Joan Jett-Blakk for President
Designer
Designer Unknown
Date1992
Dimensions25 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. (64.8 x 49.5 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.9630
DescriptionJoan Jett-Blakk, also known as Terence Alan Smith, ran four satirical political campaigns between 1991 and 1999. This photolithographic poster was produced in San Francisco in 1992 when militant queer activism was at its height in the city. Based on an image by local photographer Marc Geller, it supports Jett-Blakk’s 1992 campaign to put a drag queen in the White House, a venture that undoubtedly enlivened the race between Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton. She stated that as president she would hire Dykes on Bikes to handle national security and appoint Diana Ross and the other Supremes to the Supreme Court. She also used her campaigns to address important social-justice and welfare issues, including gay rights, abortion rights, drug decriminalization, and universal health care. The image is adapted from an iconic poster featuring a photographic portrait of the macho Black Panther activist Huey P. Newton, made by Blair Stapp in 1966–67, and showing him seated in a similar rattan throne chair. Jett-Blakk’s poster also borrows the Panthers’ celebrated Black-power slogan “By Any Means Necessary.” The message of violent uprising is comically subverted here, however, by the replacement of Newton’s rifle and spear in the original image by a plastic Nerf-ball launcher. On View
Not on view
