A fly’s buzzy fame, and other lessons
Back when I was teaching journalism to college students, I would advise them to be a fly on the wall. That meant, observe everything, write it down, put the reader there. But don’t be a part of the action.
The fly at the vice presidential debate Wednesday night did its own thing and became — in a lighthearted and possibly metaphorical way — part of the story. Some pundits declared the fly the winner of the debate.
Maybe you missed it. Toward the end of the debate, as Vice President Mike Pence was verbally dancing around a question of systemic racism in the country, a fly landed on his hair and hung around for 2minutes and 3 seconds. Pence paid no attention whatsoever to the fly, but it was hard not to look at the black presence against his white hair and wonder why it was there and when it would finally budge.
The fly (should we give it a name? Say, Harry?) immediately lit up the twitter-verse and Facebook, followed by opinion commentary. Some joked it was sent from beyond by Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
“This is an administration laid low by a plague, but it’s hard to imagine even the hackiest screenwriter being so heavy-handed in signaling it,” wrote Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times.
“That fly was some crazy combo of metaphor, visitation and karmic joke,” Frank Bruni wrote in his NYT column.
OK, Harry the fly gave us
something unexpected to get our minds off the devastation that is 2020. (Democrats turned it into a tacky fundraiser, selling fly swatters on social media.)
There’s much about the historic debate to plumb — both candidates dodged answering questions they didn’t like — but soon it will all be old news and we’ll be on to something else. Maybe it will be President Trump’s coronavirus, maybe the tattered economy, there’s so much else.
But I don’t want to let the debate go without mentioning this: The vice president won’t win any female voters for the way he stonewalled over the agreed-upon time limits
which the moderator, Susan Page, the Washington Bureau chief for USA Today, ineffectively tried to enforce. Nor the way he spoke condescendingly to his opponent, Sen. Kamala Harris, and frequently interrupted her. It was out of Trump’s playbook of the presidential debate the week before, but Harris flipped it when she interjected: “I’m speaking.”
And women knew how that felt.
“When Kamala Harris said, ‘I'm Speaking’, I felt it. You felt it. Your mom felt it Your grandma felt it. Everywoman on this earth alive or dead felt it. Because we know what it means to be talked
over, interrupted, disbelieved. Do not be afraid to say, ‘IM SPEAKING,” tweeted Fiona Adorno, a human right activist.
Expect this to show up on T-shirts, just like “Nevertheless she persisted” — which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said as a reason to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren who objected to the confirmation of Jeff Sessions as attorney general in 2017. My daughter Stephanie gave me one of those T-shirts that year for Mother’s Day. I enjoy wearing it.
What Pence was doing to Harris also was mansplaining; Van Jones, a CNN commentator, dubbed the vice
president “mansplainer-inchief.” Take it from me, women don’t like being talked down to.
Thankfully, this sort of behavior was not in evidence in another debate this week — the Congressional 5th District debate with Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, Republican challenger David X. Sullivan and Independent candidate Bruce Walczak Monday evening. It was virtual as Hayes was recovering from a case of COVID-19.
For nearly 90 minutes the candidates answered questions posed by a League of Women Voters moderator, and though at times I wished for an instant fact-checker, the candidates were challenging (particularly about police reform) yet civil. The debate, taped by media students at Western Connecticut State University can be watched on the university’s website or YouTube.
Whatever Congressional district you live in, make it a point to get the facts. Find out where the candidates stand on issues that are important to you; watch debates.
Every election is important, of course, but this presidential one feels especially consequential because the candidates have diametrically opposite views on the future of America. Vote, either by absentee ballot (allowed in Connecticut during the pandemic) or in person on Nov. 3.
I’ve wondered whether the national debates make any difference in influencing voters’ choices, now with the election less than four weeks away. Are you still undecided? Iwould be curious to hear about what issues matter to you.
As you sift through what you read and hear, take a minute to check out whether it’s true. PolitiFact, through the Poynter Institute for journalism in St. Petersburg, Florida, is a trusted source.
Another saying I would tell my journalism students is this: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. (I can’t take credit for coining that.) It means have a healthy skepticism, especially when it comes to politics.
And if you find yourself that fly on the wall, well, watch where you land.