I was out yesterday in Tainan with John from
the Real Taiwan, who had become the latest convert to my quest to ensure that everyone in the world uses a Canon Powershot IS5, taking photos in and around town (my pics up tomorrow). The betel nut girl shots were a bust, but we did get some great shots in one of the soldier's villages in Tainan. The above poster of an incredibly idealized Ma strolling like 007 across a featureless plain was plastered to a pillar in a pavilion in a little park near the village, and lacks only Ursula Andress rising from the waves to complete its mythic power....
UPDATE: Compare
this classic Mao propaganda poster, pointed to by
Frog in a Well.
This gorgeous poster of Ma sitting with representatives from every community in which the KMT committed murder hangs off of the intersection of Wu Chuan and Wu Chuan W Rd in Taichung. It is a wonderful work, the eye follows the faces up and they end up in the last row with iconic images of Taiwan -- aborigines -- and Ma standing with them, a little off to one side. The only jarring note is their ridiculous fist pumping motions, which look forced and awkward. The party affiliation is completely absent, and the poster is entirely Taiwan centered. You need only to compare this poster to the utterly conventional stuff out there on Hsieh and Su....
...like this one. Hope the DPP can get out there with some really powerful visual messages in the coming weeks.
[Taiwan]
14 comments:
"This gorgeous poster of Ma sitting with representatives from every community ..."
Sitting with!? It looks like sitting on top of to me.
Not only does Ma see Aboriginals as human, he includes them in his photo. I guess it's a small step forward.
From all the drumbeating in the US -- and it's only the primaries -to the bombs exploding around Pakistan's campaign trails you'd hardly know there was a presidential election coming up in 30 days. The first campaign signs I've seen are those which you've posted!
What a boring spectacle!
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LOL! That first pic of Ma certainly projects that gangsta-like machismo that we saw in old pictures of CKS -- albeit a more "suave" authoritarian image.
One thing's for certain, though. The pics certainly don't project a feeling of "working together". The second one is a very awkward collage. As the previous commenter mentions -- He's standing on top of everyone.
Stylized imagery can be very effective, though. It targets the sub-conscious. Just think about that video footage of Bush clearing the brush at his "ranch" in waco, Texas. This man is the furthest thing from a cowboy -- but Americans ate up this Daddy-figure image big-time after 9/11.
Something tells me we won't be seeing Ma in his bathing cap in any campaign posters, though.
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Well, I have to say I really like these Ma posters. The 007-Ma is slick, a real work of art. I wouldn't mind owning a copy. Anyone know who the designer/ad company is?
As for the other one--if you watch any of the classic Chinese ghost or spirit movies on TV, it looks like Ma and Siew are the gods coming from heaven and talking to us and granting our deepest wishes in our darkest hour...
Look, a blue DPP poster. And they're trying to play the economy card, too.
That first poster of Ma reminds me of this Resident Evil: Extinction poster, this elephant, and this picture of Tom Baker as Doctor Who.
Tim Maddog
If plastered over a marquee, the first photo would advertise "The Frontrunner", a KMT Production, starring Ma Ying-jeou as Dr. Mark Ma, a regular guy, without pretense. Destination: the Gubernatorial Palace, Taipei. Future Position: CEO of a civil affairs administration of United States Military Government on the SFPT cession of Taiwan, an "unincorporated territory under USMG."
Nobody notices it yet but beyond the horizon looms that killer white balloon that herded back those attempting escape from “The Village” in the 1960’s UK TV series “The Prisoner”, starring Patrick McGoohan.
For those who stayed on Taiwan during the 1970, the creepy analogy between “The Village” and the ROC was very much on our minds. All quaintness on the surface, deadly coercion all around. Specially on the young overseas Chinese’s minds. Getting on Taiwan was always easy and free. But getting out could be nerve-racking for those overseas Chinese. They needed a ROC exit visa stamped on their ROC passport.
In the seventies, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, refugees from the mainland on Taiwan had only one goal. Leave the island and fast and for good in pursuit of the green card, and ultimately a US or Canadian passport. Although the dream of study abroad leading to relocation had a tendency to encompass both sides of the ethnical divide to include the Taiwanese who had good reasons of their own for resenting Taiwan under the ROC, it has been my experience that people whose mother was Taiwanese proved more attached to their “motherland” and more prone to return home.
If the mother was a mainlander, chances were she passed her unease about the island on to her progeny. The benshenren vs. waishenren hostility was mutual and palpable. Once sons and daughters had made America their home, parents and grandparents followed. They had enjoyed advantages like a lifetime use of those Japanese era houses KMT carpet-baggers like Lian Chan’s father commandeered in the early days of the KMT occupation. Without possessions to cling to on Taiwan, they had very much the “Wandering Chinese” mentality. If the US had ever intended creating an Israel of the Far-East on Taiwan, it had absolutely no currency among the mainlanders. Nobody was duped, and mainlanders less than anybody else.
I don’t see why Mark Ma would have been the exception. But once the Rover (that deadly balloon) caught up with him, he was herded back to Shinda Shima「死んだ島」( last episode of “The Secret Agent”, the forerunner to “The Prisoner” and also starring Patrick McGoohan ). Now the question remains. Like “Number 6” (McGoohan) claiming “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered, my life is my own, I am not a number,” is Mark Ma presently only feigning lobotomy?
I really haven't been able to decipher all the news that well. So bottom line, did Ma committ crimes of corruption??
Did Ma commit crimes of corruption? Here are the undisputed facts in the special funds case: 6,500 bureaucrats in Taiwan from ministers to school principals receive special funds to help out with their institutional expenses -- the clear prima facie intent of the law is to aid public affairs.
Half of the special funds must get reciepts, the other half may be spent without submission of reciepts.
Traditionally, the unreceipted half is treated as salary and many officials keep it in their personal accounts. That is what Ma did. He downloaded that money into his own and wife's account, treating it as personal income.
However, that is what everyone did, and arguably, the real intent of the law was to facilitate just this corruption -- it is how the loyalty of the bureaucracy was purchased by the KMT. So Ma's defense was that he was just doing as everyone had done, and treating the money as it had been traditionally regarded.
Is that corrupt? Of course, by any rational standard. But that's not where we live.
Michael
LOL to you, Jerome!
Michael
Tim Maddog's images are good, but Michael's right: I think it's "James Bond Ma" by a mile
http://www.oneposter.com/UserData/Poster/Poster_29824.jpg
Great show. Now just what'll it be like if Frank Hsieh will to take the first pic as Ma. Let me guess.... in all possibilities he'll not avoid being seen as any Chinese grandpa. Hurray, Hurray.
Marc Anthony's "Bond" is a good match, with the similar flapping jacket, but check out this poster from the new film Vantage Point.
For a look at Mark Ma from someone else's vantage point, have a look at this video.
Tim Maddog
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