Jacinda Ardern has received international attention since becoming Prime Minister. Some of this is legitimate news, but some of it seems to be jacked up PR, usually more personal pap than political analysis.
This probably shouldn’t be unexpected, international media seems more interested in superficial celebration of so-called celebrities generally, and there is usually little interest in New Zealand politics.
But what is Ardern trying to achieve? She is receiving attention, but she risks being entrenched as a superficial celebrity without political substance.
She should try to sort out her leadership and Government in New Zealand before taking on the world.
Ardern seems to have favoured status at the UK Guardian which at times seems to be a PR arm of Ardern’s office. here are some recent efforts:
- Jacinda Ardern welcomes new welfare reforms from the sofa with new baby
- Jacinda Ardern prepares to return as PM: ‘I’m multitasking like every parent’
- ‘We’ll make it work’: Jacinda Ardern returns as New Zealand PM six weeks after giving birth
- ‘I am not the first woman to give birth’: Jacinda Ardern returns to work – video
- Jacinda Ardern back at New Zealand’s helm with newborn in tow
- Jacinda Ardern says daughter will be raised speaking Māori language and English
- Jacinda Ardern: ‘Having a baby around changes the tone a little bit’
- Jacinda Ardern freezes New Zealand MPs’ pay to tackle rich-poor divide
- Inside the Guardian Meeting Jacinda Ardern: ‘She makes the extraordinary seem ordinary’
- Jacinda Ardern queried for taking costly flight to minimise time away from baby
Is she planning on standing for election in the United Kingdom?
And, suggested by some as preparation for a trip to the United States, Ardern has featured in a New York Times promotion:
SUNDAY REVIEW
Lady of the Rings: Jacinda Rules
Jacinda Ardern, one of the young, progressive leaders countering Donald Trump, talks about being only the second world leader to give birth.
Global hype continues to paint Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as a cliche
Jacinda Ardern was an MP for nine years before becoming Labour’s saving grace.
Yet a new piece the in New York Times was still focused on her shorts-wearing partner and the happiness club she founded when she was eight.
Well-known for her coverage inside the Trump White House, columnist Maureen Dowd labelled Ardern as “Lady of the Rings”.
In an instant, Dowd meshed together a retrograde label with a 15-year-old movie reference and proved we haven’t moved past the shallow caricatures that have come to define us as a nation.
It just seems the international media can’t get past our leader’s novelty value.
Dowd presents our PM as having perpetual sunniness and being someone who would call Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then yell: “OMG, Justin! Are you seeing this?”.
But where is the political meat you would expect from sit-down interviews with an international leader?
The real “Jacindamania” is not the rush of enthusiasm that swept her into leadership.
Rather, it’s the permanent psychosis that has taken hold of global media, preventing real debate of our country’s policies and role in the world.
It leaves Ardern battling a caricature of herself and New Zealand still stuck at the kids’ table where we are described through the lens of a “hip” liberal leader and, inevitably, a few Lord of the Rings references.
Based on the myriad of international media coverage, she is just that unwed working mother representing the “anti-Trump” in the Trumpian age.
Reporters with extraordinary access like Dowd should use that privilege to ask real questions to inform.
Everything else is a disservice.
So why would Ardern go along with this sort of lightweight coverage?
Gayford is a willing partner in this:
In a sartorial triumph, Ardern wore a feathered Maori cloak to meet Queen Elizabeth at a black-tie dinner in London.
“It was highly coveted among the princesses at the dinner,” Ardern’s partner, Clarke Gayford, told me. “They made a beeline for her, and I’m surprised she managed to leave wearing it, to be completely honest.”
The boyish and charming Gayford, the 40-year-old host of a TV fishing show who smiles with delight no matter how many times he is asked “Is Jacinda your greatest catch?” would be the stay-at-home dad who would show the way for modern men.
She calls Gayford Huckleberry Finn, because he often wears shorts, even for interviews, and wanders around with a fishing pole.
On another day, when I came to interview Gayford, Ardern’s mother, Laurell, is there, helping with the baby.
President Trump will be presiding over the United Nations Security Council when the General Assembly meets in New York later this month. The prime minister will be trying to combine mothering and traveling again, this time hopefully with less ludicrous commentary. She will be juggling more than 40 events in seven days, with Neve and Gayford as part of the entourage.
Gayford also appears to be embracing the celebrity style coverage.
She (Dowd) gets what? She gets how Ardern and Gayford want to be seen, as a modern celebrity couple and parents who manage to fit in a bit of running the country when not being interviewed by sycophant reporters?
Like a significant number of Americans will support Trump no matter how crazy he seems, Ardern is sure to keep a solid level of support in New Zealand based on her celebrity (Woman’s Weekly) style coverage.
But if she continues to look subservient to Winston Peters, and fails to deliver on her promises to deal to child poverty and other ‘revolutions’ that are little more than empty rhetoric so far, and if she fails to live up to her claims of being open and transparent (she has been severely challenged on that lately), she may find that her party’s popularity doesn’t hold up as well as her celebrity status.
Ardern may find it difficult to move from celebrity saccharine to serious leadership. She may end up being hoist by her own celebrity PR petard.
