Charles Bukowski's Face Of A Political Candidate On A Billboard

Oxford dictionary defines privilege to be “A special right, advantage, or immunity, granted or available only to a particular person or group of people” (Oxford CITE). Very clearly, privilege provides benefits to certain individuals. Privilege is comprised of various factors, including wealth, reputation, gender, race, etc. In the poem “Face of a Political Candidate on a Billboard”, Charles Bukowski’s political candidate constructed his privilege by overlapping wealth, family, and self-image. Through media, society creates standards of what people believe to be success. This poem demonstrates how privilege creates a system of oppression that gives the privileged an advantage to success.
The candidate’s wealth gives him a substantial advantage …show more content…
Luckily, the candidate in the poem can afford to preserve his self-image no matter how expensive it gets. Putting his son in college demonstrates how the candidate believes that education has a purpose and is worth investing time and money into. I believe that the speaker chose the gender of the candidate’s child to be male to indicate that his son would continue the family name, and with it, the family’s reputation. The candidate wants to have a respected reputation. The poem states, “he keeps a tight lid on his garbage cans”, revealing how he is able to hide all of his skeletons and conceal it from the media. The media is a core source of information; with a single misstep, a politician can fall under the bus in the blink of an eye. He knows that the media is watching him closely, and that his reputation is at stake. When the narrator states that candidate has “not had too many hangovers” and “not more than three toothaches”, he shows he is able to take care of himself, demonstrating reliability. He has also “never been in jail”, suggesting honesty in following the law. . It is also mentioned that he has “7 pairs of shoes”, which really makes me feel like he cares a lot about his physical appearance. He models the type of candidate we see every 4 years in our election system. This is important to understand because we prefer the familiar and find it harder to step outside of this box. Minorities and other …show more content…
The poem’s first line, “there he is” starts emphasizing that the role of the candidate is male. By putting this line first in the poem, it already creates an image in our head that excludes any possibility of this person being a female. Therefor any connotations of femininity which is not associated with leadership, is canceled out. Moving on to the last line of the poem, “ he’ll be elected” illustrates how all of the candidate’s attributes will be rewarded by winning the election. Anyone who does not fit this description will not be elected, showing how we are brainwashed to believe only one type of candidate is capable of winning. By having our mind already set on an ideal image of the perfect candidate we exclude a lot of important groups and people who would more likely connect with the