What seems like forever ago, in the innocent way way back times of 2016, I made a poster about the presidential election. It was in the style of Drew Struzan, who popularized the movie poster design of putting a bunch of faces and scenes into a montage. Think of the poster for Big Trouble in Little China, or The Goonies, or Indiana Jones, or if you haven't seen any of those, Stranger Things on Netflix.
If you are young, live under a rock, or have had your memory wiped by years of stress and fatigue, you might not remember what a shit-show the election of 2016 was. It was, by all accounts, pure and utter chaos. It was so entertaining that it truly felt like a movie, with plot threads and sudden reveals, twists and combatting larger than life personalities. They showed the presidential debates in movie theaters.
Bernie had a bird land on his podium. Russia was ever looming. A man jumped the fence at a Trump rally and rushed the stage. It was like nothing we'd ever seen before, even with how crazy American elections usually are. So I decided to make a movie poster for it. It'd be a good exercise in painting likenesses, and hopefully Hillary would win and I could sell some prints. It was not to be.
I wanted the title to play off of the phrase hell or high water, which is also a movie. And I wanted to be a little tongue-in-cheek. Yeah, Hillary wrapped herself in the flag, because of course she'd embrace this weird faux patriotism. And Bill holding her leg like a damsel in distress is a nice subversion of the trope. Before all the Republicans started licking Trump's boots, they were calling him a liar and a coward. Ted Cruz fought the primary all the way into the summer. Oh, how far the mighty have fallen.
You already know what happened. Like any great dystopian film, the twist is that the bad guy wins. Ted Cruz started towing the line, Paul Ryan retired, Hillary got a book deal, Obama went on vacation for like three years and Bernie kept fighting the good fight. And Trump became president. So I put this painting away.
Fast forward three years, and the news never stopped coming. Every week was an exhausting cascade of crisis both real and manufactured. Then the pandemic hit, the economy took a nose-dive, we were forced to work from home (if at all), and thousands died.
Oh, also there was an election coming. Unlike last time I designed the poster, where I had a tough time figuring out who and what to put into it, this time it was simple: Trump was at the center of it all. Even things he didn't cause and had no control over, he'd fight to be a part of the story. We handed a narcissist the keys to the country and gave him a megaphone and watched in fascinated horror (or awe, for his fans) as he spun like a devastating top from problem to problem. Just one of his controversies would have sunk any other politician, but he was so full of controversy it actually lifted him out of his own flood.
One week we were reading emails that showed Trump Jr. had welcomed Russian information against the opposition, the next week we were outraged about kids in cages, the next week we were reading about his lawyers paying strippers hush money to not spill the beans about his extramarital affairs. It was a happy little accident that my first "movie's" title was 'Hill or High Water,' because it was clear that we had picked high water, and we were drowning. All of us, that is, except Trump.
The only thing that I would change if I did it again is paint the Capitol Building on fire instead of the White House. Could have been a real prophet with that! I wanted to make sure I got his centaur-like stance right, and I used a few texture heavy brushes this time to really play up the traditional media look, especially in his pants and suit coat.
I put hands under his feet as if he was being held aloft by his aides. The microphones and a fully submerged reporter still trying to ask a question represented how the media ecosystem simultaneously suffered and was completely beholden to Trump. They needed Trump as much as he needed them. Every tweet was opportunity for a think piece, every interview provided days of analytical content. Every rally was broadcast with morbid fascination. And Biden was no where to be seen. When the election happened, I remember my father-in-law asked me how Biden won when there was so much clear energy for Trump at his rallies. My answer was that a lot of people didn't vote for Biden. They voted AGAINST Trump. And that's why Trump is the only person on a poster that encapsulates one of the most chaotic and unprecedented elections in modern history: because he made it so that the choice was fully black and white: vote for Trump, or vote against him.
And we did.
One more piece for good measure, because I'm not sure I ever showed it anywhere:
Not sure I like the colors, but it was an interesting experiment.
No comments:
Post a Comment