Whitehouse.org
Encyclopedia
Whitehouse.org is a parody website that Chickenhead Productions created in 2001, though the domain was first registered in 1995. The banner at the top of the website's front page read: "THE WHITE HOUSE" (and then in smaller print underneath) "OFFICIOUS WEBSITE OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH". The website is a parody
of former U.S. President George W. Bush
and his family, friends and administration. The website had not changed for over a year since President Barack Obama
took office on January 20, 2009.
To avoid confusion between the parody and the bona fide
White House website, the words "A Chickenhead Production parody" and a link to a disclaimer are listed at the bottom of each webpage. In spite of the site's authors' efforts to make the distinction obvious, some of the reader mail posted to the website indicates that some readers nevertheless believe (or at least pretend to believe) whitehouse.org is the real White House
website. The actual White House site is at whitehouse.gov.
After six years of regular and frequent updates, the site ceased to be updated from September 14, 2007 http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2007/09/surge2.asp until shortly before the inauguration of President Barack Obama. During the lengthy hiatus, on May 30, 2008, the site was briefly removed and replaced with a webpage giving an apparently serious warning that the site had been hacked
and that recent visitors to the site may have been infected with trojan
malware
(although the warning was accompanied with the humorous suggestion that "communist Chineses" may be responsible) along with the announcement that there will be no new updates to the site until the web server is "back under our control". Currently, as of October 10, 2009, the site redirects to whitehouse.georgewbush.org, which displays an archive of the content.
Chickenhead Productions has recently created a similar parody website for the George W. Bush Presidential Library at http://georgewbush.org/
the administration, their supporters and their politics using farce
. The jokes are outrageous, and the characterizations of the targeted people are extreme and outlandish.
One of the common strategies of the site is to publish news satire
via fake press releases following a real event concerning the administration or its prominent supporters. Each fake press release purports to be the transcript of a speech, the minutes of a conversation or meeting, or an official governmental document. Each is accompanied by a severely doctored photograph providing a fictional visual scene for the occurrence. For example, after (in reality) Justice Antonin Scalia
of the U.S. Supreme Court came under scrutiny for being a "hunting buddy" of U.S. Vice Pres. Dick Cheney
while the Court was considering a case of Cheney's, Whitehouse.org included a fake dual statement titled "Joint Statement by Vice President Cheney and Justice Scalia Vigorously Defending the Propriety of Their Extracurricular Commingling" and accompanied with a false image of Cheney and Scalia together in a hot tub
.
The authors depict the administration and their supporters as greedy, arrogant
, overtly egotistical
, culturally
ignorant, nepotist
, misogynist
, racist
, homophobic
, xenophobic
, anti-Semitic
, anti-Catholic power-hungry warhawks
who have absolutely no regard for any privacy
or human rights
other than their own. In keeping with those characterizations, women and ethnic and religious minorities who are in or favor the administration are ironically portrayed as unquestioning flock in (relatively) low-level job positions and who the caucasian men of the administration dislike but keep around for support. For example, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta is listed as the "Chauffeur" and unfeatured anywhere but the list of members of the administration, while Justice Clarence Thomas
of the U.S. Supreme Court is listed as the "Best Boy" and is fictionally quoted responding little if at all to any questions unrelated to pornography. U.S. Secy. of State Condoleezza Rice
is an exception to the rule, but one of the aforementioned posters fictionally quotes her exclaiming, "I'm fighting for WHITEY!" Also in keeping with the themes, a spoof of the Seal of the President of the United States
, with the bald eagle
replaced with a vulture
, appears on each webpage.
, and John A. Wooden, the Editor in Chief of Chickenhead Productions. Addington made what was likely a litigation threat intended to scare the authors into censoring the website. Addington's effort, whatever the intent, backfired.
In December 2002, Addington sent a cease-and-desist letter to Wooden, which read as if an attorney had authored it (consisting entirely of academic language, and containing several researched references to judicial opinions). In the letter, Addington argued that certain characteristics of the fictional profile of Lynne Cheney
(Dick Cheney's wife) on Whitehouse.org were cause for litigation should Second Lady Cheney decide to file a lawsuit against Chickenhead Productions. Among the characteristics cited: photographs of her were used for a for-profit website without her permission; she was portrayed in the false biography "in a false light"; and that "few people are likely to notice your disclaimer link" and "even fewer are likely to click on the link and actually see the disclaimer". Addington also cited the spoof of the Presidential seal was displayed on every page of the website, asserting such use of the seal was a violation of federal law. In conclusion, Addington demanded that Wooden delete the photographs and fictional text of the falsely biographical page, and to fax him with notifications of the changes, but clarified that "nothing in this request should be construed as expressing the lawfulness, wrongfulness or inappropriateness, or not, of any other aspect of your website."
Wooden then had "CENSORED" posted in large, red letters with respect to the webpage; for each aforementioned photograph, placed a fake red nose on Lynne Cheney and blackened some of her teeth; and inserted into the webpage a special disclaimer that read in part:
He then satirized the incident in a fake "Statement by the Vice President" on Whitehouse.org on Feb. 20th 2003 titled "Irate Vice President Cheney Issues a Punctilious, Legally Precise 'Oh, Wise Guy, Eh? Why I Oughta!' Letter to Nefarious 'Whitehouse.org' Terror Portal!"
Wooden also gave a copy of the letter to the New York City
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union
, who then went to the press to speak out in defense of Wooden's First Amendment
rights. Wooden also spoke briefly of this to an editor for the Washington Post.
All those at the Vice President's office, except Addington, then tried to distance themselves from Addington's letter, telling the press that Addington acted without Dick or Lynne Cheney's knowledge and no action (past, present or future) was planned to be taken against the website.
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of former U.S. President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and his family, friends and administration. The website had not changed for over a year since President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
took office on January 20, 2009.
To avoid confusion between the parody and the bona fide
Bona Fide
Bona Fide is a studio album from rock band Wishbone Ash. It is the first studio album in six years and is the only studio album to feature guitarist Ben Granfelt...
White House website, the words "A Chickenhead Production parody" and a link to a disclaimer are listed at the bottom of each webpage. In spite of the site's authors' efforts to make the distinction obvious, some of the reader mail posted to the website indicates that some readers nevertheless believe (or at least pretend to believe) whitehouse.org is the real White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
website. The actual White House site is at whitehouse.gov.
After six years of regular and frequent updates, the site ceased to be updated from September 14, 2007 http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2007/09/surge2.asp until shortly before the inauguration of President Barack Obama. During the lengthy hiatus, on May 30, 2008, the site was briefly removed and replaced with a webpage giving an apparently serious warning that the site had been hacked
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
and that recent visitors to the site may have been infected with trojan
Trojan horse (computing)
A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is software that appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to run or install, but steals information or harms the system. The term is derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology.-Malware:A destructive program that masquerades as a benign...
malware
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
(although the warning was accompanied with the humorous suggestion that "communist Chineses" may be responsible) along with the announcement that there will be no new updates to the site until the web server is "back under our control". Currently, as of October 10, 2009, the site redirects to whitehouse.georgewbush.org, which displays an archive of the content.
Chickenhead Productions has recently created a similar parody website for the George W. Bush Presidential Library at http://georgewbush.org/
Humor and themes
The website's purpose is to satirizeSatire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
the administration, their supporters and their politics using farce
Farce
In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
. The jokes are outrageous, and the characterizations of the targeted people are extreme and outlandish.
One of the common strategies of the site is to publish news satire
News satire
thumb|right|220px|[[The Daily Show with Jon Stewart]] is a news satire program.News satire, also called fake news , is a type of parody presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism, and called a satire because of its content...
via fake press releases following a real event concerning the administration or its prominent supporters. Each fake press release purports to be the transcript of a speech, the minutes of a conversation or meeting, or an official governmental document. Each is accompanied by a severely doctored photograph providing a fictional visual scene for the occurrence. For example, after (in reality) Justice Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Gregory Scalia is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice...
of the U.S. Supreme Court came under scrutiny for being a "hunting buddy" of U.S. Vice Pres. Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
while the Court was considering a case of Cheney's, Whitehouse.org included a fake dual statement titled "Joint Statement by Vice President Cheney and Justice Scalia Vigorously Defending the Propriety of Their Extracurricular Commingling" and accompanied with a false image of Cheney and Scalia together in a hot tub
Hot tub
A hot tub is a large tub or small pool full of heated water and used for soaking, relaxation, massage, or hydrotherapy. In most cases, they have jets for massage purposes. Hot tubs are usually located outdoors, and are often sheltered for protection from the elements, as well as for privacy....
.
The authors depict the administration and their supporters as greedy, arrogant
Arrogance
Arrogance or arrogant may refer to:*Overbearing*Hubris...
, overtly egotistical
Egotism
Egotism is "characterized by an exaggerated estimate of one's intellect, ability, importance, appearance, wit, or other valued personal characteristics" – the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself....
, culturally
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
ignorant, nepotist
Nepotism
Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis , from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended....
, misogynist
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
, racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, homophobic
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
, xenophobic
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
, anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
, anti-Catholic power-hungry warhawks
War Hawk
War Hawk is a term originally used to describe members of the Twelfth Congress of the United States who advocated waging war against the British in the War of 1812...
who have absolutely no regard for any privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
or human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
other than their own. In keeping with those characterizations, women and ethnic and religious minorities who are in or favor the administration are ironically portrayed as unquestioning flock in (relatively) low-level job positions and who the caucasian men of the administration dislike but keep around for support. For example, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta is listed as the "Chauffeur" and unfeatured anywhere but the list of members of the administration, while Justice Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....
of the U.S. Supreme Court is listed as the "Best Boy" and is fictionally quoted responding little if at all to any questions unrelated to pornography. U.S. Secy. of State Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
is an exception to the rule, but one of the aforementioned posters fictionally quotes her exclaiming, "I'm fighting for WHITEY!" Also in keeping with the themes, a spoof of the Seal of the President of the United States
Seal of the President of the United States
The Seal of the President of the United States is used to mark correspondence from the U.S. president to the United States Congress, and is also used as a symbol of the presidency. The central design, based on the Great Seal of the United States, is the official coat of arms of the U.S...
, with the bald eagle
Bald Eagle
The Bald Eagle is a bird of prey found in North America. It is the national bird and symbol of the United States of America. This sea eagle has two known sub-species and forms a species pair with the White-tailed Eagle...
replaced with a vulture
Vulture
Vulture is the name given to two groups of convergently evolved scavenging birds, the New World Vultures including the well-known Californian and Andean Condors, and the Old World Vultures including the birds which are seen scavenging on carcasses of dead animals on African plains...
, appears on each webpage.
Conflict with the real office of the Vice President
Whitehouse.org gained some attention in the media in late 2002, when one page on the website was the center of a dispute between Cheney's Vice Presidential Counsel, David AddingtonDavid Addington
David Spears Addington , was legal counsel and chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney, and is now vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation....
, and John A. Wooden, the Editor in Chief of Chickenhead Productions. Addington made what was likely a litigation threat intended to scare the authors into censoring the website. Addington's effort, whatever the intent, backfired.
In December 2002, Addington sent a cease-and-desist letter to Wooden, which read as if an attorney had authored it (consisting entirely of academic language, and containing several researched references to judicial opinions). In the letter, Addington argued that certain characteristics of the fictional profile of Lynne Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Lynne Ann Cheney is the wife of former United States Vice President Dick Cheney and served as the Second Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009...
(Dick Cheney's wife) on Whitehouse.org were cause for litigation should Second Lady Cheney decide to file a lawsuit against Chickenhead Productions. Among the characteristics cited: photographs of her were used for a for-profit website without her permission; she was portrayed in the false biography "in a false light"; and that "few people are likely to notice your disclaimer link" and "even fewer are likely to click on the link and actually see the disclaimer". Addington also cited the spoof of the Presidential seal was displayed on every page of the website, asserting such use of the seal was a violation of federal law. In conclusion, Addington demanded that Wooden delete the photographs and fictional text of the falsely biographical page, and to fax him with notifications of the changes, but clarified that "nothing in this request should be construed as expressing the lawfulness, wrongfulness or inappropriateness, or not, of any other aspect of your website."
Wooden then had "CENSORED" posted in large, red letters with respect to the webpage; for each aforementioned photograph, placed a fake red nose on Lynne Cheney and blackened some of her teeth; and inserted into the webpage a special disclaimer that read in part:
- "Mrs. Cheney's husband wishes you to be aware . . . that some/all of the biographic information . . . about Mrs. Cheney may not actually be true. . . . the editors of WHITEHOUSE.ORG are confident that any rumors about Mrs. Cheney formerly being a crystal meth pusher are 100% likely to be absolutely untrue. Similarly, any stories about her penchant for licking Brandy Alexanders off the hirsute belly of her spouse are all lies, lies, lies!"
He then satirized the incident in a fake "Statement by the Vice President" on Whitehouse.org on Feb. 20th 2003 titled "Irate Vice President Cheney Issues a Punctilious, Legally Precise 'Oh, Wise Guy, Eh? Why I Oughta!' Letter to Nefarious 'Whitehouse.org' Terror Portal!"
Wooden also gave a copy of the letter to the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
, who then went to the press to speak out in defense of Wooden's First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
rights. Wooden also spoke briefly of this to an editor for the Washington Post.
All those at the Vice President's office, except Addington, then tried to distance themselves from Addington's letter, telling the press that Addington acted without Dick or Lynne Cheney's knowledge and no action (past, present or future) was planned to be taken against the website.