“because paintings are silent and still, and because their meaning are no longer attached to them but has become transmittable, paintings lend themselves to easy manipulation. They can be used to make arguments or points which may be different, very different, from their original meaning and because paintings are essentially silent and still, the most obvious way of manipulating them is by using movement and sound. A camera moves in to remove a detail of a painting from the whole. Its meaning changes, an allegorical figure becomes a pretty girl anywhere. From being part of a strange, poetical world of metamorphosis, a dog can be turned into a pet.” 13:10 to 14:05 I believe this section, from Ways of Something, can be applied to target group formation. In particular, how target group formation works within governmental branches, media, public opinion, and political power to reproduce concepts of deservingness. Paintings as silent and still, references how some, less deserving, groups’ lack political power or representation. This dearth of power and representation effectively silences said group. Rendered invisible in regards to how they might want their own actions to be read, these groups are no longer attached to their meaning. Instead, any meaning may be transmitted and manipulated to influence policy and shift public opinion. Court decisions, political debates, and the media are all tools to easily manipulate rhetoric and representation for specific arguments and political points. Media, stereotypes (particularly in connection to visual signifiers), and sound bites are part of this “most obvious” manipulation that the quote above highlights. Not only are movement and sound used, these social and political rhetorical forces choose a detail to remove from the whole which, are the environmental and circumstantial experience of group members. And to stretch this comparison a little farther, the individual (dog) is turned into an entity to be controlled (pet).
