95. Inaugural gestures

The inaugural address was a stirring speech, well-crafted and well-delivered, the sparkling centerpiece of a day we won't forget. But let's be frank: Obama's inaugural gestures were repetitive and uninspired. I invite you to watch again for yourself:



He relies heavily on two gestures, using them over and over without obvious concern for nuances of context. The first is the 'sky point', a gesture I have written a lot about previously (first here, and then later here here here):

His second trusty gestural standby is a species of the well-known precision grip gesture (discussed before in this post). In Obama's version, the hand is balled in a fist, but the thumb and index finger are made to touch:




It's truly sad to see a man with such obvious oratorical gifts have the creativity coached out of his hands. But I don't mean to unfairly single out Obama: all American politicians in recent memory seem to have been taught to curb their manual enthusiasm behind the podium. To get a sense of how Obama gestures in a more natural face-to-face setting, take a look at the video of his appearance on David Letterman.