Former US president Donald Trump's mugshot is not only a form of entertainment or even marketing for his own election campaign, but it is also a historical artefact, says this communication studies professor from Wilfrid Laurier University.
The Fulton County Sheriff’s office released Trump’s mugshot on Aug 24, a little more than one week after a grand jury in Georgia indicted the former president and 18 associates forTrump’s photo instantly generated a significant amount of media coverage and attracted public attention. Trump’s election campaign is nowIn the mugshot, Trump wears one of his classic dark suits with a red tie and a familiar, petulant scowl, with his brow furrowed and mouth turned down.
But as a historical artefact, the Trump mugshot will be truly unique – it will represent the first time a former president had a public, photographic record of criminal charges. Long after the various trials come to conclusion, the mugshot will serve as a reminder of a particularly troubling time in American history.French police were the first to produce mugshots using a daguerreotype camera as early as the 1840s.
While a mugshot does not mean the person pictured has committed a crime, it does mean that police had reason to bring a person into custody and formally book them. In 2014, musician Justin Bieber was arrested for drag racing in Miami Beach and bore an innocent looking, boyish smile in his mugshot. Former football player OJ Simpson, who was charged with the death of his former wife and her boyfriend in 1994 – and of which he was later acquitted – offers one the most famous examples of how a mugshot can have an enduring legacy.But Time darkened Simpson’s skin tone, reflecting false, racist stereotypes about dark skin colour and the connection to crime. It later apologised for doing so.
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