Now that Obama has been elected, I think we need a systematic way to distinguish the real Obama from the fantasy construct who occupies so many people’s minds.
You know what I’m talking about, of course: the tendency to attribute to Obama any and all qualities deemed desirable by the fantasist. Thus we have Obama the Pacifist (despite the fact that, in reality, Obama supports a “strong military” and has promised to invade our allies if necessary), Obama the Feminist (despite the fact that, in reality, Obama is personally sexist and ran an explicitly misogynistic smear campaign against his two female opponents), Obama the Lightworker (despite the fact that, in reality, Obama is a Chicago machine politician whose campaign was so dirty and corrupt it reminded long-time Democrats of Nixon and Rove), Obama the Gay Rights Advocate (despite the fact that, in reality, Obama opposes same-sex marriage and chose to associate his campaign with Donnie McClurkin), and so on.
I’m thinking about this today because of Melissa Etheridge’s remarkable statement about the passing of Proposition 8, the anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative in California:
…I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one… Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no “them”. We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That “judge not, lest ye yourself be judged” are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.
She seems to believe that Obama’s election is in some way antithetical to the passing of Proposition 8 — even though Obama himself opposes gay marraige, and even though it was Obama voters who pushed Proposition 8 to victory.
But clearly Etheridge isn’t talking about the real Obama. It’s doubtful she even knows who he is. She’s talking about Fantasy Obama, the pacifist feminist lightworking Savior.
So I think we need an orthographic convention to indicate when we’re referring to this fantastic being. Perhaps we could put his name in quotes: “Obama.” Or we could preface his name with an asterisk, the way linguists do when they’re indicating a reconstructed form: *Obama. As in, “Even though President Obama gave the order today to bomb Pakistan, I know that *Obama is a pacifist who would never agree to something like that!”
Just a thought.
Posted by Violet in Various and Sundry
