SUBTEXTis that what is real always works better than artifice. The president's
tears worked. However, combine reality with carefully planned
presentation, and you have a compelling subtext!
Unfortunately, television can create an artificial subtext that is
often accepted as real. Viewers can be moved, not by the issue,
but by the projected image. The candidate may be an empty shell,
but that doesn't matter. Is the candidate too cold, too remote?
Let that person appear before the camera as one of us, as a common
man or woman. Is there some doubt about the candidate's patrio-
tism? Let that candidate appear before the memorial of the flag
raising at Iwo Jima, or even in a flag factory. The strong subtext
will carry him or her through.
In the business world, the same rules apply. Is the boss seen
as too cold, too far removed? Let him or her appear at a plant
inspection in work clothes and a hard hat—a warm, caring subtext!
We must never underestimate the strength of image projection,
nor how much seemingly obvious and calculated mechanisms can
move people. Politics, with its finely tuned communication direc-
tors, takes the lead. In the eighties we had Reagan's "Morning
in America" commercials; their warm, fuzzy, golden, glowing,
and sentimental patriotic images sent out a solid subtext of "I
love America."
Representative Jack F. Kemp jumped on the same patriotic
bandwagon. He used a commercial that opened with "Hometown,
USA." Golden sunlight illuminates the streets at dawn. A newsboy
tosses a paper at a porch. A woman opens her shop. A fireman
hoses down his truck—and, in case the message still eludes some
dim viewers, someone runs up the American flag.
And, of course, the subtext hits home: patriotism, American
values, family values. These are all linked, by subtext, to the
candidate.