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Like any American Liberal Arts student living in Canada, I love making fun of Sarah Palin. And you already know that we talk about Sarah Palin on this site a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Her accidental feminism, her daughter’s abstinence tours, apologies from her daughter’s ex-boyfriend, boobs, and oil spills and so much more.
Make no mistake — I’m terrified of Sarah Palin and her merry band of Tea Partiers, but laughing at her and them is the only way I know how to deal with the gripping fear that she and her brand of showtune politics are here to stay.
This is why I do not want the “mainstream media,” that she so regularly rails against, to mock her in any blatantly biased or immature way. Any time that a credible news source razzes Sarah Palin, I feel like she grows stronger — like some kind of mutant plant that absorbs “yellow journalism.” [Ed. Note: "Feed me, Seymour." That's all I've got to say.]
Just look at some tweets from Palin last week on this very subject:
Wow,media goofballs rearing heads this wk,big time!Wonder what’s up?Taking the cake:ink re:Bristol=a diva? Silly;obviously have nvr met her
When yellow journalism gets ratcheted up for a period of time over an individual or an issue it makes u wonder what’s up? What’s the threat?
Wise words.
But, with all of that said, I’m not sure what to think of Vanity Fair’s piece on Palin.
Vanity Fair is not a newspaper, and their articles have always been more opinion than fact. Their editor-in-chief (a Canadian!) has made it repeatedly clear that he is extremely anti-Republican in general and anti-Bush in particular. However, the tone of the Vanity Fair article is not quite so clear-cut. At the outset, it seems that the writer praises Palin, showing off her natural maternal graces privately, but then only a couple of paragraphs later, the journalist suggests that the Palin children are treated like props at these big events:
Behind the curtain, Piper plays with other children, oblivious to the speech. She runs in circles, plays hide-and-seek, poses for snapshots, and generally acts as if she were in another world—until she gets the signal to do her job: march to the podium, pick up Palin’s speech, and allow Palin to make a public display of maternal affection.
On cue, Piper parts the curtain. As the child appears, a loud and doting “Awww” melts through the crowd.
Earlier, there is a subtle and somewhat snarky reference to a woman who takes care of the Palin children while Sarah is speaking whom the writer guesses is “the nanny” (rather than the babysitter) — a nanny being a somewhat elite symbol of wealth and detached motherhood for the “Just Folks” lady from Alaska. And, without injecting too much of his own opinion, the writer just seems to present the following line about Palin’s thoughts on the Obama Administration and its “elitism”:
“They talk down to us. Especially here in the heartland. Oh, man. They think that, if we were just smart enough, we’d be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell ’em, and I do tell ’em, Oh, we’re plenty smart, oh yeah—we know what’s goin’ on. And we don’t like what’s goin’ on. And we’re not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.”
But when the writer goes to recap Palin’s two-year political limelight legacy, the insinuation is that Palin’s admirers may be fooled into thinking she’s “just like them,” yet her skeptics’ concerns are not so easily assuaged — and that Palin’s own group of loyal friends is diminishing rapidly.
The writer then talks about following the Palin Caravan around for a number of speeches on the road, and the article is interesting — but that indecipherable and constantly shifting tone is troubling. It’s not that we must all love or hate Sarah Palin, but rather that it seems as though the writer is apologizing for having found sympathy in a woman he went in wanting to dislike. It’s not about hating Sarah Palin as a person — I don’t know her (and I don’t want to) — it’s about hating someone’s politics if they are so unqualified to hold political office, and yet at the same time are building up so powerful an army of followers and “believers.”
Palin is turning her campaign run into a quasi-religious cult, and so it’s hardly a surprise that the Vanity Fair writer felt himself being uncomfortably converted. But that’s precisely the problem — with all of her winking charm, it’s easy for Palin to make people feel that what she is doing or saying is far less dangerous than it actually is.
What’s your take? Did you like the article? Did you feel it was fair to Palin, uneven in tone? Did it mock her? Did you even care to read it?
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I love this unqualified bullshit they hang on her,she was a Governor of our largest state. We have a President that campaigned in all 57 states,and was a community organizer. Give me drugs,lots of hard heavy drugs!
This feels petty, but all of her little catchphrases (yellow journalism, mamma grizzly, what have you) irk me substantially.
what the hell does “yellow journalism” mean?
Yellow journalism is an old term used to describe newspapers/journalists who were not exactly fair and unbiased. These types of publications were more based on sensationalism.
Think Weekly World News or The National Enquirer, although the Enquirer seems to have cleaned up its act somewhat as far as printing the truth.
So…she’s talking about Fox News?
hehe
The Huffington post ran this article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/02/vanity-fairs-sarah-palin-_n_703412.html) right after the Vanity Fair article came out. Apparently, the author of the VF article started off writing it as a Palin fan, and through his research became to dislike her more and more. It’s an interesting accompaniment.
[...] please do not attempt to enter politics if you are a flesh and blood female. Female robots only. Sarah Palin= robot. Christine O’Donnell= crazy [...]