Maureen Dowd's column in today's NY Times contains this extract:
Mr. Kerry, a Boston Democrat, had thought about announcing in front of a warship, wrote The Boston Globe's Glen Johnson, but felt the need for something bigger, to stage a more chesty confrontation with Mr. Bush. ... So the issue is illusion: can Senator Kerry match President Bush's ability to appropriate an aircraft carrier as a political prop?
Is there a word or phrase to describe the manipulation of background in a camera pose to make a subliminal statement?
Public figures will go to extraordinary lengths to select, and even edit, the scenery in a photo opp. For instance, it has also been reported that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had the naked breast of a female bronze draped for a photo opp recently because he didn't want to be photographed in front of another "boob". I didn't make this up, honest.
Some might argue that Arnold Schwarzenegger's candidacy for Governor of California is the ultimate expression of this cinematic art. "Electaprop"?
Is their a word or phrase to describe the manipulation of background
Setting the stage is all I can think of. Also, I don't recall seeing/hearing the phrase "chesty confrontation" before, either, and I don't think I like it.
Oh--why cynamatic, please?
Blend of cinematic and cynical maybe?
Bingley
cinematic and cynical
Once I figured that out I decided I liked the term but I had to go through cyan to get there.
Of course the ulitmate in cynamatic would be to pose with your cute little puppy dog.
cyan - a printer's color - a sort of greenish blue!
President Bush's ability to appropriate an aircraft carrier as a political prop?
Arrrgggghhh!© This really got my Irish up! To take the courage, commitment and valor of those sailors and airmen/women and subliminally suggest you have the same. And for the Commander in Chief to ignore the cost in the time of the military and taxpayer's money to tie up an aircraft carrier for heaven's sake for political "spin!"!
And the ship was just off shore (I believe San Diego) and cameras were positioned so that the land didn't show so it looked like the ship was at sea! The President's ride in the helicopter was p'rolly ten minutes!
I repeat Arrrgggghhh!©
cinematic and cynicalI'd like to suggest the addition of
emetic to the mix:
ADJECTIVE: Causing vomiting.
NOUN: An agent that causes vomiting.
ETYMOLOGY: Late Latin
emeticos, from Greek
emetikos, from
emetos, vomiting, from
emein, to vomit. See wem - in Appendix I.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/10/E0111000.htmlThus the compounded neologism becomes:
cynemeticThe cynical use of film trickery for nauseating political gain.
cynemetic
The cynical use of film trickery for nauseating political gain.
Well done mav. Too bad this particular disease is so widespread!
I don't like "chesty confrontation" either, especially after the comment about not getting his picture taken in front of another "boob", although it begs the question - who does he usually get his picture taken in front of.
who does he usually get his picture taken in front of.
W
"Chesty confrontation" - one of the martial arts characterised by aggressive coughing. Also known as Thoraxing, the sport's popular but hard to make out logo shows the Norse god of war wielding a battle axe in dense smoke.
Bush looked as if the carrier was about to run him down. Was there a subliminal message inside the sublime message?
the sublime message?
It wasn't a "sub".
the sublime message?
It wasn't a "sub". Oh, it was a lime message, then?
a lime message
Sailors always eat limes. For the scurvy, ya know.
Sub...sailors...! [smacking forehead e] :-)
> cynemetic
The cynical use of film trickery for nauseating political gain.
I was thinking some more about this recently - it's prolly too artificial to gain wider currency...
A simpler way of expressing this aspect of the 'black arts of spin' is therfore suggested:
Blackground
A cynical manipulation of background imagery
This can function as a verb ("the carrier was blackgrounded behind Bush...") or as a noun ("Blair is a typical sleaze-ball blackgrounder...").
Any takers?
Blackground
Not bad, But most manipulation of this sort is more grey than black (your examples excepted).
The old standby "photo opp" probably works as well as anything.
Naah--t quite; I think it carries too much connotation of negativity--that is, that the purpose would be to deliberately make the setting negative in some way, or perhaps to cover up something negative. For me, this word just doesn't cover an effort, albeit false and patently so, to improve an image.