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Sep. 25th, 2009 02:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
von_geisterhandAs you may or may not be aware, there will be a general election in Germany at the coming weekend, so for the past months, all manner of public places and surfaces have been lined with posters, banners and notice boards trying to get you to exercise your constitutional right in a particular direction. And as far as I am concerned, what all these placards have in common this year is that they are horrible, look tacky and totally fail to make any coherent point whatsoever. Or rather, they say nothing which could be interpreted as making a political point beyond "Vote for us. It's good." or (more often than not) "Vote for us and you'll have more money soon." In terms of making a point, nobody seems to want to make the effort anymore. No wonder voters are getting apathetic.
In addition to this lack of content, I also feel that the visual presentation of the vast majority of placards is horribly generic and uninspired, all crowds and smiles and abuse of Photoshop. The only campaign I felt was making any sort of point and presenting itself in a manner that maybe some people might not like but which is at least saying something and showing character is the one of Hans-Christian Ströbele. His material for the last few years has been drawn by Gerhardt Seyfried (http://www.seyfried-berlin.de/cartoons/adlerhering.php), which I guess is a statement in itself as well as making Ströbele's campaign immediately recognizable.
Another campaign that caught my eye during the last week were the pictures/placards of Barbara Höll. Which are just plain bad. And make her look like a bad transvestite. Look ye here: http://www.barbara-hoell.de/
Why it was decided to use this picture instead of, say, her other official one (http://www.linksfraktion.de/mdb_hoell.php) is beyond me. Obviously it's not her exterior but her political skill that are really important here but in all honesty, I find the chosen picture to be unflattering in a way that makes me wonder whether her party is trying to actively undermine her campaign.
Well, actually, my main thought was wondering about whether or not Germany was ready for a transvestite in politics. I don't see why not but then my views are probably not exactly representative of the general public.
In addition to this lack of content, I also feel that the visual presentation of the vast majority of placards is horribly generic and uninspired, all crowds and smiles and abuse of Photoshop. The only campaign I felt was making any sort of point and presenting itself in a manner that maybe some people might not like but which is at least saying something and showing character is the one of Hans-Christian Ströbele. His material for the last few years has been drawn by Gerhardt Seyfried (http://www.seyfried-berlin.de/cartoons/adlerhering.php), which I guess is a statement in itself as well as making Ströbele's campaign immediately recognizable.
Another campaign that caught my eye during the last week were the pictures/placards of Barbara Höll. Which are just plain bad. And make her look like a bad transvestite. Look ye here: http://www.barbara-hoell.de/
Why it was decided to use this picture instead of, say, her other official one (http://www.linksfraktion.de/mdb_hoell.php) is beyond me. Obviously it's not her exterior but her political skill that are really important here but in all honesty, I find the chosen picture to be unflattering in a way that makes me wonder whether her party is trying to actively undermine her campaign.
Well, actually, my main thought was wondering about whether or not Germany was ready for a transvestite in politics. I don't see why not but then my views are probably not exactly representative of the general public.
