Soundbitten by Sarah Sobieraj

Author:Sarah Sobieraj [Sobieraj, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9780814741368
Google: RUwTCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2011-06-13T04:24:23+00:00

Quiet, the Show Is Starting! Public Displays of Activism

A few organizations used the Chinese Cultural Freedom Collective model, working to thoughtfully engage pedestrians, but most offered people in the streets of New York or Los Angeles or Boston an opportunity to watch a show and little more. Demonstrative activity as performance dominated the landscape. Sometimes performances were staged to look like something else, such as a protest, a rally, or a march, but these were symbolic events rather than instrumental efforts. Choice’s march across the Brooklyn Bridge was not a march to the courthouse to intervene in a hearing or a trial. Nor was it a march to an abortion clinic to shepherd clients in and out of buildings safely. It was a march to visually demonstrate support for reproductive rights to the public, elected officials, and the RNC platform committee. Similarly, organizers of the huge march before the 2004 RNC never set their sights on disrupting the convention. Instead, they sought to demonstrate to the world that the Bush agenda was not without opposition in the United States.

At times, symbolic events were quite literally performances for the public. Members of the Radical Grandma Chorus dressed like matronly older women, singing subversive political lyrics set to classic patriotic melodies. Alternacheer members donned torn fuchsia fishnets and black vinyl skirts and performed choreographed cheers that indicted capitalism and cheekily promoted masturbation as an alternative to war. Conservatives for Reproductive Rights gathered musicians, comedians, and actors for a live concert. These politically loaded performances were often wonderful, but it is significant that they were oriented around being watched and heard rather than engaging in dialogue. Most groups created no substantive participatory opportunities during their performances, nor did they circulate members to welcome people or answer questions; in most cases, groups did not even have literature available for pedestrians (although some had “press kits” ready). To the extent that most groups strategized at all about how to draw pedestrians, they did so because they conceptualized them as necessary pieces of the show for the media, as critical elements of their photo opportunity.

This absence of effort is significant. Some laypeople were out and about precisely because the cities were politically charged. I met one such young man on the MIT campus before the first presidential debate in 2000. He was sitting at the perimeter of the quad in the fall sun, watching a group of activists set up a table. I mistakenly assumed he was a student between classes, but he was on campus because he had heard that there were going to be some activist groups there. “I’m here to get informed,” he told me. “I know what happens in the debate will just be one point of view.” Regardless of whether they planned to be in the area, pedestrians were clearly curious about the colorful performances. Many stopped to watch, particularly if others had already begun to gather. Some smiled at activists and a few clapped, their body language indicating openness to

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