height in politics
Published by michael October 2nd, 2004 in politicsI’ve never really understood the power of height in western society. I’m not sure what the ratio is between the biological, or animal instict and the degree to which it’s become a sociological phenomenon. Nonetheless, it’s an indisputably deep-rooted meme that height equals power– especially, if not exclusively, among men. It doesn’t really make sense to me, since Gandhi was obviously a far more powerful and respectable human being, than say my *wince* current governor and *erp* boss.
Then I stumbled across this: “Did Fox News Photoshop a picture to make Bush appear taller?” on boingboing. My philosophical objections aside, my mind tends to perceive Bush as weaker than Kerry in the picture where he is shorter. (granted, he has already maximized his negative faction with me) Click thumbs for original pictures from AP and AFP.
   
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Well we all know that during the campaign the cameras were intentionally positioned to equalize their differences in height. It’s funny–like those maps that “accurately” portray a 3d space in 2d–while their heights appeared the same, everything was bigger in one frame as compared with the other. Doesn’t this have some psychological impact on the viewers’ perceptions of their respective strength? And was I the only one to notice that the camera was bumped and jogged while Kerry was speaking so that the whole view nodded once–down, up, and then back to normal? Probably an accident, but in a discussion of minute differences and small subconscious perception manipulations, it counted, if only a little.