Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-30T14:41:51.724Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Trump’s Comedic Gestures as Political Weapon

from Part II - Performance and Falsehood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Donna M. Goldstein ,
Kira Hall  and
Matthew Bruce Ingram
Edited by
Janet McIntosh  and
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Janet McIntosh
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Get access

Summary

This chapter argues that the success of Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 Republican primary was due in part to its value as barbed comedic entertainment, generated through gesture. The chapter builds on semiotician Mikhael Bakhtin’s notion of the “grotesque body” to examine the ways that Trump’s unconventional communicative style, particularly his use of gesture to critique the political system and caricature his opponents, brought momentum to his campaign by creating spectacle. By reducing a target perceived as an opponent to an essentialized action of the body, Trump’s bodily parodies deliver the message that he rejects progressive social expectations regarding how minority groups should be represented. Five highly mediatized caricatures are analyzed in detail: the Wrist-Flailing Reporter, the Food-Shoveling Governor, the Choking Ex-Politician, the Border-Crossing Mexican, and the Swooning Democratic Nominee. In each of these gestural enactments, Trump displays his antagonism to political correctness by embodying discourses of disability, class, race, immigration, and gender, thus encouraging a new sociopolitical order that discourages empathy toward the vulnerable.

Keywords

gestureentertainmentparodyBakhtinbodyembodimentspectaclecaricaturepolitical correctnessempathy
Type
Chapter
Information
Language in the Trump Era
Scandals and Emergencies
 , pp. 97 - 123
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

AP Television. 2016. “Trump Appears to Mock Reporter.” Online video. November 26, 2016. https://bit.ly/34myFNA.Google Scholar
Atkin, Emily. 2015. “What Language Experts Find So Strange about Donald Trump.” Think Progress, September 15, 2015. https://bit.ly/33atf9k.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Helene Iswolsky. Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bavelas, Janet Beavin, Chovil, Nicole, Lawrie, Douglas A, and Wade, Allan. 1992. “Interactive Gestures.” Discourse Processes 15, no. 4: 469–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BBC News. 2015. “Donald Trump Denies Mocking Disabled Reporter.” November 27, 2015. www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34940861.Google Scholar
BBC News 2016. “Hillary Clinton ‘Stumbles’ at 9/11 Event.” Online video. September 12, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onb88xnMlo8.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 1921. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Translated by Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. The Macmillan Company.Google Scholar
Besnier, Niko. 1993. “Reported Speech and Affect on Nukulaelae Atoll.” In Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse, edited by Hill, Jane H. and Judith, T. Irvine, pp. 161–81. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blok, Anton. 2001. Honour and Violence. Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bloomberg Politics. 2016. “Donald Trump’s Hand Gestures: A Huge List.” Bloomberg video, April 19, 2016. https://bloom.bg/2kVYovJ.Google Scholar
Bordo, Susan. 2017. The Destruction of Hillary Clinton. Melville House Publishing.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brookes, Heather. 2011. “Amangama Amathathu ‘The Three Letters’: The Emergence of a Quotable Gesture (Emblem).” Gesture 11, no. 2: 194–218.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, and Hall, Kira. 2016. “Embodied Sociolinguistics.” In Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates, edited by Coupland, Nikolas, pp. 173–200. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Civiello, Mary. 2016. “The Brilliance behind Donald’s Trump’s Wild Hand Gestures.” Fortune, April 30, 2016. http://fortune.com/2016/04/30/donald-trump-hands/.Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. 1996. Using Language. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Eugene N. 1977. “Nicknames, Social Boundaries, and Community in an Italian Village.” International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 14: 102–13.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 1982. The Civilizing Process, Volume 1: The History of Manners. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
The Free Beacon. 2016. “Trump Rips Kasich Eating Style: ‘I Have Never Seen a Human Being Eat in Such a Disgusting Fashion.’” Online video. April 25, 2016. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDOWzQGu8Oc. (Fair Dealings, Transformative Use.)Google Scholar
Gilmore, David D. 1982. “Some Notes on Community Nicknaming in Spain.” Man 17, no. 4: 686–700.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Donna M. [2003]2013. Laughter out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Donna M., and Hall, Kira. 2017. “Postelection Surrealism and Nostalgic Racism in the Hands of Donald Trump.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6, no. 4: 397–406.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness, and Samy Alim, H. 2010. “‘Whatever (Neck Roll, Eye Roll, Teeth Suck)’: The Situated Coproduction of Social Categories and Identities Through Stancetaking and Transmodal Stylization.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20, no. 1: 179–94.Google Scholar
Grossman, Seth. 2015. “Donald Trump, Our Reality TV Candidate.” The New York Times, September 26, 2015. https://nyti.ms/2kWstLH.Google Scholar
Grynbaum, Michael, and Parker, Ashley. 2016. “Donald Trump the Political Showman, Born on ‘The Apprentice.’” The New York Times, July 16, 2016. https://nyti.ms/38BkoA6.Google Scholar
The Guardian. 2014. “‘I Can’t Breathe’: Eric Garner Put in Chokehold by NYPD Officer – Video.” Online video. December 4, 2014. www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/dec/04/i-cant-breathe-eric-garner-chokehold-death-video.Google Scholar
Hall, Kira. 2005. “Intertextual Sexuality: Parodies of Class, Identity, and Desire in Liminal Delhi.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15, no. 1: 125–44.Google Scholar
Hall, Kira, Goldstein, Donna M., and Ingram, Matthew Bruce. 2016. “The Hands of Donald Trump: Entertainment, Gesture, Spectacle.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6, no. 2: 71–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Jane. 1998. “Language, Race, and White Public Space.” American Anthropologist 100, no. 3: 680–89.Google Scholar
Hoenes del Pinal, Eric. 2011. “Towards an Ideology of Gesture: Gesture, Body Movement, and Language Ideology Among Q’eqchi’-Maya Catholics.” Anthropological Quarterly 84, no. 3: 595–630.Google Scholar
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, and Taussig, Doron. 2017. “Disruption, Demonization, Deliverance, and Norm Destruction: The Rhetorical Signature of Donald J. Trump.” Political Science Quarterly 132, no. 4: 619–50.Google Scholar
Keevallik, Leelo. 2010. “Bodily Quoting in Dance Correction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 43, no. 4: 401–26.Google Scholar
Kendon, Adam. 2004. Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1982. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin T. 1992. Talking Power: The Politics of Language; From Courtroom to Classroom, from Summit Talks to Small Talk: How What We Say – and How We Say It – Influences Every Aspect of Our Lives. Basic Books.Google Scholar
LeBaron, Curtis, and Streeck, Jürgen. 2000. “Gestures, Knowledge, and the World.” In Language and Gesture, edited by McNeill, David, pp. 118–38. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lempert, Michael. 2011. “Barack Obama Being Sharp: Indexical Order in the Pragmatics of Precision-Grip Gesture.” Gesture 11, no. 3: 241–70.Google Scholar
LesGrossman News Video. 2016. “Donald Trump Rome NY Rally.” April 12, 2016. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQWdE9n2tD8. (Fair Dealings, Transformative Use.)Google Scholar
Live Satellite News. 2015. “Donald Trump Tells President Obama ‘You’re Fired.’” Comments section. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPfxyFMUd1k. Link no longer available; accessed August 2015.Google Scholar
Martin, Jonathan, and Chozick, Amy. 2016. “Hillary Clinton’s Doctor Says Pneumonia Led to Abrupt Exit from 9/11 Event.” The New York Times, September 11, 2016. https://nyti.ms/2Pitt9m.Google Scholar
Maskovsky, Jeff. 2017. “Toward the Anthropology of White Nationalist Postracialism: Comments Inspired by Hall, Goldstein, and Ingram’s ‘The Hands of Donald Trump.’” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7, no. 1: 433–40.Google Scholar
McDowell, John H. 1981. “Toward a Semiotics of Nicknaming: The Kamsá Example.” The Journal of American Folklore 94, no. 371: 1–18.Google Scholar
McNeill, David. 1992. Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mittelberg, Irene. 2013. “Balancing Acts: Image Schemas and Force Dynamics as Experiential Essence in Pictures by Paul Klee and Their Gestural Enactments.” In Language and the Creative Mind, edited by Borkent, Mike, Dancygier, Barbara, and Hinnell, Jennifer, pp. 325–46. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mittelberg, Irene, and Waugh, Linda. 2014. “Gestures and Metonymy.” In Body-Language-Communication, Vol. 2, edited by Müller, Cornelia, Cienki, Alan, Fricke, Ellen, Ladewig, Silva H., McNeill, David, and Bressem, Jana, pp. 1747–66. De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
NBC Bay Area. 2016. “RAW VIDEO: Trump Jumps Wall to Get Past Protesters.” Online video. April 29, 2016. https://tinyurl.com/yapwcggh.Google Scholar
Neville-Shepard, Ryan, and Nolan, Jaclyn. 2019. “‘She Doesn’t Have the Stamina’: Hillary Clinton and the Hysteria Diagnosis in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Women’s Studies in Communication 42, no. 1: 60–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, Julian A. [1954]1971. The People of the Sierra. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Roland, L. Kaifa. 2017. “How Bodies Matter: Yesterday’s America Today.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7, no. 1: 441–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosa, Jonathan, and Bonilla, Yarimar. 2017. “Deprovincializing Trump, Decolonizing Diversity, and Unsettling Anthropology.” American Ethnologist 44, no. 2: 201–08.Google Scholar
Rozzo, Mark. 2016. “Was This Robert De Niro Role the Inspiration for Trump’s Wild Hand Gestures?” Vanity Fair, April 18, 2016. https://bit.ly/2m1wrTy.Google Scholar
Sclafani, Jennifer. 2018. Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse, and Political Identity. Routledge.Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack. 2006. “Coordinating Gesture, Talk, and Gaze in Reenactments.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 39, no. 4: 377–409.Google Scholar
Smith, Jessica. 2017. “Blind Spots of Liberal Righteousness.” Society for Cultural Anthropology, January 18, 2017. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/blind-spots-of-liberal-righteousness.Google Scholar
Spitulnik, Debra. 1996. “The Social Circulation of Media Discourse and the Mediation of Communities.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 6, no. 2: 161–87.Google Scholar
Streeck, Jürgen. 2008a. “Depicting by Gesture.” Gesture 8, no. 3: 285–301.Google Scholar
Streeck, Jürgen.2008b. “Gesture in Political Communication: A Case Study of Democratic Presidential Candidates during the 2004 Primary Campaign.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41, no. 2: 154–86.Google Scholar
Sweetser, Eve, and Sizemore, Marisa. 2008. “Personal and Interpersonal Gesture Spaces: Functional Contrasts in Language and Gesture.” In Language In the Context of Use: Discourse and Cognitive Approaches to Language, edited by Tyler, Andrea, Kim, Yiyoung, and Takada, Mari, pp. 25–51. De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Tani, Maxwell. 2016. “GOP Candidate John Kasich Just Ate a Crazy Amount of Italian Food in the Bronx.” Business Insider. April 7, 2016. www.businessinsider.com/john-kasich-italian-food-the-bronx-2016–4.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1986. “Introducing Constructed Dialogue in Greek and American Conversational and Literary Narrative.” In Direct and Indirect Speech, edited by Coulmas, Florian, pp. 311–32. De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah.2010. “Abduction and Identity in Family Interaction: Ventriloquizing as Indirectness.” Journal of Pragmatics 42, no. 2: 307–16.Google Scholar
Taylor-Coleman, Jasmine, and Bressanin, Anna. 2016. “What Trump’s Hand Gestures Say about Him.” BBC News video, August 16, 2016. https://bbc.in/2kWFZyU.Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A., and Suzuki, Ryoko. 2014. “Reenactments in Conversation: Gaze and Recipiency.” Discourse Studies 16, no. 6: 816–46.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald. 2015a. Trump Campaign Rally, Myrtle Beach, SC. November 24, 2015.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2015b. Trump Campaign Rally, Raleigh, NC. December 4, 2015.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2015c. Trump Campaign Rally, Doral, FL. October 23, 2015.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2015d. Trump Campaign Rally, Dubuque, IA. August 25, 2015.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2015e. Trump Campaign Rally, Birmingham, AL. August 21, 2015.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2015f. Trump Campaign Rally, Oklahoma City, OK. September 25, 2015.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016a. Trump Campaign Rally, Greensboro, NC. June 14, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016b. Trump Campaign Rally, Warwick, RI. April 25, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016c. Trump Campaign Rally, West Chester, PA. April 25, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016d. Trump Campaign Rally, Harrisburg, PA. April 21, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016e. Trump GOP Convention Speech, Burlingame, CA. April 29, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016f. Trump Campaign Rally, Rome, NY. April 12, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016g. Trump Campaign Rally, Portland, ME. March 3, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016h. Trump Campaign Rally, Manheim, PA. October 1, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016i. Trump Campaign Rally, Madison, AL. February 28, 2016.Google Scholar
Trump, Donald.2016j. Trump Campaign Rally, Manchester, NH. October 28, 2016.Google Scholar
Walley, Christine J. 2017. “Trump’s Election and the ‘White Working Class’: What We Missed.” American Ethnologist 44, no. 2: 231–36.Google Scholar
Warnke, Melissa Batchelor. 2016. “Opinion: Hillary Clinton’s Worrisome Wobble.” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2016. https://lat.ms/2mv7bVZ.Google Scholar
The Young Turks. 2016. “Did Trump Dog Whistle ‘I Can’t Breathe’ for Racist Votes?” Online video clip. April 14, 2016. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYKe7fuHY4c.Google Scholar
Zaru, Deena. 2016. “Feathers Fly over Donald Trump Eating Fried Chicken with a Fork.” CNN, August 2, 2016. www.cnn.com/2016/08/02/politics/donald-trump-eats-kfc-knife-fork/index.html.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×