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Volodymyr Zelensky is not a meme


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s family photos keep popping up in my social media feeds. Maybe you’ve seen it too. This photo shows the politician next to his wife and daughter, holding his son in his arms. Father and son grinning, wearing superhero costumes. It was a happy moment. This photo was captioned with an excerpt from Zelensky’s inaugural address from 2019: “I don’t want my picture in your office. The president is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Instead, hang pictures of your child and look at them every time you make a decision. “

As Ukraine continues to fight against Russian aggression, its 44-year-old president has transformed into a beloved wartime leader. Therefore, this is not the only Zelensky image going viral right now. There was also a face-to-face video he made with members of his cabinet as they gathered in Kyiv, as well as photos of him dressed to fight. His advice to reject an offer to evacuate from the United States (“I need ammunition, not a ride”) was printed on shirts, mugs, and flags to buy on Etsy. Fans are snapping photos of him tilting their heads to Captain America, declaring their love for him and creating “fan cam” video collages as digital tributes. Zelensky is the number one target of the country with the most nuclear weapons in the world, and he’s not backing down — if ever there was a time when he idolized a political figure, it might be this time.

But politicians are not meant to be idolized, even in their best hours. In fact, that was the point taken from Zelensky’s speech. And there’s a difference between admiring a leader’s actions and worshiping them like a K-pop star. Believing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an act of atrocity and that Zelensky is behaving courageously does not mean that it is wise to apply fandom logic to his actions. In fact, it’s clearly unwise. Treating Zelensky like a superhero — called Marvelization — reimagines a geopolitical conflict in which real people are actually dying to entertainment, to content. When Russia bombed Kyiv, New York Post published an article about who could play Zelensky in the film adaptation of the inevitable conflict. (Consensus? Avengers actor Jeremy Renner.)

Who exactly does this help? The same people who benefited from the canonization of former Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg are the “notorious RBG,” I suppose: no one. Despite her glorification, when Ginsburg died, she was replaced by a woman who was in every way her ideological enemy. When certain sections of the liberal crowd in the United States treat Robert Mueller investigates as a heroic spectacle, buying a t-shirt with the former special counsel’s face on it and calling former FBI director James Comey “dad,” has no negative impact on the Trump administration. If anything, this behavior has helped Trump, who has always wanted to portray his opponents as government elites. (It’s not that Trump doesn’t discourage his chiefs — he’s given them iconic merchandise in the form of MAGA hats.) Fan culture, like critic Amanda Hess shown back in 2019, American democracy was swallowed up. We are worse for it. Political figures are seen as a different taste of celebrity, rather than civil servants. They have fans who make a name for themselves—Kamala Harris has #KHive, for example, while former New York governor Andrew Cuomo is, unfortunately for everyone, “Cuomosexuals”—and those who watch their relationship. them with the chosen politician as an extension of their authentic surname. For Zelensky, the fandom that has sprung up around him in the United States is particularly controversial because the circumstances he’s in are so dire. It was cruel to put the idea of ​​Zelensky on a pedestal when the flesh-and-blood man was begging for help on the ground.

Zelensky, who played Ukraine’s president on television before he was elected, is an inherently likable character. He won the Ukrainian version of Dancing with the stars. He voiced Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian version of Paddington Bear. He plays “Hava Nagila” with his penis on the piano in front of a live audience. Typing all of this out makes me like him more than I’ve ever done, even as I’m sitting here writing about why it’s a shame to mythologize politicians in this particular way. mistake. In this moment of real emergency, Ukraine has benefited from Zelensky’s talent for adoring audiences. He rallied international allies to support Ukraine by effectively communicating his country’s plight with fiery speeches.

However, viewers eager to treat Zelensky like the latest action star didn’t give him any favors. Sulafa Zidani, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in digital cultural studies. What are its harmful effects, one might ask, in watching Ukraine as the Rebel Alliance and Russian President Vladimir Putin as Emperor Palpatine? Well, for starters, Zelensky is a human, not a Jedi. He has no magical powers. It’s completely unfair to cast an actual person as the Cinematic Savior. Plus, Putin rules over a country brimming with real people, many of whom are putting themselves in jeopardy to oppose this invasion. It also reduces Ukraine’s plight to something so that the people of NATO nations stop looking at their phones, sigh sadly, maybe wipe away a few tears like they did at the end. Avengers: Endgame. Maybe, as Zelensky had warned them against, they would admire his portrait. And then they will keep scrolling.


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