Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - Posts
-
sponsorship
Meghan, that's an inspired allusion. You're totally right about the aesthetics of the Obama infomercial—and there was even the football practice scene. No wonder I, like you, was drawn in; I'm a huge Friday Night Lights fan. Did you notice, as I did, what a notable contrast in content there was, though? One central theme of the Obama ad was cohesive families doing their best for their kids. That's exactly what is so glaringly not in evidence on FNL, as Sara Mosle noted in her great piece about the show: Coach Taylor and his wife, Tami, with their high-achieving daughter, are the anomalies in Dillon, Texas. I've been struck lately by how often I've heard Obama sound the note of parental responsibility, a theme he's stuck with very consistently, and is—I think—great at pushing, not stuffily but urgently. The government is here to help in various ways, but you've got to turn off the TV set and help the kids with their homework: that's the message. (Only tonight, of course, he was hoping the tube was on.)
-
sponsorship
Just watched the Obama infomercial. The folksy veneer verged at times on seeming condescending (c.f. the knotted pine in the office, etc.), and the language was pretty plain: Obama mosty offered up boilerplate about his positions. But visually it was great. Davis Guggenheim, the director, used a lot of moody atmospheric shots intercut with footage of "average" Americans struggling to make ends meet. Guggenheim's father was Robert F. Kennedy's campaign documentarian. But surely Guggenheim had also taken a page or two out of Peter Berg's book. To me, the most striking thing about the ad was this: All the Friday Night Lights echoes. The handheld camera, the long shots from the inside of a car, swiveling forward through the passing landscape—which were that show's hallmark. And the music at times sounded like Explosions in the Sky, the band that did the soundtrack for the movie and TV version of Friday Night Lights. It makes sense: Friday Night Lights captures a particular blend of optimism and gritty realism that I think is what Obama is after. But I'm a sucker for this aesthetic; I wonder what others made of it.
-
sponsorship
This whole debate about Lafferty's piece in the Daily Beast raises a question for me: Does it matter whether Palin is a feminist or not? Isn't it possible that she could be a net benefit for feminism without being one? I, too, am bothered by Palin's politics on a number of women-related issues, from abortion to abstinence-only sex ed. But before I go to the "she's terrible for feminism" place, I think of two 9-year-old girls I know, and I try to see this from their perspective. This is the first election they're really going to remember. And what they'll remember is that Hillary Clinton very nearly was the Democratic presidential candidate and that Sarah Palin was a dynamic, funny, personable VP candidate. Hopefully, they'll come of age thinking such an accomplishment for women is, if not normal, at least possible. Hopefully, they WON'T remember this campaign as the moment they realized there's a profound double standard for women--namely, that female candidates are criticized with more vigor than male candidates.
The problem that Lafferty doesn't acknowledge, alas, is that all these issues are tied together. It has to be fair for liberal feminists to criticize Palin on the basis of her positions, as Emily points out. At the same time, though, there's plenty of latent sexism tinging the discourse. Lafferty lumps all this together, which doesn't help further the debate. No doubt Palin is smart; but what troubles a lot of voters is whether she's intellectually curious and whether she's open to debate and advice. And as Ann pointed out, deeming a woman a "brainiac" after one plane ride smacks of overcompensation.
-
sponsorship
In Rachael's battle between who is speaking more truth to power--Elaine Lafferty or Christopher Buckley--I think the real winner may be Tina Brown. Both articles by Lafferty and Buckley, which have inspired a lot of Web chatter, appeared in Brown's new Web site, the Daily Beast (named after the news outlet in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop.) Brown, of course, famously saved or ruined The New Yorker, depending on your point of view, in the early 1990s, after she created the still-successful formula for Vanity Fair. I worked at The New Yorker, briefly, during her reign and was among those who felt she was often unfairly maligned because of her sex. Rosa's insight--that pretty women are typically more successful than their less attractive counterparts but also punished more harshly when they fail--seemed to apply a lot to Brown at the time and may explain why she was eventually drawn to the subject of Diana, Princess of Wales (and is now working on a book about Hillary and Bill). In fact, many of the writers that define the current New Yorker are ones Brown hired and first brought to national prominence: among them, Lawrence Wright, Anthony Lane, John Cassidy, Malcolm Gladwell, Phillip Gourevitch, Larissa MacFarquhar, and David Remnick himself (who became her successor). One of my personal favorites of Brown's discoveries was Nancy Franklin, then a staff editor at the magazine. Previous male bosses had overlooked Franklin's considerable talents. Brown, however, saw a natural wit and born writer and promoted Franklin to critic, a post she still winningly occupies.
Brown had a keen appreciation of the sexism that surrounded her--especially the ways women were expected to work like dogs (as Brown did) while many of the men got to lounge around being "intellectuals." Upon learning I grew up in Texas, she once joked to me that she loved Texas men because unlike most of her male literary peers in New York, they were still man enough to flirt with her. In today's political vernacular, Texas men were "dudes," unintimidated by a woman who is both attractive and powerful. Brown's quip offered a brief glimpse into how sexually isolating it can be to be a fiercely intelligent woman. (I think this explains, in part, why otherwise seemingly smart women, especially of Hillary's generation, sometimes ended up with the Bills of the world: Bill was probably the first guy sexually acquisitive enough not to be put off by Hillary's own brains and star power.) I wonder if, at the Daily Beast, Brown hasn't found her natural home. She's surrounded by a younger generation of web-savvy male and female editors more used to smart, assertive women, and she always did love the outrageous, counterintuitive piece on which blogs depend. I, for one, am glad to have her back, mixing it up.
-
sponsorship
Not surprisingly, I had a different take on Elaine Lafferty's column in the Daily Beast. That's not to argue with Sarah or Emily or Ann, it's just that I was looking for something different. But before I get to that, what strikes me as interesting is the treatment that Lafferty is getting from some on the left. Didn't many on the left just hold up Christopher Buckley as a hero for his speaking "truth to power" in HIS Daily Beast column where he came out for Obama? And wasn't everyone horrified by the name-calling he got on the right? I was. So how is it different when Jezebel tells Lafferty to go perform an anatomically impossible task? Neither of our two major parties is perfect, and when prominent figures use their influence to criticize their parties and say "Hey, you're not listening to me," it should serve as a wake-up call. It should prompt debate and soul-searching that would make the party stronger.
But, as for my take own on Lafferty: I was amused that she was mock-horrified to be agreeing with Fred Barnes because I had just read Barnes' own Palin-is-smart column in the Weekly Standard. I've been torn up about Palin. My initial reaction was one of extreme enthusiasm, which quickly became tempered by a serious case of longing for Mitt Romney as veep when she bombed her big media interviews, which in turn became relief when she did so well in the debate with Joe Biden. Also, my concerns over her lack of experience did battle with my excitement that there was a strong, dynamic conservative woman putting herself out there and going for the brass ring. It worried me when conservative intellectuals started breaking ranks, but I couldn't help remember seeing all the women at a Palin rally I covered and how excited they were. And, no, they weren't all the bible-beating, evangelical, social conservatives that she's supposed to get so worked up. There was a young, kinda hippie-ish couple with three little girls in pink Palin T-shirts, middle-aged women with teenage daughters, women in business suits, and moms in track suits.
So when I see positive reaction from people who would not normally be inclined to like her, I'm grateful. And frankly, if Sarah Palin is as smart as the people who get to know her say, it's something we should all be happy about. Unless women want to have yet another skirmish over who gets to call themselves a feminist and fight over whether abortion is a litmus test, it's a positive that there are smart, powerful women on both sides of our great ideological divide, fighting for what they believe in and setting examples for the women in their parties.
-
sponsorship
I'm sure you all have seen this clip by now, of Barbara West, anchor at WFTV, Orlando, Fla., interviewing Joe Biden late last week. The whole interview is contentious but at 2:36 min she presents Biden with Karl Marx:
WEST: You may recognize this famous quote: "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs." That's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?
BIDEN: Are you joking? Is this a joke?
West goes on to ask Biden if Obama wants to turn America into a Socialist country "like Sweden."
Is it just me? Beyond the fact that we could learn a few things from Sweden (including but not limited to their unbelievably enviable relationship to family and child policies), have we lost all sense of history? This trope, pushed by Palin (if she mentions socialism one more time ...) among others, seems to be treading dangerously close to calling for a House Un-American Activities Committee. I've even had interactions with Republicans lately along the same lines. How will this country heal after the elections from these efforts to inject a 1950s-style distrust among Americans?
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?