Pat Speech/T&L

Different uses of the concept of “home,” how are these uses marshaled to support worldview
Buachana’s worldview is obviously one rooted in deeply conservative values, or more
specifically, Reagan era conservative politics. Reagan:“Great statesmen of modern times,” who
created the “greatest peacetime economic recovery of all time.” “The long way home but we
finally got here.” Along this way we see the counterpoints to home: “exhibition of cross-
dressing in American political history.” Reagan is the concept of home to which we are
returning. The ideals of Democratic candidate Bill Clinton are the antithesis of the Reaganite
concept of home. “Unrestricted aborotion on demand,” “the most pro-lesbian and pro-gay
ticket in history,” “his lawyer-spouse…[who]compared marriage as an institution to slavery—
and life on an Indian reservation,” “radical feminist agenda.” Bush has the correct philosophy
and a better character, therefore, we must “come home and stand beside him?” DNC-“prophets
of doom” spoke for them.
“The party is our home; this party is where we belong,” therefore, home is where we belong in
the eyes of Buchanan.

How does the speech deploy diff aesthetic/discursive techniques to develop a pic of domestic
life?

Why is use of images of domestic life/comforts of home—or the refusal—politically effective?

It plays into the sentimentality many people held for the Reagan years in the US. In listing all the
so-called accomplishments of Reagan, he ties the glory days of his presidency inextricably to the
party, and therefore, this new candidate. He places Reagan in the company of George
Washington and Abraham Lincoln to create even more significance for Reagan’s place in
history. It plays on the fear of so-called “different” identities taking over our country: lesbian,
gay, feminist, etc. He also makes the leap that when these groups take over, all morality will
decay, abortions will occur on every corner, pornography will be seen on billboards, and
children will sue their parents, all of which, especially the latter, completely challenges the
traditional notion of home that Buchanan idealizes an calls for in this speech. America is home,
and anything that Buchanan deems anti-American, namely Bill Clinton, is the anti-home.

Hillary is explicity mentioned not as a wife, but a partner in crime for Bill. She is specifically
mentioned as a “spouse,” changing her identity from a woman to a gender neutral lawyer. Her
lack of gender or sex identification is politically useful as it refuses to acknowledge her as a
female, taking away the ability of female voters to identity with her. Her comparison of marriage
to slavery is not seen as something that keeps women down but as something that is anti-
American, and thus, something that threatens the traditional idea of domesticity. Her assertions
that the patriarchy is bad for women is read not as a way to give more freedoms to women, but
as a threat to the home, and thus to the most American value--freedom itself.

While the concepts that the Replubican party and conservatives generally promote are
individualistic, the idea of home is a communal one. He says “we” must come home and stand
with President Bush, and that the Republican Party is “our home.” Buchanan presents the home
as public space, a political party, and a nation, rather than a private space where individual
families and people live. His expansion of the notion of home to include the entire home helps to
make the threats against the party personal ones. The opposition, “Clinton and Clinton,” are a
threat to the party and therefore, to every member of that party’s homes as well.

Thelma and Louise portrays the home as a confining space, not the an all-encompassing notion
Buchanan promotes. Home is a space that at first is defined by femininity and is then flipped and
coded as a male space later in the film. See Sturken.

Home is also a transitional idea in the film. The women leave their traditional homes, find their
home on the road in the car, and aspire to create a new home in Mexico.

PHOTOS/Childhood associated w/ Louise’s home

Thelma and louise together in photo and throughout film/life/home

movement can only be forward, like their driving. they cannot go back and one cannot go
backwards