The Passion of Glenn Beck: Why Have "Manly" Conservatives Embraced a Man Who Cries?

Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet at 1:00 PM on April 10, 2009.

You know what's creepy and unpleasant? Watching an insane person babble incoherently while dousing a scared, shivering man in gasoline. That's what I watched Glenn Beck do on Fox news last night. (Don't worry!  Viewers were assured that the liquid was water. So he was only pretending to commit a gruesome murder!)

Anyway, I won't go into detail about the scene, (terrifying video here) but as you can imagine, Beck was trying to illustrate his concerns about the future of the country with Obama at the helm.

So, it's time to ask the perennial and completely unanswerable question: Why does someone as alternately laughable and terrifying as Beck pull high ratings? Why does there appear to be a push to anoint him as the voice of the disillusioned, angry masses (based on the President's approval ratings though, Beck probably shouldn't hitch his wagon to Obama-bashing.)

We can take high roads and low roads here. There's the obvious "Howard Beale argument" pushed by the media -- the idea that Beck has tapped into a cultural zeitgeist, funneling the anger and frustration of a people getting screwed by mysterious forces they can't understand or control. Seems pat and lazy.

Or, should we just chalk up Beck's popularity to the fact there are just enough stupid, crazy people out there to cause a ratings bump? Seems really pat and lazy.

In fact, both of these arguments seem far more applicable to other right-wing media stars, than they do to someone as weird and discomfiting as Beck.

I can see why people who are stupid and insane would worship Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage. I can even see why non-stupid, non-insane people would tune in to the right-wing hosts. As much as we hate them, Limbaugh and Savage are, in fact, entertaining. And their fevered rants contain a certain self-confident righteousness and strength that must be genuinely appealing to people for whom liberal policies are anathema.

If I were pissed about the impending onset of socialism and really, really didn't like the prospect of the U.N. nannying me, I would probably love Limbaugh and Co. And, it's always fun to watch people exaggerate and bitch and talk shit on opponents (blogs anyone?)

But Beck seems entirely different. He doesn't embody power; he manically revels in his (constructed) powerlessness. He doesn't present himself the way blustery right-wingers like to be seen: as intrepid tellers of unpleasant truths, trying to shake the "sheeple" from their stupor. Instead, Beck is reminiscent of conspiracy theorists, the way they are portrayed in movies — as shaking, bug-eyed messes.

So despite a similar penchant for knee-jerk liberal bashing, Beck cuts a very different image than other right-wing favorites.

Rush and the other shining stars of conservative media may appeal to emotion and their listeners' worst biases, but they do so through the pretense of rationality. For example, they regularly excoriate callers who disagree with them by calling them ‘stupid' and ‘misinformed'.  "I can see this for what it is, cause I'm not a brain-dead, knee-jerk liberal", is the general feel of their spiels. It's a pretty thin pretense of rationality, but nevertheless an attempt to trumpet their analytic skills by appearing as though they are "cutting through the bullshit".

And part of the reason this strategy is so successful is that much right-wing propaganda is premised on very gendered language and imagery, with Liberals as "soft", emotional, afraid of hard truths, in need of someone — in this case the government — to control and tell them what to think and do etc. etc. etc. Pretty much all the timeless, go-to insults leveled at women or "feminine" men.

In this absurd constellation of stereotypes, conservatives must emerge as manly individualists setting up camp in the West or whatever. Or, in their modern incarnation, as pushing for an aggressive military and bravely standing up to a "nanny state" that would make them "soft" and strip them of their freedoms and power. All things that Liberals, who are blinded by their emotion, can't see, while Conservatives — empowered by their rationalist, Ayn Randian powers of clear-eyed perception and analysis -- have the smarts and strength to fight against.

But Glenn Beck cries! And when he goes on his rants, he says things like "I can't help it, I just love this country so much!" Beck entirely appeals to emotion as the justification for his antics. Will he be fainting like a Victorian dowager next, scandalized by Obama's latest attempt to destroy his beloved country?

How does Beck's insane, over-wrought tearfulness fit into the usual Republican schematic of blustery ‘manliness'? In one sense, Beck's antics are reminiscent of some American religious trends. I have to brush up on on my "Great Awakening", history, but that was another time in which hardship brought overly emotional -- crazy seeming -- populist performance (in this case religious) to the fore of American culture.

And there's obviously a self-conscious attempt to fashion Beck in the image of an over-wrought, populist messiah — aka, Howard Beale. In the absence of any real smears they could stick to Obama, Fox news may be going the insane, overly emotional route. 

But is that a bizarre, new shift in conservative media and culture? An almost self-parody of the otherwise self-important rage of a Limbaugh or an O'Reilly? Or is it just the logical conclusion of their self-pity? After all, even as right-wing leaders try to project an image of strength, the Limbaugh-brand of conservatism has been a grievance-based ideology for some time now -- one hinging on the absurd idea that gays/African-Americans/immigrants/feminists etc. have stolen what rightfully belongs to "traditional" white America. Is Beck the logical conclusion? Or something new entirely?

What do you think?

Tagged as: conservatives, fox news, glenn beck, savage, right-wing media, limbagh