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| Portrait of Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 5th Vice-President of the United States, and a former Governor of Massachusetts. It was his plan of redistricting Massachusetts which led to the term "Gerry-mander." |
This past week, satirical journalist Jason Jones of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, produced a news story about the art of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering, of course, is the act of redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts - often in ridiculous, abstract shapes - to redistribute the votes of large groups of people whose ideology is in opposition to the incumbent party. It is a highly questionable, but legal, way of neutralizing a majority vote when the majority no longer sees eye-to-eye with the ruling power.
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| A pictorial representation of gerrymandering. Even though the votes represented in the image are equal, by redrawing the electoral district boundaries, one party is given a significant, undue advantage over the other. (source: Electoral-Vote.com) |
In Jones' segment, "American Horrible Story: Jason Jones Meets the Picasso of Gerrymandering," the reporter interviews redistricting consultant Kimball Brace, a man who compares the contorted geopolitical outlines he creates to fine art. Jones takes Brace's conceit and then runs with it, mocking the idea that such political rigging is art, while also lampooning Modern Art, artists, and the world of art galleries in general. The video was typical of Jones' recent work - aggressive yet funny - and quickly made its rounds among artists on social media sites.
This recent commercial for Verizon Wireless may have served as partial inspiration for Jones' Gerrymandering video.
As odd as it may seem, the idea of a relationship between gerrymandering and art may not be so far-fetched, however. Though sources do not agree, it is quite possible that the term "Gerry-mander" may have arisen through a collaboration between a newspaper-man and an artist. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (Cassell, London, 2001), it was none other than the famous portrait painter Gilbert Stuart who saw the similarity between Gerry's planned boundary of an electoral district in Essex County, Massachusetts, and a lizard. After re-drawing the district as a salamander, Stuart showed the polling map to his friend Benjamin Russell, editor of the Boston Sentinel, who declared it was better to call the new shape a "Gerry-mander." The name caught on, and though the practice was not new, this dubious form of redistricting will likely forever be associated with Governor Gerry because of an artist's little drawing and a writer's ability to create a memorable catchphrase.
