national interest” multiple times, but offered nothing else new.

Macron, on the other hand, clearly expressed his desire to change the way things are done in France, and to do so with a pragmatic approach that takes advantage of the current strengths of France, her people and her place in Europe and the world. On every topic raised during the debate, he presented a clear plan of action. He talked about small and very small businesses, about the problem of youth radicalisation, about schools, about fiscal policy, and about people with disabilities.

While both candidates’ performances may not change how people vote (Macron still has a 20 percentage point lead in the polls), it may have changed why people vote. No longer to stop Le Pen, but for Macron as a candidate and for his programme.

About Today's Contributor:
Delia Dumitrescu, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Politics, University of East Anglia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

How The Bible Shapes Contemporary Attitudes To rape And Sexual Assault

David seducing Bathsheba, Anonymous.

By Katie Edwards, University of Sheffield and Emma Nagouse, University of Sheffield

A retiring judge recently faced accusations of victim blaming when she used her final courtroom case as a plea to women to “protect themselves” from rapists by staying sober. Judge Lindsey Kushner restated these views in a television interview on Good Morning Britain, asking, “why shouldn’t you say – be aware ladies?”

Kushner’s comments were met with a mixed response. Some praised her for using her final speech before stepping down from the bench as a gesture of concern and warning to women who, she believes, make themselves more vulnerable to rape after consuming alcohol. Others, including representatives from Rape Crisis and some feminist activists, see these comments as acutely dangerous – comments that encourage and affirm attitudes of victim-blaming which, in turn, perpetuate the stereotypes that underpin rape culture.

Unfortunately, Kushner is far from the only judge in a sexual assault case to comment on the “irresponsible” or “provocative” behaviour of women and girls.

Biblical attitudes to rape
As a deeply influential cultural document, the Bible has a lot to say when it comes to attitudes around sex, shame and gender identity. Rape is endemic in the Bible (both literally and metaphorically) and, more often than not, functions as a conduit for male competition and a tool to uphold patriarchy.

Bathsheba at her Bath, Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari (1680).

For example, David’s rape of Bathsheba is echoed in his son Amnon’s rape of half-sister Tamar, and his son Absalom’s rape of David’s ten concubines. And in Judges 21, the Benjaminites are “saved from extinction” through the mass rape of women from Jabesh-gilead and Shiloh.

A common thread in the biblical text is that women are responsible for maintaining their sexual “purity”. This is not in the interests of their own well-being, but to ensure that as male property, women remain “undamaged”. This seems to be a no-win situation. The consequence for Dinah, who transgresses social boundaries by going “out to meet the women of the land”, is rape. Women who do fulfil feminine ideals, such as Bathsheba, who is described as “very beautiful”, tend to attract negative, often violent, male sexual attention.
In other words, one way or another, women are constantly implicitly blamed, both in the Bible and in contemporary culture, for their rape.

To blame for one’s beauty
A case in point is another “very beautiful” biblical woman, Susanna. Susanna is the subject of an attempted rape by two elders, who spy on her while she’s bathing before conspiring to coerce her into sex:

Look the garden doors are shut, and no one can see us. We are burning with desire for you; so give your consent, and lie with us. If you refuse, we will testify against you that a young man was with you, and this was why you sent your maids away.

In the biblical text, Susanna’s beauty is to blame for attracting the attentions of the elders. In a plotline that’s echoed in today’s court rooms, Susanna’s testimony isn’t believed and her sexual conduct is brought into question. It takes a man, Daniel, to advocate for her and to rescue her from execution after she refuses the elders’ offer.

In his successful defence of her and condemnation of the elders, Daniel says: “Beauty has beguiled you and lust has perverted your heart.” Here, as so often in contemporary society, rape and sexual assault are linked to the attractiveness of women rather than a violent crime of power and control. Even in art, Susanna is implicitly blamed for being targeted. As the critic John Berger has observed, Susanna, like Bathsheba, is often depicted looking at herself in a mirror while she’s bathing:

The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralising, however, was mostly hypocritical. You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.

Susanna and the Elders, Tintoretto (1555).

Kushner’s words continue this not-so-grand tradition of victim blaming. Kushner suggests that women who do not exhibit “disinhibited behaviour” by abstaining from alcohol are better able to fight off men with “evil intentions”. What is key here is that moderating women’s behaviour does not do anything to address the issue of rape or dismantle rape culture. It just shifts the collective social responsibility to prevent rape and sexual assault to that of individual women.

Women who do not agree to self-police are blamed for others’ actions. What Kushner is giving isn’t “just advice” or “common sense”; it reduces rape to a choice: choose for someone else to be targeted for attack rather than yourself.

Rather than continuing to judge women for their behaviour, perhaps it’s time we started to judge a society that blames women for rape.

About Today's Contributors:
Katie Edwards, Director SIIBS, University of Sheffield and Emma Nagouse, PhD Candidate in Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation.