TIME Magazine and AOC: Political PR for a Rising Candidate

Abstract: I provide an analysis of the Aesthetics of a TIME article and further critique the PR methods employed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The original TIME article appeared in the March, 2019 issue and was published online on March 21st, 2019:

https://time.com/longform/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-profile/

The cover of the issue: AOC is front, bold, immediate and center. The dark, professional color of her suite almost melds with her straightened, dark hair, and reflects her dark eyes: it gives the impression of an apollonian statue. Greek like; resolute; she commands a presence that is older than 29. Her makeup is equally as controlled: toned down but in your face, a strong red lipstick that announces itself somewhere between acceptable social propriety and fierce self-empowerment—bold but not too bold. The earrings are clearly not diamond; they do not sparkle or glint. Clean features: clean, clean, clean. A natural attractiveness that has been allowed to speak, for the most part, on its own terms—but, again, merely cleansed. Somehow non-threatening but poised to pounce: she looks to her left, symbolically; to our right—and off the frame, into the future. Her lips are open, but without the hint of sexuality—one feel that she is about to announce a new vision at a press conference—that she is about to address an interlocutor in a debate. Her lips suggest the in media res of rhetoric; her eyes just so pierced as to suggest concentration, attentiveness—but concentration that is somehow still ringed with sympathy and empathy. She is not angry, but engaged; not tight, but leaning in. This is no rookie candidate wearing jeans, paying off student loans, going door to door in grassroots campaigning; to the observer that had no idea who she was, you’d think: “here is someone who has arrived; here is the prototype of a new Pelosi.” We do not see what she sees: we only see that she sees. Here is a modern mantike.

The next time we encounter AOC is on the two-page spread photo that introduces her article. It is a bold, beautiful, black-and white shot: the upper left description reads “Politics: “Ocasio-Cortez with her chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, far right, and other aides in Queens.” The article’s title, situated in a bold white in the lower right of the frame, reads: “The Making of AOC: How a 29-Year-Old Rookie Is Transforming Politics” (By Charlotte Alter; Photographs by Krisanne Johnson for TIME). There is a story here: compared to the apollonian image that saturated the cover, AOC is still front and center, but now her face is turned—we catch her candidly mid-stride, a confident smile broad gait, clean, dark colors in a vaguely-Camus-like open peacoat. She has coffee is her left hand. Our gaze meets her directly: she is not the closest thing to the camera, but she is optically the center. The story unfolds: from her gaze we move to her left, unto the closest person in the frame. Here is an unnamed, female aide who is presumably Muslim: a speckled hijab covers a face looking downward, submissively; a stylish jacket, purse and coffee complete the ensemble, with just enough lace poking through to suggest a commitment to culture—either her own or some ambiguously shared frame. That she is looking downward is important: AOC is the commanding female presence here; the gaze of the hijab-wearer is that of a follower—it is inconsequential. And so the frame invites us unto the white woman between AOC and the hijab-wearer: smiling, confident, we see not her gaze (which is hidden behind stylish black glasses) but rather must follow the general comportment of her bodily direction: our eyes cross back across the center/AOC and unto the third largest figure in the frame, Saikat Chakrabarti. He is exactly what one might picture as a “normal, casual” graduate student walking around NYU or Stanford: clean but unimpressionable clothing, a tidiness that suggests that he is responsible within his means—and that his means aren’t very extensive. He is one of us. He probably has student debt. His glasses suggest that he is well read, but without the hipster tinge: his high-broad, low-glass frames suggest more “Belgian Architect” rather than “Brooklyn Activist”—while his style balances it out. He is ambiguously aged: a beard, but quaffed. Hand in pocket, backpack on (and boy-scout like in his projected readiness), he is caught mid-stride and sipping coffee—clearly not your standard Starbucks fair, but something ambiguous, probably from a local joint. His eyes are empathically looking forward: he seems both determined and considerate. That AOC is turned away from him is telling: we get the sense of his own autonomy, an independence that somehow qualifies him as male and still with sinews of traditional masculinity while clearly having sloughed off the threatening, “toxic” elements: he is the model of a man who now serves a woman. Finally our gaze meets the least valued but still importantly included figure: the white, bearded, quaffed male in the back. Covered both physically and symbolically by AOC and Chakrabarti in the photo, this unnamed aide balances out the demographic color palette; his eyes, hidden behind dark glasses, are locked unto AOC—he is a follower, pure and simple. His smile suggests that he is in on the joke but not its originator, not its center; he is the model of a male/emasculated follower. He is there as a necessary prop: keep him quaffed, don’t let him speak, and he is the golden tinsel that wraps the picture in an all-inclusive bow. Next to AOC on both sides are the true, the meek “inheritors of the earth”; behind her are the white woman and white man—smiling to still be included in train, but no longer front and center, no longer part of the vanguard. Behind all these figures is a blurry woman, covered in heavy jacket and of a seemingly foreign descent: the context and atmosphere of the shop screams “average queens”: they could be in front of any bodega on any backstreet in NYC. They are a product of this city and area; this is there home; they stride about in comfort and command and hope. One gets the sense: there strides the progressive crew, the core group: not just AOC, but a clear image of her closest and first followers. She is not alone; she has credibility both through communion and context. Where color was central to AOC’s bold look on the cover, we have here a distilled black-and-white spread that is both classic and refined—sophisticated in its cleanliness, its use of chiaroscuro, even—as well as modern “cool.” It is an image that exudes warmth and a type of NYC-smart sense of distance and coolness. This is a world of clearly defined contours: it is visually arresting; we come to see the world she is in as one between darkness and light. And in that context, vision is the most prized and staple resource.

We turn the page unto the actual article. Again, we are greeted first with a black-and-white photo in the center of the page (a theme that will be repeated throughout the next two pages/the rest of the article). The caption to the upper right reads: “The Congresswoman takes a photo with education activist Maria Bautista, center, and New York State Senator Jessica Ramos, left, during an education town hall in Jackson Heights, Queens.” Below the image is a bright-red quote: “An entire generation…came of age and never saw American prosperity.”—Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Again, this image goes about directing a scene/telling a story rather than just depicting something: our eyes are drawn first to the blurred image of the child in the front left of the frame—but as his eyes are cast out of frame, and his features so unrefined as to look almost superimposed, there is a natural condition to search for similarity—and hence the eye is drawn, subtly, not to AOC quite yet, but to the sitting child on the right side of the image. And so while the cover/color image of AOC gives way to the black and white image of AOC and her context/crew, we now move to the black and white image of the context, pure and simple. This child has no political power—if he is a follower, it is in that confused state that every child doubles-down on whatever politics they happen to be born into. If his is a volunteer of some kind, he accounts for little; most likely he has been dragged along by activist/volunteer/supporter adults. And yet his presence, along with the other child, adds depth. Not only is he utterly disarming, but he signals the youth and buoyancy and intergeneration seededness of the movement. His is a latent, pure, innocent energy. He is not child-like; he is a child in the context of vast power; he is the disciplined child—and much resides in this difference, as he is the symbolic FOIL of AOC. Compared to the disinterestedness of the first, blurred boy, this child is curious, attentive: he leans forward in his chair, clasping hands together as one in jittery thought. Even as a child—so prone to distraction—he is arrested. So too with the woman behind him; so too with the disembodied torsos that line the right side of the image, giving a sense of security and tight proximity and even statue-like protection around the whole arena. Vaguely, one can make out the style of the hijab-wearing aide from the previous image standing to the right. Beside that nod, we get the sense: this is a safe space. And so we follow the attentive child’s eyes unto the real action and drama of the scene: Maria Bautista, wearing white and holding a smartphone out with elongated hand, is clearly the focus. Only secondarily do we move unto the two dark pillars to Bautista’s right and left: AOC and an unnamed aide. All three are looking at the contents of the outstretched smartphone, in a spectrum-order of race and boodily comportment: the unnamed aide with glasses (unclear ethnicity, but light-skinned) leans in with a faint, barely-bemused half-smirk; Bautista, dark-skinned with curly hair that frames her naturally-arresting features, closed-mouth smiles in clear but reserved appreciation; and finally AOC, light-skinned, body most bent/leaning in the most, open-mouth smile and pierced eyes that affirm a connection more with child-like joy and wonder than the poisedness of the other two women. Aesthetically, a brilliant use of black and white: Bautista’s dark skin against her white shirt; the unnamed aide and AOC’s light skin in dark ensembles—here is a mixture of light and dark that is shared and sophisticated and female while also disclosing unique personality traits. We are not privy to what they see on screen; we see only that they see, that what they see is happy and hopeful, and that others are looking at them as well. We can only assume that they are consuming some form of social media: we get the sense that they are plugged in and savvy.

We turn the page: the center image is again about context. The colors, however, are more grayed and muted: still black and white, but more inviting against a new look: no children, no smiles; all adults, all business. But it’s dedicated, diverse, youthful business: the office is clean and unassuming—you can tell that the wood of the table if cheaply made but built to last. The chairs show off just enough faux-leather to add to the décor of minimal professionalism. Part of the American flag hangs lazily in the back. Laptops and smart phones are out and visible: tech-savviness is simply endemic to this world, it is like the bricks in the back—a prop that is almost structural, assumed. Their comfort with that technology is unquestioned. Tell me this is a stock image from a small entrepreneurial band of post-Stanford MBAs trying to make it out in San Francisco, or a group of educated PhD’s counseling a non-profits leader—it plugs in neatly to, and borrows from, these circulating images of the stable, clean, successful, committed, but above all things professional young adult. She disavowals the millennial identity entirely while also entirely inhabiting it. Disembodied hands draw the attention of the reader’s eye immediately: somebody is making a point here with some emphasis and enthusiasm. This is merely an opportunity to showcase AOC listening: and here we find here with a chin-in-hand, arm-on-table concentration that suggests both an interest in what is being said but also a distance capable of critically assessing. She is engaged but not too engaged. Again, her eyes are just past our focus—she is drawn to the drama, which is off-frame. This off-frame drama means since is reactive and passive: and yet, AOC still has a presence behind the desk and a sense of lax command that the other figures in the frame lack. They ring around her as orbiters of an obvious center. Another cultivated snapshot of diversity, in terms of ethnicity, gender and age. A copy of Grace Lee Boggs’ autobiography A Life of Change can be seen upside down on her desk. (From the book’s amazon page: “No one can tell in advance what form a movement will take. Grace Lee Boggs’s fascinating autobiography traces the story of a woman who transcended class and racial boundaries to pursue her passionate belief in a better society. Now with a new foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley, Living for Change is a sweeping account of a legendary human rights activist whose network included Malcolm X and C. L. R. James. From the end of the 1930s, through the Cold War, the Civil Rights era, and the rise of the Black Panthers to later efforts to rebuild crumbling urban communities, Living for Change is an exhilarating look at a remarkable woman who dedicated her life to social justice.”)

A series of images line the bottom of the page as part of a cultivated timeline/storyboard. This section, titled “The Rise of AOC,” is broken into six chronological segments. The first (1) is a picture AOC as a young child being held by her father: she smiles as her arms ring around his neck, his smile responding in term—innocence, happiness, pure and simple. The associated caption: “Her gregarious dad was her introduction to community organizing, she recalls. He died when she was in college.” The second segment (2) is a bright, bold class photo/headshot of a youthful and healthy looking AOC. Her smile is strong and confident: she glows here with a type of aura, she radiates. The caption reads: “She graduated from Boston University in 2011 with a degree in economics and international relations and $25,000 in student debt.” The third (3) segment: a blurry photo of AOC with shaker in hand, hair pulled back, presumably in a restaurant working as a bartender. The caption: “After graduation, Ocasio-Cortez worked as a bartender to pay her health insurance and student loan bills.” The fourth (4) segment is a curious one. The caption reads: “When a new progressive group solicited candidate nominates, her brother Gabriel (top) submitted her name.” Here the editors clearly want to highlight the transition between her status as bartender to volunteer activist (unmentioned in this chronology) to political candidate. Since she was nominated to the progressive search committee by her brother, Gabriel, it would make sense to perhaps show her brother as well (of course, any number of images could have accompanied this caption). But more is done here. We rather have a full family portrait: three generations of women, with AOC still prominently depicted bottom-left in the frame. Gabriel stands in the back, behind AOC’s presumed mother and grandmother. The background appears to be a stock green-room image—the kind one would select at a discount photographer. The fifth (5) segment includes a picture of shoes turned to see their worn-out and scuffed bottoms; against a fine-wood background, the aesthetics of the image are almost art-like. That is: the clear effort and dirt involved in canvassing has been sublimated, sterilized and cleansed to become something actually attractive. Again, the emphasis is on a type of white-washed cleanliness that has the marks and traces of past effort, without any of the actual grime or baggage. The caption reads: “Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign relied on volunteer canvassers. She wore out these shoes as she knocked on doors.” One need only remember the significance of Obama’s early campaign photo—in which the young candidate is blurred in the background, in the foreground his scuffed shoes with holes gnawing through the bottom of the soles—to understand not only the direct symbolic value of this representation of grass-roots, dedicated, Tocqueville-like laboring, but also its position within a lineage and flow of images which draw from and refound the progressive movement ad infinitum. The final and sixth (6) segment is a colorful profile shot of AOC, presumably on her winning election night. Her hand is clasped over her mouth—we witness her in a state of disbelief. Humble but bathed in a type of neon-pink light. We are invited into a dreamworld—into AOC’s dreamworld. The caption reads: “Ocasio-Cortez was behind in the polls for the entire primary, but unseated ranking democrat Joe Crowley in a surprise upset.”

The final page turn reveals the cleanest image in the article lineup. We have come full circle, bookending the colored cover photograph of AOC with here an equally as bold and pronounced black and white vignette. We are done with contexts and coconspirators; we are back with AOC, now intimately invited into her private space, into the back seat of a rolling vehicle. AOC is looking at the window, hand raised. She seems attentive, somehow surveying the landscape—a blurred but bleak, nondescript semi-urban spread—with an almost inbuilt sense of gentle sternness. She is reflecting, but still engaged. This is the closest image to a maternal overseer we have yet encountered: bold, empowered, staring off into the future/distance as the cover image, but now with lips closed, merely taking in the world she is helping to create. The minimalism of the image is balanced against the bare insight of the caption: “A trip to a community board meeting in Astoria, Queens, allows a rare quiet moment.” Location, purpose (community, community, community) and framing denouement are all here: implied is that AOC’s life offers anything but “quiet moments.” The activity announced in the script is subtly represented in the frame: like the cover image, AOC here bridges the separation between being (she has arrived, she is here, she is grounded and statue-like and almost flinty in her obstinance) and becoming (she is quite literally moving forward while also inviting us ever forward out of the frame with her gaze). She is somehow both the youthful child capable of introducing original and novel—exciting, fresh, sexy—technologies and visions, but also a “woman,” situated and rotted and legitimated in her command—she has skipped over adolescence and the various images of sexuality and immaturity associated thereby.

Importantly, the next page turn is not unto a random article, advertisement or spread. We are immediately confronted with a separate but related story: from AOC’s described rise we have before us the direct and immediate results of her success. The article, “A New Climate for Climate: How the Green New Deal Jolted Washington,” is a part-analysis, part-endorsement of the AOC inspired movement now emerging on the left. The story broadens to include other figures and a greater history, but the star here is still very much AOC. Her article is surrounded by the greater framing of her own success—the proximity of the two articles to one another and the general nuance of the transition from one to the other performs/enacts the very sedimentation of AOC’s reputation the articles themselves thematically describe. The only image in the second article is of activists of the Sunrise Movement: a young woman is standing in the halls of an unnamed congressional building, caught in the midst of an ad-hoc speech: some fellow activists—young, utterly non-threatening—stand to her left; behind her in the doorway of the congressional office (what appears to be Mitch McConnel’s?) are children in “Sunrise Movement” t-shirts and holding a protest sign that reads: “Oil and Gas Money Or Our Lives; to the right of the activist are two older men wearing “Sunrise Movement” gear; and before the activist spilling off the right side of the frame is a host of interested media outlets—photographers, videographers, interviewers and microphonists are set and ready to amplify whatever message is about to be received. One gets the sense here of a small-scale effort that is nonetheless making some noise: a synergy is seen between activism and media that necessarily makes them, in this instance, appear in a type of collusion and complementarity with one another.