PEACE CORPS IN THE 21 ST CENTURY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

81Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3 Figure 3.4Aside from implicating the “other” in a world of smiling innocence, the smile isalso consistent with an idealism that sees the third world smiling because they aregrowing and developing. Lutz and Collins contend that, “[t]he smile, like the portrait,follows cultural conventions in defining and depicting the person. The smiling, happyperson evokes the goal of the pursuit of happiness, written into the Declaration ofIndependence. . . . The smile is a key way of achieving idealization of the other,permitting the projection of the ideal of the happy life.” 158By using many images ofsmiling people, the Peace Corps is responsible for reinforcing this idealistic view.Concerns of poverty are swept away, and the Western viewer can believe that volunteerswork in relaxed, agreeable conditions. Images 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 all relay this message.They are close shots of smiling people, where the subjects are not engaged in work orplay; they are merely smiling for the camera.As with the smile, the portrait is a common part of the organization’s visualrhetoric. Portraits capture the subject at his or her best. They also are the mosthumanizing because they give the viewer the idea that the subjects are “real” people.Portraits, such as those above, have no context or setting to complicate them. Lookingagain at the above figures, we see close portraits of native people. This kind of up-closeshot creates a connection between the viewer and the subject because there is nothing toframe the image. The same is true of volunteer images. More than half of all picturesfound in recruitment materials are volunteer portraits. These images display the