Bernie's Mittens

2021

Date: 20 January 2021 · Place: United States Capitol West Front · global Photoshop · Figures: Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont · Brendan Smialowski, AFP photographer · Jen Ellis, Vermont schoolteacher and mitten-maker · Tags: Photograph, Photoshop, GreenScreen 01. Folding Chair, Wool Mittens At the inauguration of Joe Biden on 20 January 2021, AFP photographer Brendan Smialowski catches Bernie Sanders seated in a folding chair, arms folded across his Burton parka, a manila envelope on his lap, wearing brown patterned wool mittens that look unmistakably homemade. The mittens are by Jen Ellis, a Vermont schoolteacher, made from a recycled wool sweater and lined with fleece from plastic bottles. Sanders has dressed for the weather. Every other dignitary on the West Front has dressed for the cameras. The contrast is total. The image is online within minutes. 02. Insert Bernie Anywhere Within hours Bernie has been Photoshopped onto Grant Wood's American Gothic, into the bar in Star Wars, onto Forrest Gump's bench, onto the moon, into Wes Anderson stills, into ancient Roman frescoes. A web tool launches that lets users place Bernie at any Google Street View address. The Sanders campaign reissues the mitten image on a sweatshirt, immediately sells out, and donates over $1.8 million to Vermont charities within five days. Jen Ellis, who has made the mittens by hand and given them to Sanders years earlier, has to publicly explain that she cannot make more. The closing image of the politics-and-frogs era is a senator in a folding chair, dressed correctly. Sources • Brendan Smialowski, AFP/Getty inauguration photographs, 20 January 2021 • Maggie Astor, 'Bernie Sanders Becomes a Meme. Again,' New York Times, 21 January 2021 • Jen Ellis, interview with Slate, 22 January 2021