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6 - Trump’s Comedic Gestures as Political Weapon

from Part II - Performance and Falsehood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Donna M. Goldstein ,
Kira Hall  and
Matthew Bruce Ingram
Edited by
Janet McIntosh  and
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Janet McIntosh
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

This chapter argues that the success of Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 Republican primary was due in part to its value as barbed comedic entertainment, generated through gesture. The chapter builds on semiotician Mikhael Bakhtin’s notion of the “grotesque body” to examine the ways that Trump’s unconventional communicative style, particularly his use of gesture to critique the political system and caricature his opponents, brought momentum to his campaign by creating spectacle. By reducing a target perceived as an opponent to an essentialized action of the body, Trump’s bodily parodies deliver the message that he rejects progressive social expectations regarding how minority groups should be represented. Five highly mediatized caricatures are analyzed in detail: the Wrist-Flailing Reporter, the Food-Shoveling Governor, the Choking Ex-Politician, the Border-Crossing Mexican, and the Swooning Democratic Nominee. In each of these gestural enactments, Trump displays his antagonism to political correctness by embodying discourses of disability, class, race, immigration, and gender, thus encouraging a new sociopolitical order that discourages empathy toward the vulnerable.

Keywords

gestureentertainmentparodyBakhtinbodyembodimentspectaclecaricaturepolitical correctnessempathy
Type
Chapter
Information
Language in the Trump Era
Scandals and Emergencies
 , pp. 97 - 123
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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