With a basic introduction to the aspirational-confirmation celebrity archetype spectrum now complete, we can begin to expand the concept into other fields of celebrity outside of the arts and athletics. The first area of expanded analysis will focus on the politician as both celebrity and leader. American politicians, both local and national, can develop major celebrity while also being detached enough from their constituents to be viewed as archetypes. This degree of detachment also helps campaigns to manipulate their candidate’s archetype, at least for segments of the population and for a period.
An archetype is a human-symbol hybrid, so this concept plays especially well in politics. A politician can easily be archetyped as a hero, a martyr, David against goliath, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, the pillar of community, and so on. These archetypes should instantly suggest examples from movies, books, and life. They are more than memes, more than roles that one can play. The idea of a hero, for example, is cross cultural and existed long before one existed in scripture or folklore.
Society may give names and descriptions to archetypes like the hero or the villain, but our understanding of these symbols is innate. One does not need to see a fire fighter rush into a blazing inferno to carry out a baby who would otherwise die to know that this man is acting as a hero. If archetypes like the hero are innately observed and understood as such, what then do I refer to when I use archetype as a verb. How can one consciously take part in an innate, subconscious action?
This act of archetyping, or consciously noticing and discussing human symbols, comes from our instinct to group people into categories. In the firefighter example, one can both innately understand him to be a hero while also consciously discussing his role as hero. The intentional act is simply a layer atop the subconscious recognition. This has a beneficial role in society. Thanks to this conscious layer to the archetype’s recognition, one can witness a heroic act, innately recognize it, and then share stories of it to one who did not witness the heroics. With the subconscious being the primary recognition mechanism, the conscious being the secondary, and the individual(s) hearing about the story taking part as tertiary parties in this process.
Man’s ability to relay archetypal recognition to others and help them to experience the innate recognition, effectively in reverse, means that we can manipulate one another to see archetypes that may or may not exist. Politics is perhaps the clearest example of this ability to manipulate man’s normally innate archetypal recognition mechanism.
Democratic political contests have always been a competition built around archetype manipulation. This manipulation takes place in two directions. The first is in a positive direction and is conducted by a politician and their campaign. The other simultaneously manipulation is sought by the opposing candidate and campaign to turn their opponent into a negative archetype. For example, some politicians will attempt to get voters to view them as a successful executive or some other competence-based archetype. Their opponent will then try to paint them in the darkest light possible. An example of this played out when Mitt Romney ran on his business and governing experience and Barack Obama’s campaign brilliantly used his corporate experience to make him appear callous.
The Romney campaign’s mistake, among many, was that they focused on too vanilla an archetype to manipulate the public into recognizing. As with successful celebrities, politicians do best when they benefit from the emotional attachment generated by aspirational and confirmational archetype recognition. We can see better attempts in the 2020 election matchup between Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden.
In 2020, team Biden worked to make the former VP a confirmational archetype. He was presented as the relatable, friendly, Uncle Joe. They played up his ample political experience but strived to maintain the everyman image that he had presented throughout his decades in Washington. Donald Trump on the other hand projected himself as the same aspiration billionaire who took on official Washington and won the White House with the support of the “forgotten man”. He was presented as a wildly successful TV star and real estate mogul who gave up the good life to represent those who felt voiceless.
As each campaign worked to archetype their candidate, they also attempted to counteract their opponent’s efforts. Biden’s relatability was called into question as Team Trump pointed out his wealth, multiple homes, and allegations of family corruption. Trump’s record as a self-made billionaire who was unphased by and able to handle all problems was challenged by his record handling the COVID-19 outbreak, racial unrest, and more. Given the tight final vote tallies, one can walk away giving both campaigns positive marks in all regards when it came to presenting their archetypes and painting their opponent in a negative light.
Though the 2020 election was relatively even, the 2016 presidential contest was quite different from an archetyping perspective. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign decided to heavily invest in competence based archetyping of their candidate and the reserve for Mr. Trump’s campaign. In the Clinton campaign, competence and experience archetyping was so heavily favored that minimal efforts were made toward helping the masses relate with their candidate. Furthermore, their attempt to negatively archetype Trump as an outsider with no relevant experience in the political arena did not only prove unhelpful to their campaign, but they also aided his, which was built around the benefits of insurgency.
While team Clinton presented their candidate as the most qualified, team Trump presented their man as a brash self-made billionaire who believed in the American dream and wanted to help struggle parts of the country bounce back from decades of economic and cultural rot. In Trump the downtrodden in areas like the rust belt saw hope. In Clinton, many saw just another qualified politician who had experience, but experience doing harm to their communities. Trump was simultaneously an aspirational archetype and at times a confirmational one due to his efforts to acknowledge how millions in the industrial Midwest felt left behind by free trade.
As Trump made inroads with blue collar workers, Clinton decried millions of them as “irredeemable” “deplorables”. Ill-advised comments that mirrored Mitt Romney’s bizarre and campaign destroying assertion that 47% of Americans were beholden to the government for their income and unlikely to vote for him. Despite Trump’s unrelatable financial situation, he channeled many of the same confirmational archetype features that another famous New Yorker used successfully in the 1900s: FDR. The 2016 election’s results tell us which side focused on the right types of archetyping and which failed.
These examples show us how politicians work to use archetypes to their advantage and to their opponent’s disadvantage, but if archetypes are innate, can they truly manipulate our innate understanding of these symbolic roles? The answer is yes, at least for a time, and the reason, as it is with other Celebrities, lies largely in detachment. Just as the person observing the heroic firefighter can describe it to a friend and help them understand the archetypal significance of his actions, so to can pundits and candidates persuade viewers and listeners to see a candidate in a particular archetypal light.
Just as a public relations team can help the world see an actor or singer in a particular way, a good campaign manager can do the same for a candidate. This does not mean that every observer will see their candidate the way they intend, but it does mean there are enough malleable minds out there to make the efforts not only worthwhile but vital. People can easily see through insincerity in words and actions, but with the degree of detachment that politics provides, it is trickier to spot than if say your neighbor was trying to defraud you.
History has shown endless examples of politicians who wore the mask for friendly leader while engaging in corruption, killings, and more. History is also replete with cases of beloved celebrities being revealed, sometimes only after death, to have been tyrants when the curtains were drawn. The adage advising people to, “Never meet your heroes.” is in these cases given weight. Considering that archetypes are recognized innately, you could say that someone’s authentic behavior is the only thing that could draw the recognition of their archetypal status, but when do people act authentically? When is someone’s true self revealed in public, let alone their true thoughts? Even in close proximity we see through a glass darkly when observing human actions for authenticity. Remove this proximity, add some well-choreographed moves along with rehearsed words and the appearance of authenticity is easy to manufacture.
Politicians can and often do have their negative behind-the-scenes behavior exposed, and when this occurs, the archetype they have worked to manufacture for themselves can be destroyed. However, it is rare that this archetype evaporates in the eyes of all their former supporters. Archetypes, even manufactured ones, can be sticky things. Once we see someone as good or bad, heroic or villainous, it takes something remarkable to change this perception. Famous politicians just like some entertainers or even well-known preachers have overcome singular or repeated examples of their true selves being exposed only to press on and maintain a dwindling but still sizable following.
This ability of an archetype to withstand the impact of facts on its presented reality further emphasizes the importance of making efforts to archetype those who make their careers in the public light like politicians. These efforts coupled with the detachment of those perceiving them can add a degree of Teflon to any public personality. I believe at a subconscious level we see people for who they truly are. However, a strategically crafted narrative that thoughtfully uses symbolism and plays on the archetypes we understand innately will help a viewer deny their subconscious impulses to see a person’s true archetype if one exists.
While the Trump and Biden campaigns played on their candidate’s natural archetypes, other campaigns have successfully taken their candidates in an unnatural direction. John F. Kennedy for example, with his health issues, war service, and the loss of his brother was a successful confirmation archetype style politician in his early career. However, by the time of his death, the Press and his presidential campaign team had turned him and his life into the aspirational Camelot symbol. This was an archetype far sexier and easier to sell than any confirmational version of Kennedy could have been.
Years after Kennedy’s assassination, details of his numerous affairs would emerge, counteracting the perfect image of his family life that had been presented. However, with his archetype solidified and near-martyr status confirmed, this information did little to prevent his family from maintaining political power for decades. Here we see once more the value of strategic archetyping and detachment. The Kennedy’s family’s wealth added to their mystique, and their impossible to access home base on Cape Cod helped to maintain their aspirational and near-royal image.
This is not to say that JFK’s position as an aspirational archetype was fraudulent, it was far from it. It is merely to say that the truth of his life demanded a veneer of mystique be manufactured to aid in this formation of his archetype. Of course, just under half of the country did not view JFK as his campaign intended, and the results of the controversial 1960 election prove this. Enough, though, did see JFK as aspirational enough to vote for despite his youth, inexperience, and family history.
When we view politicians as celebrities first, the importance of their presentation and ultimate placement on the aspirational-confirmational archetype spectrum is clear. It is crucial to make a concerted effort to ensure the intended archetype of a candidate is perceived by their target audience. Unlike the firefighter whose course of work presents opportunities to show his heroics, a politician must manufacture these archetype-revealing moments carefully. Though a concocted archetype may be less than perfect generating its intended effect it is necessary for those in the political and broader celebrity space to understand how these symbols are perceived and how they can utilize this understanding to their benefit.
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