Newsweek magazine has run two controversial covers featuring that Republican cupcake,serious politician, Sarah Palin.
First they went in close and “real:”
Too close for comfort
Too much leg for comfort
…and then they went for the jugular.
Ms Palin is pissed off, declaring that the cover was “unfortunate,” “sexist” and “oh-so-expected by now.”
On her Facebook page, Palin blasted the magazine for using an old Runner’s World cover shot of her, saying “this ‘news’ magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant.”
Ah. Relevance. Well, interesting that she should bring it up.
One of the unfortunate truths that Ms Palin appears yet to grasp is that ignorance is no defence in the law. So, throwing a tantrum, weeping and gnashing her teeth, because a picture intended for one news source, pops up somewhere else, is disingenuous.
This is, of course, (and has been for some time) the digital age, where the path an image takes once published is impossible to control.
If you don’t want to see yourself in your very short shorts, a simple rule to consider, is this: don’t get photographed in them.
She claims that the fact that Naughty Uncle Newseek has run the shot, is sexist, and once again, yes, it is. But the fact that much of the media is sexist is hardly news either.
Just like every other “celebrity” who makes that particular Faustian pact, she has “stripped” for the media and in return, it is gearing up, to strip her bare, right back.
She rose to prominence because she was decorative, that is clear. This notion is universally held to be true, possibly by everyone except her. Dealing with this challenge required a smart strategy. But, (sigh) she is not as smart as she is pretty.
Or narcissistic. She believes she is bigger than all that.
She believes she can “have it all”: Undeserved opportunities, because she is pretty and willing but respect and control too.
Narcissists do believe those fantasies about themselves,
If she chooses to play “the game,” in the style of, lets say, Sharon Stone, (selling herself primarily on her attractiveness) then she will inevitably be treated like Sharon Stone, (topless in French magazines at 44.)
It’s the Meryl Streeps, Helen Mirrens and Emma Thompsons who are liberated from this particular hook. You have to have gravitas, experience and power, to say no. It’s Palin’s lack of qualification and experience, not to mention stupidity and arrogance, which made her decide that it was “worth it” to get shot in her shorts, in the first place.
On the days, when one cannot dismiss her as a circus trick, she really is a Very Bad Thing for Women.
To be shown in very short shorts on a “news” magazine? Women politicians do deserve better treatment than this. But politicelebs like her, will create fertile ground for the misogyny (not to mention a keen eye on possible circulation CPR) which fuels those kind of editorial decisions.
Each image of a “serious” 40-something woman in her underwear, each Sarah Palin in very short shorts, undermines the next 40-something woman, who dares to dream of being taken serioiusly.
She has set a new, low standard for female politicians.*
Sarah Palin, in all her ridiculousness, just makes it tougher for the next attractive female politician who comes along.
She did not ask to be elevated to the high office she was so close to reaching, but since the point that John McCain tapped her on the shoulder, she has been very much more in control of her destiny than she likes to admit.
This new chapter: the litany of complaint on Oprah’s sofa, the ex son-in-law in Playgirl naked or not, the defences of petty and stupid “small stuff” on Facebook, (of all inappropriate places for a Mommy like her to defend herself), is so depressingly “irrelevant,” (her word) that she has even ceased to be funny.
The biggest sin of all, in my opinion.
With the range of real issues facing the world, the notion of being even minutely exposed to Sarah Palinisms for the next 4 years, is a stomach-churning one.
I do wish she would go off and edit a supermarket celebrity Magazine.
I’m sure HEAT could use her.
* In Italy, of course, Palin is practically Amish in her decorum and seriousness, wrt to Female Politicos, but, that is another story.
