Visual Essay: “Happy”

Jesse Kuiken — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:06:11 +0000

The Tea Party Movement in American would seem to suggest that the idea of American democracy is alive and well. At first glance the party seems to encourage reforms while helping Americans who feel disillusioned to re-engage with the political process. However, a closer inspection of the party’s ideas and philosophies can yield unsettling results.

I constructed this visual essay with an eye towards using humor and satire to critique and highlight the extremely problematic aspects of the Tea Party Movement. These problematic aspects seem inherently tied to Tea Party discourse, despite the repeated denials of Tea Party leaders and members.

http://vimeo.com/26733289

This visual essay is a transformative work and constitutes fair use of materials under current US copyright law.

Song version of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” is by the Speakaboos. The audio of screaming children was culled from various youtube videos which I will not link here.

The sources for the photographs are as follows:

Help Me Joseph
Labor Rights
Tea Party.org
Newsone
Huffington Post
Red Dog Report
Cracked.com
Notes from Off Center
Media Matters.org
Tea Party Jesus
The Examiner.com

Happy by Jesse Kuiken is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at jessekuiken.wordpress.com.

He comes. He sleeps. He goes.

Visual Essay: “Happy”