I heard some talking-heads blather about the release of incoming President Donald Trump’s new official portrait on Fox, CNN and MSNBC, and quickly decided it was not worth my time. Then I looked at the thing and decided it was worth a little bit of my time after all.
It is a remarkable choice by Trump, since he obviously approved it, something we cannot say with certainly about the current President’s portrait, or anything he did or said, amazingly. On the Trump-Hating news outlets, they have been saying that it bears an uncanny resemblance to his immortal mug shot…
…which is only true in the sense that he isn’t smiling in either of them and both are images of Donald Trump.
I guess the critics aren’t stage directors. The mugshot was a deliberate spoof as well as a clear message that the entire lawfare effort to bring Trump down would fail, signalling to his supporters that he would ultimately win and wouldn’t let the bastards get him down. I wrote that it was brilliant, and it was: the mug shot was one of many accumulated images and actions that persuaded sufficient numbers of Americans that he, unlike Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, is exactly who and what he appears to be.
The portrait is not a spoof, but it is a statement. My business—well, one of them—is reading faces and helping actors learn how to communicate with theirs. That image says “I am serious, I am committed, I know I have a tough job ahead, I am not afraid, I’m not kidding around, and if you think I am, go ahead, make my day.”
That’s a gutsy message. It gives me some hope that the President in four days isn’t going to waste time on revenge and pay-back but is going to be the transformational POTUS that he not only can be, but had better be, because a lot of anti-American, anti-democracy, anti-Bill of Rights aspiring totalitarians are waiting, hoping and plotting for him to fail.
Trump risks that portrait becoming a historic joke if he does fail, so he has made a boast, a gamble and a declaration all at once. You would think that the least the Trump Deranged could do is give him credit for spunk. (Maybe they hate spunk.)
I’m not sure what it means, but for whatever reason, Donald Trump cannot give a tooth-revealing smile naturally. His natural smile is close-lipped, which communicates pride or satisfaction rather than happiness or cheerfulness:
Trump’s full smile, in contrast, is always forced: you can tell because it does not match the muscles in his face: we see the smile, but we also see the stress and tension that tells us that he’s faking it. It’s a mask, and not a very good one:
Sometimes it is affirmatively creepy…
…evoking the horror film “Smile” franchise…
He is wise to avoid it. Many have cited Trump’s infrequent smiles to accuse him of not having a sense of humor, which is Trump Derangement: he is one of our most naturally comic Presidents. Like Ronald Reagan, a trained actor, he knows that humor is usually communicated with a dead-pan expression: the audience is supposed to smile, not the comedian.
Back to the portrait however: it is serious, but the image is only menacing or sinister to those who want Trump to fail.
Ethics Alarms 
You often tout every President as being unprecedented and therefore there are no “norms” when it comes to presidencies.
But for the minutiae of the official portrait- there’s a pretty clear trend and it’s one Trump I don’t think should’ve bucked.
Instead of coming across communicating a message of toughness and seriousness- to the contrary, he looks quite unserious.
Is that assessment based on the actual details of the face expression, or your perception of Trump himself?
As I am cautiously hopeful that, based on experience, the barely managed chaos of the Trump regime redux, will tend to turn out good for America and the world, my perception isn’t based on Trump. I think his presidential portrait looks quite unserious. The mugshot photo was great. But this ain’t a mugshot photo.
It’s menacing or threatening to the people he wants to have fired because they’re either incompetent, are doing nothing, or are a threat to the wellbeing of the nation.
Anybody who lets the portrait drive them into deeper derangement and fear ought to place it in the context of Trump’s announcement of the 250th nation’s birthday festivities… Which I suspect their source of media has hidden from them.
So, THAT’s the official portrait that will go up in post offices and other governmental offices all across the nation and the world? In embassies even? Hah! It will be terrifying. It will say, “Get to work! Do something productive! Make America Great Again!” Hilarious.
That reminds me of a story Abraham Lincoln used to tell. From a Slate review about the accuracy of Spielberg’s “Lincoln”:
One of Lincoln’s favorite anecdotes sprang from the early days just after the Revolution. Shortly after the peace was signed, the story began, the Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen “had occasion to visit England,” where he was subject to considerable teasing banter. The British would make “fun of the Americans and General Washington in particular and one day they got a picture of General Washington” and displayed it prominently in the outhouse so Mr. Allen could not miss it. When he made no mention of it, they finally asked him if he had seen the Washington picture. Mr. Allen said, “He thought that it was a very appropriate [place] for an Englishman to Keep it. Why they asked, for said Mr. Allen there is Nothing that Will Make and Englishman Shit So quick as the Sight of Genl Washington.”
Hah! I read somewhere that over half of managers in federal offices intend to disobey orders from the Trump administration. Nice. Maybe that photo glaring at them will change their minds? Maybe “unsettling” describes the desired effect.
“Like Ronald Reagan, a trained actor, he knows that humor is usually communicated with a dead-pan expression: the audience is supposed to smile, not the comedian.”
The best comedians play it off as if they aren’t even aware that they are being funny.
Exactly, although as with everything else, there are exceptions. Red Skelton used to laugh at his own jokes. So did Danny Kaye, although he often used a fake laugh that was itself funny. Jack Benny was one of the all time greats in pretending that he didn’t know what he was saying or doing was funny. Harpo Marx did a silent laugh that was funny because it was mimed. The ultimate example was Buster Keaton, aka “The Great Stone Face.” In general, though, the idea is not to even smile when being funny. Doing so is a much an amateur move as saying “Get it?” after telling a joke.
Let’s not leave Steven Wright out of the discussion on droll deliveries.
Or Rodney Dangerfield or Henny Youngman.
“Now, take my wife. Please.”
Jackie Vernon.
Tim Conway.
Excellent example. The supposed spontaneous crack-ups on the Carol Burnett show were almost certainly scripted: comics losing control because what they are doing or say is so silly is a device that dates from before burlesque.