Cosmetics
The opening scene of AOC applying cosmetics instantly situates through an immediately intuitive and relatable symbol the one true dividing line separating all female politicians regardless of party or ideology from all male politicians. Female politicians will always and forever be judged on their looks more than male politicians.
Suits
Ironically, even though some of the female candidates wear women’s business suits (meaning a matching skirt rather than pants) the symbolism of the suit is directed explicitly toward men. In fact, the word “suit” becomes interchangeable with not just men, but white men. Suits becomes a symbol of the dominant white patriarchal “good ole boys club” of the political machines that ran American government exclusively for so long.
Bartending
AOC’s job as she is running for Congress is working in a bar. This involves not just pouring and mixing drinks, but lugging buckets of ice around. The scenes in the bar and especially those of her dealing with ice are subtly juxtaposed with the imagery of incumbents to situate bartending as working class every economic strata in America can relate to. Americans, after all, can come together based upon a shared desire to imbibe fermented liquids within a depressing tavern atmosphere more so than they can come together for almost any other reason.
Joe Crowley’s “Victoria’s Secret Catalog”
It is not, of course, literally a lingerie catalog although by the time AOC finishes her semiotic deconstruction of it, it might as well be. The “catalog” is actually a campaign mailer by her opponent, incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, and its primary feature is two-page span of his face with the most unsubstantial of buzzwords barely visible running along the bottom. Within barely half a minute in the hand of Ocasio-Cortez, the campaign literature become a symbol carrying the entire weight of the lazy power of incumbency which in too many cases requires literally no effort on behalf of the office holder to campaign in order to maintain the job.
Electric Scooters
The closing image of AOC and her boyfriend giddily riding electric scooters in front of the Capitol is the film’s establishing symbolism of what is to come. The imagery suggests that the politics of the past is firmly on its way to being gone forever as a new generation is ready to take over on exactly the kind of “green machines” that scare old time collectors of big oil money right down to their Gucci loafers.
