(photo borrowed from http://www.pachd.com/free-images/food-images/)
Earlier this week Chris Matthews, host of Hardball, promoted the theory that Barack Obama's request for orange juice instead of the coffee offered him in an Indiana diner indicates his inability to connect with "regular people"--that is, anyone who is not African American or a person with a university degree. The recurring talking point here (which arrived quickly on the heels of media pundits impugning his ability at bowling) is Obama's "arrogance." I had no idea drinking orange juice was arrogant! I happen to drink both juice and coffee, even though I do happen to have a college degree. Now I can't really tell whether I am arrogant or just a regular person or both in oscillation depending on what I have been drinking most recently.
What we see in this example is an active production of constructions of class (arrogant people with college degrees versus the average joe with a cup of joe in his hand) where none had presumably existed before. As Molly suggested in our class previously, food is never just food, it becomes attached to a meaning that makes the intangible tangible. However the meaning of a thing may not in itself be stable but may be subject to contestations and social struggle. I doubt that orange juice will come to symbolize class-based arrogance for very long, much to the relief of Florida orange growers who have paid good money to promote the association of orange juice with the positive meanings of health and good nutrition. Can a presidential campaign be won or lost on the basis of a glass of one or a cup of the other?
5 comments:
Orange Juice is way better than coffee: my humble opinion.
It seems that coffee was offered and Obama declined it, requesting Orange Juice instead. The gossip that spread through the news related to the awkwardness of that situation. Who in their 'right' mind would deny a gift-cup of coffee from the diner's owner, right?
This whole talk about o.j. and coffee seems meaningless but the fact that it was made into a big deal makes it worth investigating, as I believe it's the custom of 'taking what is given as a gift' that is really being analyzed.
Does a public refusal of a gift make a presidential candidate less desirable? Even if the gift was simply coffee? I think it's a great message for healthy choices! Obama 09!!!
I wish I'd seen this episode of Hardball but unfortunately it, like The O'Reilly Factor, has been banned in our household unless we are setting out to purposely lose our appetites.
I too am puzzled by the association of orange juice with arrogance. Then again, I can't figure out how throwing a gutter ball in bowling makes someone a sissy or a "girly man" either.
My sister brought up a good point when we were talking about this earlier...
Coffee can be considered an altering substance, that which some people oppose (similar to alcohol, and a host of other drugs), if it was a bar he walked in to and was offered beer and requested water instead... would there still be all the commotion?
I don't get it either. I think just because something is offered to you, and you won't drink it or enjoy it if it is given, it seems like conservation should be factored in. And if the owner wanted to provide a gift, something that would elicit a warm welcoming, then shouldn't it be something that would actually evoke that in the receiver? I think requesting a substitute drink is perfectly acceptable...
Maybe he could have said no thank you, but would that just serve to further elevate the allusion of snobbery?
I don't know..
I think Seth's suggestion that the real issue here is in the domain of the obligation to receive what is offered. Perhaps Obama's asking for a substitute gift is what set him up for criticism as arrogant. In asking for something other than coffee, did he position the owner of the diner as a food server waiting to take his order? Of course, there are many ways of doing this gracefully. You could say "I am off coffee because it makes me too jittery" (raises my blood pressure, etc.). But I am not sure that we are given Obama's exact wording nor do we have a sense of the manner in which it was delivered. For critics trolling for material to use to bring the man down, this was an opportunity, but one that may in the end backfire as an unfair attack.
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