Look it’ s someone else’s job to bag Tracee Hutchinson, but I suspect that her most recent article , for the Saturday Age, on the alleged discrimination against Sarah Palin, won’t get that attention it deserves from that quarter.
Hutchinson argues several things
1) that the attention paid to Palin’s personal choics, dress etc has been sexist and wouldnt be applied to men
2) that she’s being held up to a standard not applied to men, and
3) that a lot of the comedy in the Us election campaign has been unfairly focused on her
Sorry, but this is all bullshit. Let’s take the dress stuff first. Palin had been running on the idea that she was an average suburban ‘hockey mon’ who understood the struggle of middle class people – middle class being the US code word for working class, because that marxisant term cant be suggested …. spending 150 large which is four years average wages – yes despite what youve heard most of the US is poor – is not a great idea, and appears to have cost Palin about 5% in the polls.
Hutchinson and others see this as a sexist judgement. But no-one denies that a womann needs to spend more on clothes than a man to be a public figure, that a woman needs to maintain a certain public image while a man can slide into a $200 suit…but 150 grand? for eight weeks? it was not that it was extravagant it’s that it was dumb beyond dumb when youre trying to portray yourself as a woman of the people
the seond big charge was that palin was subject to satirical scrutiny beyond others…well this is simply in the nature of the beast…palin is a laughable moron…she’s running for vice president and she cant tell us what she reads, important supreme court judgements, and shes confused about what the VP does (the VP is in charge of the senate – no, sarah the VP breaks tied votes in the senate) and the first amendment – saying that it ‘protects people from attacks in the media’ (no, sarah, it protects the media and others from being restrained in their attacks) .
Does such a candidate demand ridicule? yes, because she’s ridiculous, and she’s a candidate to control a nuclear arsenal.
Thirdly, there has been a deal more comedy about Palin , simply because she’s a vastly more comic figure -the gap between the claims made about her, and her reality, the degree to which her attributes – moose hunter etc – have been spruiked by her own allies, is relevant. If Obama is less satarisible it’s because he has kept a more minimal persona, not dlving into any sort of cliched black scenario.
Nevertheless, SNL, Letterman. Leno, the Daily Show et al have done their fair share of Obama cant dance, McCain is old and Biden is foolish gags – but comedy is comedy. Whatever Palin’s gender or politics, she’s simply a character in a way that others arent and thats comedy gold.
Really, this attempt to frame the justifiable scrutiny and satirical pressure as sexism is the worst sort of pseudo feminism, and special pleading – a sort of fauxminism if you will. Palin, her conduct, her ignorance, her self-satisfied incuriosity has given plenty of material without even knowing if shes a chick or not.
Anyone arguing her case on the grounds of sexism is really special pleading, and that is not really contributing to a progressive cause. Palin’s disapproval rating is now 60% – were all thse people sexist
