“Publicity has another social function. The fact that this function has not been planned as a purpose by those who make and use publicity in no way lessens its significance. Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy.”
—John Berger, Ways of Seeing
The finest thing about Mussorgsky’s composition, “Pictures at An Exhibition,” is not so much the music but the ideas the sound of the piano brings. Is it a castle I am seeing now? Or a Gnome? Or a Troll?
The worst thing about a photograph of politicians is not so much the images projected but what lies (ah, the pun, the pun!) behind those faces?
The last week of June, as the smoke from the election war started to dissipate, and as the horizon loomed, clearer and resonant, photos of victors in the last political derby began to appear. They came out on national and local papers and free TV, on tabloids, on community bulletins.
When did the Bible enter our oath-taking? The great book was a common feature in most celebrations. The arrangement was suave: children stood beside the father or the mother; the mother or the father held the Bible and one of the children was tasked with holding the paper containing the words for the Oath. No one was smiling or if there was effusive happiness, it was contained; restraint. The atmosphere was grave. Being a local official was a grave duty. They are not officials but servants. Remember that.
In the absence of a Bible, relatives surrounded the elected official. Identified, the clan was composed of either a father or mother who was exiting as the son or daughter took over. Siblings and cousins posing for posterity were former local officials themselves or incoming officials of the lower echelon. Dynastic, the pictures glorified inclusion and exclusion—with the family in position included, with you and me excluded.
The glorious shots were reserved for the last week of June—the documentations of the pro-administration senators with the President. If this were the Renaissance, when the art of portraiture reached its peak, the handlers could have worked overtime. Painters and designers would have been conscripted; banners and tapestries would have been hanged. But there was new urgency in the air, not the kind of haste meant for progress but one that nuanced anxieties. There was, after all, a rousing consensus that cheating in the last election had a Renaissance and the organization tasked with overseeing the electoral process wallowed in abstruse legalese that was more Byzantine than brilliant.
Allow me to read the photograph as if I am conducting a lesson in Humanities (ah, the pun, the pun).
And so there they were, the eight. If they were artifacts, their provenance could not have been more varied. The sites of their origins were as disparate as their class and intellect. Yet, they formed a complex, in the archaeological sense of it: all of them can be clustered as forming a trait that made them similar and related to each other. They were all politicians. They had all the blessings of a leader who did not believe in the transcendental. Please supply the other traits.
Pretend they were all lined up on massive mural, one that had enough grandeur and aesthetics to deserve being donated to the Palace as a gift to the people of a nation.
There was symmetry at the background. Symmetry, of course, whether imagined or constructed, always denotes harmony. Even book designers die for symmetry. That must be the reason for the beige/gray heavy curtains running from left to right, bisected by a shiny wooden panel, which bore the Presidential seal. On the left was the Philippine flag; on the right was the Presidential banner.
Two boyish senators flanked the group; perhaps an index that youth, beautiful youth must frame the republic. The handsomer one had obligations to the court; the charming one surprised the voters how he made it there. There were three women. Do we cluster them together, the photographer or the protocol officer or the production/political designer must have mused?
A solution was reached as regards the women: The No. 1 had to be beside the President. Look, a shadow hanged over half of her body because she pressed herself too close to the Center, with the Seal nearly looming above her. Was this ambition? Beside her was another youthful senator perhaps to remind us that, indeed, youth is the hope of the Fatherland or Motherland or whatever archetype would work in the present dispensation.
Where did the other two women go? They were there flanked by two Bongs! The woman who was once an occupant of the Palace had a strange way of making the fist, for her hand curved gracefully. For those who knew her when the world was at her feet would feel pity now that she had to follow the instruction to clench that fist and push it forward. She looked a bit unhappy. Looming tall next to her was the other lady senator who once pushed that the other woman, the late dictator’s daughter, should resolve the diploma issues attributed to her. Sidled to the tall lady senator was the smaller Bong who had stepped out from the rest in that photo. Smaller in stature perhaps, but not ready to be obscure, he was the only one not smiling. What came across as glee was really the thinness of the upper lip.
Was it Dickens who said, “there are only two styles of portrait painting: the serious and the smirk”?
As for the former policeman, now that was the smile. He was happy. He knew how to raise that fist. The happiness on that face was nothing to the menace of the fist. He knew the violence and threat of the gesture.
Did the other senators knew the inside story of that fist? Did they at all care?
Years from now, or maybe next month, when the Chinese have invaded us, their scholars would look at these photos, these portraits of seeming defiance, and be confused how the bravery of our politicians failed. We could turn not to Confucius but to Aristotle and paraphrase his words about Art, which is not all about “the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance which constitutes reality.”
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