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Has anyone seen this strangely unsettling Lime-A-Way commercial? I caught it last night during a disappointing episode of Saturday Night Live. (Much could be written about that cougars sketch; luckily, Jezebel already did.)
A young mother is walking through the supermarket with her arm in a sling. She tells the first person who expresses concern that she fell while rollerblading; the second that she had a mountain biking accident; the third that she hurt herself while hang gliding. Then she runs into another woman with a broken arm who gives her a knowing look and says, "Hard water stains, huh?" To which the first mother ruefully shrugs and smiles.
Now, first of all, this commercial suddenly makes me very self-conscious about the state of my own shower fixtures. But does anyone else see an awkward similarity between this perky hausfrau and a battered wife, lying about the source of her injuries? I can't imagine why Lime-A-Way would want potential customers to make that mental connection (unless they're truly sick, patriarchal little puppies), but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this ad goes in the Woefully Misguided category.
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Update: Well, now I know what to think of the blog claiming Joe Wurzelbacher was life of the Saturday Night Live after-party this weekend. The poster is a hoaxster, and I got punk'd.
The blogger, called Marty Eisenstadt, claims he and the iconic plumber were "downing shots of Makers Mark" at the party following John and Cindy McCain's guest appearance this weekend and that Joe "got some ‘quality' alone time with a certain female cast member." An SNL press manager wrote to say that Eisenstadt's post was "completely untrue." Although Eisenstadt blogged that John and Cindy McCain were at the after-party, "they most certainly were not," according to the NBC e-mail, and "more importantly -- neither of my female cast members ‘hooked up' with Mr. Wurzelbacher."
As further proof of my own gullibility, I submit this alert I subsequently found on Sourcewatch.org advising that Eisenstadt doesn't exist. I'm beginning to think Wurzelbacher doesn't either.
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I don't know what to make of this McCain strategist's report of witnessing "canoodling" between Joe (who has apparently joined the McCain entourage) and a Saturday Night Live cast member at the after-party this weekend.
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Today, I received my Sarah Palin inflatable love doll in the mail. I'd heard about the "This Is Not Sarah Palin Inflatable Love Doll" a few weeks ago, and when Topco Sales marketing director Desiree Duffie offered to send me one, who was I to say no? This morning, I missed the FedEx delivery; thankfully, he left the box behind a potted plant. In my apartment, I removed the product from the packaging. From the cover, a busty brunette with an updo, wearing glasses and a blue business suit with the front falling open, stared back at me. "Cross party lines with your own inflatable running mate!" the copy read. On the back, a list of key points informed: "She makes sexism sexy." When I removed the deflated doll, I found the inflatable Palin doesn't look much like the real one. And it takes forever to inflate. But one question remained: Why is America so sexually obsessed with Sarah Palin?
From male fanatics to Alec Baldwin's come-on, an adult video spoof to Palin-inspired erotica, the ways in which the public sexualizes the Republican vice presidential candidate are never-ending. Some blame her for sexualizing herself -- her look is nothing if not sexy librarian goes to Washington -- while others blame misogyny; Feministing is conducting a "Palin Sexism Watch" and has declared the Palin love doll: "So disgusting." But is it? These days, this blog and its sister sites in the blogosphere are as obsessed with Palin as a man would have to be to order an inflatable version of her. Because of the complicated message the so-called VIPILF sends out, politics and sex -- and sexual politics -- are at the fore like never before, and for the first time in a long time, the debate isn't about male sexuality (Spitzer, Clinton, Vitter), it's about female sexuality.
You know who Sarah Palin reminds me of? Gloria Steinem, back in the day, when she was a polarizing figure who captivated the public. Steinem's rhetoric was hardcore feminist, but she was a sexual lightning rod in much the same way Palin is. Watching Palin Slick Willie her way through her appearance on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend, I couldn't help but recall Steinem's "I Was a Playboy Bunny" gonzo journalism story, in which the feminist leader-to-be went undercover as a Playboy bunny at the New York Playboy Club. Without a doubt, the agendas of Steinem and Palin couldn't be more different, but there's something about the way they walk the line when it comes to female sexuality that seems deeply similar to me. They're both as aware of their sexuality as they are dead-set on focusing on politics over sex, but how can we be surprised when Americans respond in kind and sexualize the images of those women whose sexual complexities sit center stage in American politics?
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I'm coming late to the conversation about Sarah Palin's Saturday Night Live appearance, so I'll try not to be too repetitive. My take-away was similar to Meghan's—that Alec Baldwin personified all the unpleasant things that have said about Palin, especially the over-the-top stuff, and she was tough enough to take it. And I thought the rap was funny, though maybe, as Hanna pointed out, it's a generational thing and kids today might not have found it so entertaining.
One thing I wanted to address was the whole "hotness" issue. Emily, you point out that the governor is "down with with the Palin dudes who wear ‘Proud to be voting for the hot chick' buttons," and Maureen suggests it's fair game for Palin to be mocked for her sexuality when she's used it to her advantage.
Is a candidate supposed to hide her good looks just because she's a woman? Sure, like Maureen says, if she uses it, she risks it being used against her. I think Palin can take it. I remember reading praise of Hillary for her "serious" pant suits and businesslike appearance. Look, I would never vote for Hillary, but I can't help but have respect for her after her presidential campaign. And I understand why she went for businesslike and proper. But I don't understand why that has to be the only choice for female politicians. Worrying over whether she can handle fake ogling and stressing that men are pointing out her hotness make it seem like she should tone it down. But why can't women be hot and be taken seriously at the same time? Isn't that kind of sexist in its own way? (I'm also thinking of all the time people oohed and ahhed over Condi Rice's kick-butt power boots.) It's like saying only ugly girls can be smart. And hence, smart girls are ugly. Heck, I'm jealous. I hope I look half that good when I'm 44 (and I probably won't have just given birth, either).
At any rate, I'm far less worried about the guys wearing "voting for the hot chick" button than I am about these men—and women—and their extremely not-safe-for-work T-shirts.
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SNL may be mocking us mockers, but Palin is palling around with the SNL gang. So much for her status as the Outsider. What a brilliant way to co-opt the maverick—though as Hanna points out, Palin was eagerly colluding. Check out Jane Mayer's piece, "The Insiders,"in this week's New Yorker, about how McCain picked her in the first place: Palin had been very busy schmoozing with boatloads of Washington insiders. Isn't the real story here that Palin the small-town gal isn't about to pass up any opportunity to mingle with the plugged-in political and media crowd?
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I'm with Meghan here. I also thought the skit was quite brilliant. The audience SNL was targeting is not made up of Palin voters but of people like us. They didn't demean her; they colluded with her to make fun of us and all our "I'm moving to Canada" blather. And Baldwin's about-face was perfect, too, because even when faced with the real her he couldn't think of anything respectful to say, but reverted to the other form of Palin mockery—the how-hot-is-she variety. They were deeply mocking the Palin mockers, which I thought was quite brave.
I even thought the rap was—dare I say it—great. "I say Obama. You say Ayers." Come on, that's funny. Even the moose part—a stroke of genius to parallel the gang banger with the moose hunter. But then, as my husband said, we are of a generation that considers rap satire to be a form of high art. It beat those pretentious Obama celebrity ads.
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See, Meghan and Melinda, this is why I felt like a scourge fretting over those Palin SNL sketches (actually scold would have been a better choice of words, as a Slate colleague just pointed out). You're both decoding with greater sophistication than I am. I did get that Alec Baldwin was playing his 30 Rock character. I just didn't want him to do that to our potential vice president. Yes, it was funny, and her deadpan response was, too, but not funny enough to trump the grossness for me. Meghan, that's a great point about how Baldwin forced us to think about what we say about Palin behind her back by saying it to her face. But in the end, he was still insulting her while she listened. Which left her with no dignified ground to stand on, as Alessandra Stanley pointed out in the NYT. Maybe that's all well and good for democracy, writ small at least, because it's another data point about Palin before voters go to the polls. But when I pore over the Palin tea leaves for clues about the future of women in politics, I don't really like what I see.
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Emily, unlike you, I thought the first sketch on SNL was quite…brilliant. I was going to say I liked it, but that’s not exactly true. The bit where Alec Baldwin went on (in front of SNL producer Lorne Michaels) about how Sarah Palin was not someone “we” should associate with was designed to make us uncomfortable, and that’s what I admired about it. It was digging at how political discourse in this country has become bifurcated. And it was pointing to how profoundly many of have grown isolated within our clans of like-minded people (especially in Hollywood and in the entertainment media). The cost of getting Sarah Palin to NYC to perform on SNL: a couple hundred dollars, say. Making us watch as Baldwin accidentally said to her face all the things “we” have said to our friends dissecting the debates over drinks: priceless.
And as for the moment when Baldwin crudely looks her up and down—it’s gross, to be sure, but I thought it was a self-conscious riff on his character on 30 Rock, who’s always manhandling Tina Fey (and every other female he comes in contact with)with his eyes. He was being gross in character, I’d say, and that’s what made it funny—the play off the way he is with Tina Fey, and all the odd levels that go into that: the fact that Tina Fey is a feminist-minded type, first, and the fact that Palin is a tough gal who can take it, second. Baldwin’s supposed to seem ridiculous, and by implication so is the whole culture of spectatorship, I think. Of course, SNL went on to implicate us in that culture of spectatorship, so one could continue to spin out the iterations. But I found that skit kind of gutsy on everyone’s part.
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Like W., I squint when I'm puzzlin' -- and so have whole new frown lines from trying to make sense of the McCain-Palin game plan. Last night, though, while watching Saturday Night Live, the light finally dawned: They have either a) totally given up; b) lack the common sense God gave a moose (a creature that will forget you are there if you duck behind a tree for three seconds); or c) have a vice-presidential nominee more interested in her close-up than in closing the deal with voters.
Only that last one would explain how much Palin was enjoying grooving on TV while Amy Poehler did the "Sarah Palin rap,'' to lyrics like "I'm Jeremiah Wright cuz tonight I'm the preacha, I got a bookish look and you all hot for teacha.'' For me, this shined a whole new (softer, but also dimmer) light on all her mugging and smiling while whipping crowds up with hateful distortions about Barack Obama. Because there she was, mugging and smiling while Poehler stopped just short of grabbing her crotch, Eminem style, and rapped that McCain's "smile be creepy.'' So...maybe girlfriend just likes the camera? Like you, Emily, I was squirming through the whole first skit, too -- only I was thinking oh, how demeaning for Alec Baldwin.
Remember when Al and Tipper Gore did that hot tub skit on SNL - and how clear that made it that he really wasn't going to run in ‘04? I had that same feeling watching Palin - that no one who thought they had a serious shot would be so comfy so far over the line.
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I feel like a scourge for saying so, but I'm queasy about Sarah Palin's appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Tina Fey continued her genius star turn as the governor, and the moment in which she and Palin passed each other, in their identical red suits and stacked hair-dos, was spine-tingling--the perfect update of those fabulous double-takes on The Love Boat when two washed-up former stars from the same dead TV show met up at the buffet table. And yet, for me none of this quite made up for Alec Baldwin in the first skit and then for the out-of-control unfunny disaster of the second. I cringed for Palin while Baldwin talked trash about her without looking her in the eye. It got worse when he ended with "you...are WAY HOTTER in real life," looking her up and down with an hourglass beaming out of his eyeballs. So a woman running for vice-president has to come in for face-to-face ogling by a bore of an actor on national TV? And then for gamely clapping along while Amy Poehler plays her, sort of, by charging around on stage, rapping (if it can be called that) in overdrive to unfunny lyrics, flanked by a guy dressed like a Todd Palin prop and two other guys doing who knows what? And that was before the moose even showed up.
No, I don't think this is the charming and harmless Palin equivalent of Obama Girl. Much as I wish otherwise, it still means something different for a male politician to be treated as a sex object than for a female one to be. Plus Obama is in no danger of being reduced to his sex appeal, whereas Palin may well be when the election is over. I don't mean to excuse her; as Dahlia has reminded us, she's a grown-up candidate who makes her own choices. She didn't have to sit still for all this. I also get why commentators called the whole thing a "win-win." Yep, she proved she's hip enough to do late-night, and that she's down with the Palin dudes who wear "Proud to be voting for a hot chick" buttons. Terrific.
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Torie, I also enjoyed the Saturday Night Live skit the other night but was thrown off by the word flurge to describe Hillary Clinton. I assume I'm not the only one. A piece in the Chicago Tribune reprinted a transcript from the skit with "flurge" in brackets. To me, that means they aren't exactly sure how to spell it, either. So, after coming up with a few alternate spellings and looking them up in Urbandictionary.com, here's what I came up with:
Flerg: 1.) The state of a man's penis when it is not erect.
2.) The foreskin of a man's penis.
Flurg: An unknown place, that is hard or unknown to define.
Flurge: A cross between flush and purge.
I also found a definition that drew a comparison between MILF (Mom I'd Like To F***) and FLIRGE (First Lady I'd Rather Get Elected).
Yet another definition comes directly from an alleged lesbian relationship between Huma Abedin and Clinton. FLIRG equals First Lady Is Really Gay.
While Sarah Palin is a sexy, beautiful hockey mom, Clinton is a gay, boner-shrinking First Lady. Interesting.
(Still image from NBC's Saturday Night Live season premiere, September 13 on NBC. Photo by Dana Edelson)
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I've enjoyed exactly two Saturday Night Live skits in recent years. No. 1: the inspired "bitch is the new black" Weekend Update from way back, during the primary season. No. 2: This weekend's opening sketch, with Tina Fey as an oblivious Sarah Palin (of course) and Amy Poehler as a shocked-and-appalled Hillary Clinton. Together, they tackle sexism in the media. I've never been a fan of Hillary, but for a moment there, my heart broke for her. Watch here.
This sketch just might make up for the blahness of Fey and Poehler's Baby Mama.