{"id":1463,"date":"2008-09-10T07:20:35","date_gmt":"2008-09-10T07:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/10\/sarah-palin-in\/"},"modified":"2018-06-15T10:28:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T17:28:39","slug":"sarah-palin-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/10\/sarah-palin-in\/","title":{"rendered":"PIGS, LIPSTICK, DICK CHENEY, SARAH PALIN AND THE MOVIES: &#8220;BOB ROBERTS&#8221;,  &#8220;A FACE IN THE CROWD&#8221; AND WILLIE STARK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Of course by now we&#8217;ve all seen this.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/FPd4yk0x-eg&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>I wrote much of what appears below without knowing just how to begin it &#8211; and those <a href=\"http:\/\/apnews.excite.com\/article\/20080910\/D933Q07O0.html\">wacky Republicans<\/a> solved my problem.\u00a0 The response to this boilerplate Obama statement was to issue a vicious attack accusing him of sexism because of Palin&#8217;s convention speech &#8220;lipstick\/hockey mom\/pitbull&#8221; quote.\u00a0 This despite the fact that the metaphor has often been used by Republicans including Dick Cheney &#8211; to say nothing of John McCain &#8211; look here:<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/DjwVEeq7JiQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" name=\"movie\" \/><param value=\"true\" name=\"allowFullScreen\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>The McCain campaign, not only in its choice of Sarah Palin but in how they use her, is leaning on very scary\u00a0 tactics that are similar to the successful exploitation of voters illustrated by some of the most<del>\u00a0<\/del>memorable characters in American political films.\u00a0 Watch this trailer for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tim_Robbins\">Tim Robbin<\/a>s&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0103850\/\">Bob Roberts<\/a>; see if it isn&#8217;t more familiar than you wish:<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"319\" height=\"258\"><param value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/g2uWcukaSpg&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" name=\"movie\" \/><param value=\"true\" name=\"allowFullScreen\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Creepy, isn&#8217;t it?\u00a0 A demagogue making his way to the top by lying about his opponent and manipulating the alienation of the American people for his own ends.\u00a0 <em>That<\/em> could never happen in real life, right?<\/p>\n<p>Much, much earlier in film history, the beloved <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andy_Griffith\">Andy Griffith<\/a> played one of the scariest public personalities ever in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0050371\/\">A Face in the Crowd<\/a> &#8212; written by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Budd_Schulberg\">Budd Schulberg<\/a> and directed by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/On_the_Waterfront\">On the Waterfront<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/americanmasters\/database\/kazan_e.html\">Elia Kazan<\/a>.\u00a0 He&#8217;s not a politician but watch the trailer and see if it doesn&#8217;t seem familiar.\u00a0 You have to watch until the end to get the full impact.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P7igHBf7yHs\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s so depressing &#8212; and enraging &#8212; to watch this campaign peddling pseudo-folksiness to win over its public.\u00a0 It&#8217;s time for that to stop working in our country.\u00a0 Stakes are too high to permit us (or the press) to fall for the most\u00a0 approachable (and least honest) over the most excellent.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, remember <a href=\"http:\/\/www.english.uiuc.edu\/maps\/poets\/s_z\/warren\/life.htm\">Robert Penn Warren&#8217;<\/a>s remarkable novel, clearly based on Louisiana&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hueylong.com\/\">Huey Long<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0041113\/\">All the King&#8217;s Men<\/a>?\u00a0 It portrays a politician on his path to becoming a dangerous demagogue.\u00a0 Yeah, I know it&#8217;s melodramatic but does it feel at all familiar?<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"319\" height=\"258\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/XobX7GCecOY&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Clearly we should consider these archetypal characters as cautionary tales; instructive representations of our future if we allow this kind of campaigning to prevail.\u00a0 Movies are our largest export (unless video games have taken over while I wasn&#8217;t looking)\u00a0 and often reflect, if not our truths, at least our ghosts, shadows and neuroses.\u00a0 It gave us <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/11-26-01\/film-snatchers.html\">The Body Snatchers<\/a> in the 50&#8217;s, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Easy_Rider\">Easy Rider <\/a>in the 60&#8217;s and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Working_Girl\">Working Girl<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/classicfilms.suite101.com\/article.cfm\/wall_street_the_movie\">Wall Street<\/a> in the 80&#8217;s.\u00a0 It&#8217;s easy to be seductive, to manipulate language and truth; easy to pretend to be one of the people in order to win them. The vicious, craven strategies of this campaign &#8211; and Sarah Palin herself &#8211; are\u00a0 perfect examples; John McCain, whom I used to admire, has allowed, no encouraged, this shameful campaigning in his name and surrendered all the positions of principal that he once held.\u00a0 If we don&#8217;t want (another) Bob Roberts (He does remind me of GWBush) or a cynical populist pretender or a MS Wilie Stark as our government, it&#8217;s up to use to exercise vigilance and fierce commitment to fight off these transparent manipulations and to ensure that it does not happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of course by now we&#8217;ve all seen this. I wrote much of what appears below without knowing just how to begin it &#8211; and those wacky Republicans solved my problem.\u00a0 The response to this boilerplate Obama statement was to issue a vicious attack accusing him of sexism because of Palin&#8217;s convention speech &#8220;lipstick\/hockey mom\/pitbull&#8221; quote.\u00a0 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/10\/sarah-palin-in\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">PIGS, LIPSTICK, DICK CHENEY, SARAH PALIN AND THE MOVIES: &#8220;BOB ROBERTS&#8221;,  &#8220;A FACE IN THE CROWD&#8221; AND WILLIE STARK<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,6,28,7,9],"tags":[1242,1098,334,1244,1247,1243,1241,3416,1246,73,1249,1250,21,1245,99,1248],"class_list":["post-1463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-culture","category-film","category-life","category-politics","tag-all-the-kings-men","tag-andy-griffith","tag-bob-roberts","tag-budd-shulberg","tag-demagogue","tag-elia-kazan","tag-face-in-the-crowd","tag-film","tag-huey-long","tag-movies","tag-political-films","tag-political-movies","tag-politics-2","tag-robert-penn-warren","tag-sarah-palin","tag-willie-stark"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-nB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1463"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4784,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions\/4784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}