Meghan McCain, I was so wrong about you. Just a little more than a year ago, during her father’s failed campaign for president, I wrote a piece for Slate about how McCain had learned to cannily manipulate her very blond public image to its full advantage while still maintaining a modicum of privacy. I even called her shrewd.
That was before she joined Twitter. When I wrote about her in 2008, I was impressed with the amount of agency she appeared to exert over her own image, but that’s where I was most wrong. She’s not a woman coolly dealing with the hand of celebrity she was dealt; she’s a lost little girl grasping at fame, working out her insecurities on an unnecessarily large stage.
Nothing illustrates this better than this week's McCain controversy, when she set the Internet a-twitter by posting a self-snapped picture of herself holding an Andy Warhol biography with the two most prominent parts of her below-the-neck anatomy very much in evidence. Reaction was swift and harsh, with Twitter users seizing the occasion to tell the 24-year-old to cover up and to acquire some class, doled out with all the politeness one has come to expect from the Internet. By Thursday, McCain began posting frantic messages about quitting Twitter and apologizing for the picture (which she took down, put back up, took back down …).
The problem isn’t that McCain posted a provocative picture of herself online—silly and tacky as it might be, lots of young women do it. It’s not that she has large breasts and is proud of her body. And it’s not that she’s using her looks and her “brand” to further her “career”—if she decides she wants to be Julia Allison, fine, let her be. The problem is that she’s trying to have it both ways. She wants to be taken seriously on matters of policy and to have a voice in the Republican Party—at least so she tells us—and people seem more than willing to give her one, but she also wants to go on the Tyra Banks show and talk about her hair extensions.
The controversy happened to make the rounds on the same day that Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post devoted a column to the newly influential ladies of the GOP, naming McCain alongside Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, and Liz Cheney. Like most commenters who’ve written about McCain, Parker said that she’s fresh and hip and heterodox and so can help revamp the GOP brand for young voters, although there’s no evidence that she’s done anything of the kind.
Noreen Malone is DoubleX's copy editor. She is a native of Cleveland and a graduate of Georgetown University.
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Comments
She wants to be taken
By: Rose M. Welch | Tue, 11/03/2009 - 02:07
She wants to be taken seriously on matters of policy and to have a voice in the Republican Party—at least so she tells us—and people seem more than willing to give her one, but she also wants to go on the Tyra Banks show and talk about her hair extensions.
Since when does being a woman mean that I have to choose between being interested in my appearance and interested in having a voice in politics? I can have both, thank you very much, and so can Megan McCain.
I can talk to my girlfriends about girly bullshit in my living room or on television, and still be a good mother, and a good employee, and a good wife, and a voice in our government. I can be anything I want to be, and Double-Xers are probably the last people who should be saying that women can't be multi-faceted.
Sex sells ideas too
By: johnnydoe | Mon, 10/19/2009 - 20:18
Gail Collins and Peggy Noonan might not be flashing their decolletage, but Ann Coulter certainly dresses to provoke, and she's seen an intellectual force by many in her party. A mere glance at the covers of her last several books show her wearing increasingly skimpy "little black dresses," and she habitually micro-mini evening wear during interviews on morning television. That, and her infamous description of liberal women as hippie "pie wagons," certainly makes it hard to deny that she's not combing her sexuality with her message in a way very similar to Meghan McCain.
mixed feelings
By: closetpuritan | Mon, 10/19/2009 - 16:19
Posting that photo definitely seems imprudent to me--not shrewd--IF being seen as a serious political figure is more important than the Julia Allison strategy to her. She's not taken very seriously now. Does she see the Julia Allison route as a more viable option?
In our culture, if you're a female celebrity, your persona cannot be simultaneously "sexy" and taken seriously. Whether this SHOULD be the case is another question. But for most non-famous women, they can simply switch between different personas, or at least different outfits--if they wear a pantsuit at work and a cleavage-baring camisole at home, it's not a big deal. (Of course, wearing that is not the same as posting a picture on the internet...)
This may be giving her too much credit, but I wonder if McCain sees this as a risky strategy with a potential big payoff. If she can convince enough people that she shouldn't have to censor her "sexy" side to be taken seriously, she could potentially gain a bigger following than if she simply played down her sexuality as much as possible. Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter have a big following that seems to be based partly on their attractiveness.
The problem isn't that she's curvaceous
By: bagel | Sat, 10/17/2009 - 23:12
Or that she likes to wear tank tops, or that it means she's a slut.
It's that anyone who: 1) has a lick of good judgment or discretion; 2) cares about her public image; and 3) does not want an image rooted in cheap sexuality would have looked at that photo and thought, "Oops, that's not quite what I was after, let me try again" instead of sending it to 60,000 people. To me, it's not that it's offensive or provocative, as it makes me look at her and shake my head and think, "really? ugh."
Ugly Betty's Amanda
By: MomNextDoor | Sat, 10/17/2009 - 16:18
To me, she looks like the "Amanda" character on Ugly Betty in that twitter shot. There seem to be a lot of similarities between the two.
That bit about not realizing what she was doing or how it looked, being too curvy to be taken seriously is just pure nonsense. This is one of the things millions of women have been dealing with, successfully, since the 70's. She can't have it both ways--either put them away and be taken seriously or not. Seems the Ugly Betty character is just figuring this out, so maybe this young lady will do the same. I look forward to watching both characters grow into smart, successful women.
Oh lighten up
By: theDA | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 20:32
This is why Republicans can't seem to win the youth vote.
Christopher Hitchens is a fat
By: pampl | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 18:54
Christopher Hitchens is a fat drunken lout but is taken (relatively) seriously because he knows and thinks about things which matter. If McCain wants to be taken seriously while having the freedom to act and dress in an atypical manner then she should spend less time on Twitter and more time at the library. Being a politician's relative gave her an "in" as a forgettable talking head repeating conventional wisdom but if she wants to be idiosyncratic she has to earn it.
Evidence from the Renaissance Fayre
By: citizeness | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 15:12
No one is in that "phase of the moon" in a lay-around-the-house tank top. Either a sturdy structural garment or a camera trick is at work.
Don't get me wrong tinyredcar
By: goffers | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 14:00
I think it is just fine for gals to look sexy. I think it is probably true also that some less well-endowed gals may wish they looked like a prostitute when they wore a tank-top, rather than "cute." More women get breast enlargements than breast reductions. Still, I am sure you are self-aware enough to know that if you wanted to be taken seriously as a political commentator you wouldn't parade the girls on your twitter feed and give a come-hither porn smirk.
Why one of my best friends is an MD/PhD and is also quite well-endowed and attractive. I don't think she has any problems being taken seriously in a lab coat.
Lost Little Girl?
By: TigerLily81 | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 13:48
She's in her mid-twenties and is the daughter of one of the most prominent politicians in the country. She isn't a naive young woman from some backwater town. Calling her a little girl is a bit much.