It has happened to you maybe in a dream. There, before your eyes, is the bully who’s been tormenting you, suddenly exposed. He can do nothing to you now. The moment is yours. Do you insult him? Spit at his feet? Or do you cut him down with a single blazing stare?
On Thursday, a photo of Doug Jones being sworn in, by Mike Pence, as the junior senator of Alabama went viral. There is Jones, mouth drawn in a sober smile, left hand on the Bible, right hand raised to take the oath of office. There is his wife, Louise, looking glamorous in a Morticia Addams sort of way, with her long dark hair and her pale face punctuated by lipstick. And there—oh, there!—is their son Carson, with neatly trimmed beard and forelock raffishly swept over his right eye, giving Pence the stare to end all stares. Carson, who is twenty-two and works as a zookeeper in Denver, is openly gay. Pence is famously hostile to gay rights, and, by extension, presumably, to gay people. “He wants to hang them all!” Donald Trump boasted, according to Jane Mayer’s recent Letter from Washington about the Vice-President. The idea of Pence swearing in Alabama’s first Democratic senator in twenty-five years is delicious enough, but Carson Jones subtly seized the moment and elevated it to the realm of Internet sublime. He Instagrammed the photo (his handle is @thedapperzookeeper) with the hashtag “#nocaptionneeded,” which didn’t stop people on Twitter from captioning it to their hearts’ content.
What is it about that stare? It’s the apotheosis of side-eye, a gesture that bestows upon its target the perfect mix of recognition and indifference. I see you, and I know you see me, the look says. And I just don’t care. There’s humor in it, too—a hint of a smile around Carson’s mouth, an acknowledgment of the absurdity of the situation, and the improbable, shot-in-the-dark victory that it represents. And there’s dignity, a quality that has been sorely lacking from American politics of late. The stare is elevated by the photo as a whole, which, with its Ionic columns in the background and intense, interlocking sight lines, is as Classical and clear as a painting by Jacques-Louis David. Doug Jones looks at Pence. Carson Jones looks at Pence. Louise Jones looks at Doug Jones, with an expression of touching gravitas. Pence looks—where, exactly, is Pence looking? From the angle of the photo, his eyes are hooded. His expressionless face seems made of putty. He might be a sculpture at a wax museum. But forget about Pence. Go back to Carson, and that stare. If I ever get my chance to face off with Pence, or anyone else in this Administration, I’d be lucky to summon half as much saucy fire. I’m going to go practice in the mirror.
