Paging Joss Whedon! Your Next Archetype Is Ready!

[dr_pretentious]

Maybe you've seen it: the doctored photo with Sarah Palin's face above a bikini-clad, gun-toting body. It arrived in my email in-box forwarded down the line of provenance from--I am not making this up--my husband's mother's cousin's friend's friend who lives in Wasilla. Maybe, if the friend in Wasilla actually exists, she might have believed the doctored photo was legit. I don't know.

I actually like the photo. I like the idea of Sarah Palin. I'd like her even better if she were a fictional character. One might argue that her several public personae sort of are fictional characters, but that's not what I mean.

I mean I want her to be the heroine of a Joss Whedon movie, or maybe a Joss Whedon series on, say, HBO. One in which aliens attack the earth, or our civilization collapses in the face of climate change, or we travel some centuries forward in the Buffyverse to find that a born Slayer is serving as Governor of a state with a serious vampire problem.

In that Joss Whedon series, Palin's retrograde ideology would be a fatal flaw, something she'd have to struggle to overcome, something that would come around to bite her on the ass again and again until she'd paid painfully enough for her mistakes. And then she'd surprise us, grow in some new and weirdly inspiring direction, while keeping her entertainingly vicious sense of humor. You know how Joss Whedon loves to kill off characters and disrupt family structures--if he wrote a family with five kids, you'd know that not all of them would live to see the first season finale. We'd dread the fateful episode, we'd have to pass around the tissues as the credits rolled, and we'd root for Sarah Barracuda as she tried to pick up the pieces and give those space aliens/vampires/mutant moose what for.

I'm a big fan of the Chicks Kicking Ass Genre. Before I saw the abysmal John Carpenter film Ghosts of Mars, one of my mottoes was that I'd buy a ticket to any movie in which the women had weapons. The doctored Palin photo, captioned correctly and with the right director's name under it, would certainly have lured me out to the local cineplex. Alas, the work in Whedon's oeuvre that Palin's career most resembles would have to be the "Jaynestown" episode of Firefly. Anybody want to sing a few choruses of "The Hero of Canton" with me?

Sarah Palin's most telling act as Mayor of Wasilla was firing the town librarian for refusing to censor books. In Sarah Palin's world--the one she'd write and direct and star in--we wouldn't be able to find the works of Joss Whedon in a library, or perhaps anywhere else.

Comments

[leapfaith.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on, Dr Pretentious, next you're going to tell us that her fanaticism means you won't be voting for her in November! I mean, she's not only pretty, she's eloquent while she talks trash about her opponents. See, personally, my biggest fear is that America will decide that she and McCain are just too cute, and have too much charisma, and must win. And then McCain will die, and life will imitate art, in this case, the TV show Commander in Chief. And as much as I love Geena Davis, its not a show I want to live through with a quirky-yet-likable zealot in charge. And somehow I know that, being a hetero, liberal male, when I enter the booth, I'll remember how likable she is, and my hand will be irresistibly drawn to... the lever for Obama.

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

Maybe Geena David would have been a better qualified VP pick? Maybe even more qualified.

[purpledice.livejournal.com]

Oh, He robbed from the rich
and he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
and he gave him what for
Our love for him now
ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
the man they call Jayne

"I was wrong...this is what going crazy must feel like..."

XD

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Apparently the book-banning creationist is beating out both presidential candidates in the opinion polls this week. This is definitely what going crazy feels like.

[puckmls.livejournal.com]

(smile) ... I loved reading your post, for many reasons, not the least of which was its well-reasoned and perceptive political content. Keep on writing!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I don't think I could stop writing if I tried.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Yes and no about the librarian. The town did rally around her and threaten a recall campaign against Palin after the firing, until Palin backed down and reinstated her, but the thing I really care about is that Palin did fire her. There wasn't a long, dark night of the soul in which Palin wondered whether to fire the librarian and decided against it, or a power struggle within the town's governing structures in which Palin tried get the person the authority to fire the librarian to do it and failed--Palin dismissed her, which she had the authority to do. And then, after a substantial period of time, to save her own political career, Palin changed her mind.

I saw CNN's interview with the brother-in-law Palin tried to get fired. When I first heard about that conflict of interest, I assumed the worst about Palin, but the brother-in-law freely admits to having tazed his stepson with his police-issued tazer, and to having illegally shot a moose when he was a wildlife officer. He denies the various other things Palin accused him of, but the ones he admits to on national television sound to me like good reasons to dismiss a state trooper, even to the point of calling his supervisor twenty times to press the matter. Nobody who thinks it's a good idea to taze a 10-year-old and then justifies it by saying, "The kid asked me what it would feel like," ought to be an officer of the law.

You're right, Palin's no Zoe, but I think of what Whedon did with Faith over the years. Even Palin could be made heroic, with the right plot arc.

But did she eat the moose?

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

According to one article I read (in Time, which I tend to think of as a fairly conservative magazine), there is a great deal of controversy within Wasilla about whether Gov. Palin ate any of the moose that her brother-in-law shot. Apparently, everyone knew he shot that moose, and he divided it up and gave the meat to family members, including the Palin family, all of whom supposedly knew it was poached. What happened then isn't clear. But if it can be shown that she ate that moose, that certainly demonstrates hypocrisy. Though a hypocrisy that might go over the heads of some swing voters; I'm not sure.

Re: But did she eat the moose?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

If she believed in the rule of law, the thing to do would have been to decline the offer of the moose in the first place. But once her family accepted the moose, better to eat it than to throw it out. Letting it go to waste wouldn't bring it back to life, after all. The version of this question I'd wonder more about is, which member of her household accepted the moose from the brother-in-law. There would be a big difference between her personally accepting poached game and, say, one of her kids accepting it.

My Adirondack heritage is recent enough that, although I personally have never shot an animal or eaten a moose, I don't object in principle to hunting for legal game with applicable licenses, even if the game is charismatic megafauna, as long as the creature in question is killed quickly and humanely, and gets eaten. If either of the guys on the ticket I favor wanted to learn to field dress a moose, I would have no objection.

Poaching, however, and working to weaken wildlife protections, are not cool.

[travelingtim.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think that photo is doctored.... I have seen it around and if you look closely, that face seems to fit, that is the body of someone who has had kids, and frankly considering how much of a hunting nut she is the who posed image is believable. Some sort of hunting and pool party setting, everyone there has a gun and is in a swimsuit, and I think that is one of her kids behind her.

[travelingtim.livejournal.com]

Nope, I was wrong
http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/palin.asp

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I thought it was plausible, too, the first time I saw it. The body's in the kind of shape you might imagine for a middle-aged mother who has been athletic all her life and makes a priority of her appearance. In Alaska, a vacation that involves both swimming and shooting is plausible. The stars-and-stripes bikini is silly, but bikinis are inherently silly garments. And Palin does have a sense of humor, even about herself, so the idea that she might put herself in a pose like that while goofing around with her family is believable.

The person who sent it down the chain of email forwards that landed it in my box, though, intended it to push all my east coast liberal elite geek girl buttons, to remind me of the cheerleaders I didn't like and the bikini-clad models I resent, as well as the guns I think ought to be regulated. And I have to say, as much as the photo has amused me, the intent behind it is not cool.

[siobhra.livejournal.com]

She is a long time gun person who was raised around guns. The picture shows someone with their finger in the trigger housing. I see parents scolding their children for putting their fingers on the trigger of their toy guns until they are ready to shoot. My six year old grandson said to me "she is not safe with guns" as soon as he saw the picture.
And she asked the Librarian three times "If I ask you to censor the books would you do so?" Then she threatened to fire her. The towns people rallied behind the Librarian. Palin later claimed to be "only testing her loyalty".
Which to me seems like a lame reason or a fast excuse.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I love that icon, Sheev!

Hm. I'll have to check that out. The version of the story that I've read is that Palin actually fired the librarian and then reinstated her days (or was it weeks?) later. Intriguing.

The claim of a loyalty test does sound pretty dubious. Why does it matter whether the town librarian is personally loyal to the mayor?

Anyone in public service whose first loyalty is to their boss rather than to the public shouldn't be in public service. If Palin really did care that much about where the librarian's loyalty lay, to the point of thinking head games and loyalty tests were appropriate when she was the mayor of a town of, at the time, about 5,000 people, that would suggest some major paranoia on her part.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thank you for the gun detail. I wouldn't have known to look for that.

Your grandson is probably safer with guns than I am.

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

I think I would like her better as a fictional character as well. Unfortunately I am afraid there will be people taken in by a pretty face...even when attached to a destructive right wing fanatic. But the ideas of what Joss might do to her are wonderful.

PS Sorry for not proofreading the previous comment.

Thanks for putting it in words

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

I agree with a lot of what Warning_DCA says, but thanks all the same for putting into words something I've been trying to formulate since Friday, when a male coworker and I explained to a female coworker that, yes, Sarah Palin is hot, and her mannerisms, her way of speaking are the hottest thing about her (once you get past what she's actually saying).

Interestingly, the surveys I've seen so far find that she is viewed much more positively by men than by women.

Re: Thanks for putting it in words

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Women stand to lose a lot more than men do, considering her positions on the issues that most directly affect women. Not that I think a Palin administration would be a great thing for American men, either.

Re: Thanks for putting it in words

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't think it's about the issues so much as the personalities. Men are a lot more excited than women about the prospect of a hot chick who can shoot a rifle and skin a moose and still have time to raise a family of 5. Women may be more likely to look at her with regard to the issues.

And I think she may be more appealing as an idealized other than she is as an idealized self. That is, I think men would want to be _with_ her more than women want to be her. Though recent polls suggest she may be getting some sympathy over the media feeding frenzy about her pregnant daughter, which helps her standing among women.

I'm hoping that people will get a clearer image of her as the election approaches, and that her reversals and outright fabrications may cause a fall from grace--polls suggest she is currently more popular than either McCain or Obama, but I'm not sure how much public attention her flip-flop on the Bridge to Nowhere has gotten.

Re: Thanks for putting it in words

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Interesting point about the idealized other versus the idealized self. The moms I've talked to about her have real misgivings about the way Palin knew her daughter was pregnant, knew her daughter was going to go forward with the pregnancy and it would be impossible to hide it for much longer, and yet chose to take McCain's offer, knowing it would put make her kid, as one journalist put it, "tabloid roadkill." The GOP is making very cynical use of the poor girl, and I suspect, if it's true that McCain knew about the pregnancy before announcing his VP pick, that he personally is making cynical use of her.

Imagine being 17, being unexpectedly pregnant, and suddenly having everyone in the world know about it. Imagine knowing that Vladimir Putin has been briefed on the political implications of your pregnancy, and that he has some sort of opinion about it. Odds are that getting knocked up by her high school boyfriend will still, fifty years from now, be the most publicly memorable thing about Bristol Palin.

Now, what kind of mother puts her daughter in that position? I can imagine being pissed off at my kid for doing something I'd raised him not to do, but not so pissed off about it that I'd be willing to humiliate him permanently on the international stage, even to further my own career.

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, what we need is a transgendered, lesbian black & hispanic woman as president!
Enough with the old white boy network!!

Still, fake as it is, the picture did make me chuckle. :)

-Tom

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

In terms of specifically how Joss Wheedon would treat her, one thing that didn't come up is how Wheedon would handle her "tough-guy" image.

I heard an interview a while back with a guy who'd written a book called "Deep Survival," about people who survive situations where the odds are stacked against them, and the really macho types don't do nearly as well as people who are more flexible. In fact, I think he said the people who do best are usually children.

And I think Wheedon's heroines reflect this--the ones who get the big power tend to start out as airheads (Buffy), nerds (Willow), or mistreated waifs (River). The ones who are too full of machismo, or who, um, 'cling to guns and religion' tend not to do so well. Think of the tough-guy jock who's always beating up on Xander and Willow, but as soon as Xander stands up to him, admits he's gay.

I think the fact that firing a gun and skinning a moose are so front-and-center on her personality--well, that kind of suggests she'd get some kind of what-for later, though not necessarily as much as if she were a guy. Her path to heroism, if she has one, would likely resemble that of Cordelia or Wesley.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I've just requested Deep Survival from my library. Thanks for the tip.

The gay football player character turned out okay, if I remember correctly. Coming out to Xander did him a world of good.