The Power Elite Behind the Curtain

By Anonymous

 

Alina Secrest

 This image depicts Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin within the context of The Wizard of Oz. Trump is displayed to be an all-mighty, intimidating power like the wizard is in the original film, with his head projected on a screen. However, in the film this is all revealed to be an illusion and the characters discover to their great dismay that the wizard is only a man directing this illusion from behind a curtain. In this image, the display of Trump's head with Putin behind the curtain mimics the film to insinuates that Putin is the one manipulating Trump, despite his best efforts to conceal the affiliation as shown by the speech bubble. 

There are several aspects of Mills that this invokes regarding the power elite. First, in "The Power Elite", Mills states that those who percieve the fact that there are big, historical, decisions being made by others assume the existance of a power elite. Because these individuals had no part in deciding, there must be a group of people more powerful than they who drive these choices. However, if one listens to the stories of individuals involved, they are disillusioned from this notion. The point of this scene from The Wizard of Oz is that the supposed powerful leader, or the power elite of Oz, is in reality just a normal man, which is exactly what Mill's claims. The power elite are only percieved this way because of the circumstances of their position, not due to any inherant superiority, just like the wizard. 

Furthermore, the implied affiliation between Trump and Putin by Putin standing behind the curtain demonstrates Mills' idea that because the power elite in the political, military, and economic institutions form a status group between the leaders of these institutions, that top decisions between leaders become coordinated in order to benefit each other. These decision makers hold far more power than they used to, so the effects are more widespread, and the power elite begin to work with each other. The cartoon claims that this is what Trump and Putin are doing, by collaborating as the top political power elite of two countries, in order to benefit themselves by remaining the power elite.    


Works Cited

“Latest Cartoons.” The Week, https://theweek.com/cartoons/817508/political-cartoon-trump-putin-russia-investigation-wizard-oz.  

Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. 1956. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Show Her It's a Man's World": Advertising the Power Dynamics in Marriage

By
Image
  The image above includes two ads side by side, a project curated by artist and photographer Eli Rezkallah as part of a photo series called “In a Parallel Universe.” The ad to the left features a man lying in bed, his arms propped up, hands behind his head in a relaxed manner. Several white pillows prop him up, and white sheets cover his legs. He wears a white button-up shirt and a colorful tie, looking contently off into the distance. Below him, a woman, presumably his wife, kneels beside his bed, wearing a pink bathrobe. She looks up at him and is depicted in the process of placing a tray before him, featuring plates of food, a teapot, and a cup. Black text in the upper left corner of the image reads, “show her it’s a man’s world” and the bottom of the image displays a larger drawing of a tie and the words “Van Heusen” and “man’s world.” The second ad, on the right, exhibits a woman lying in a white-sheeted bed and propped up by many pillows. Like the man in the other ad, she si...
Read more

Psychological Unity And The Power Elite's Attendance Of Trump's Inauguration

By
Image
  Blog Post #3:  The image above is of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bezos’ partner, Lauren Sanchez, and Sundar Pichai in the VIP section (New York Times, 2025) of Donald Trump’s 2025 presidential inauguration. Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk and Pichai are all well-known billionaires who rose to prominence in technology and industry. Elon Musk, for one, is the wealthiest man in the world and funded Donald Trump’s political campaign, even gaining a spot as the leader of Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been understood by many as having helped ‘buy’ the 2024 presidential election. Bezos and Zuckerberg have also complied with Trump in many ways – Bezos, who owns the Washington Post and is also the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, was able to block the Washington Post from publishing an opinion piece endorsing the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. It was the first year since the 1970s that the Post decided not to...
Read more

Taiwanese independence: solidarity in the civil sphere?

By
Image
This is a photo of Taiwan's newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, who was screened while speaking during Taiwan's national day. He made several overseas official visits last year, aiming to bolster friendship and form new relations with like-minded democracies to assert the island's independence from the People's Republic of China. In this image, Lai is speaking under the flag that is the official representative of Taiwan (ROC), a totem in modern times understood as a provocative response against the Communist Party. The flag is composed of blue, white and red, symbolizing the spirit of freedom, equality and fraternity. In addition, the flag is derived from and modified base on the previous flag held by the Kuo Ming Tang (KTM) party that Lai vows to pursue, with the three color symbolizing the party's three principles: nationality, civil rights and people's livelihood. Noticeably, in this image, the flag occupies half of the space, almost about to cover Lai him...
Read more