Posted on 10/08/2008 7:59:51 PM PDT by markomalley
Yes, both Todd and Sarah Palin, whom most people in the U.S. and abroad had never even heard of until six weeks ago, have emerged as powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism.
Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah Palin’s performance on the national stage. During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed heartily at Palin’s digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn’t — judging by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that.
The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses. The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin’s brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don’t we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.
And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don’t think sex — I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other women with Native American ancestry — including two overpowering celebrity icons with whom I have worked.
One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is “dumb.” Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles? (The value of Ivy League degrees, like sub-prime mortgages, has certainly been plummeting. As a Yale Ph.D., I have a perfect right to my scorn.) People who can’t see how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism — the tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary.
As someone whose first seven years were spent among Italian-American immigrants (I never met an elderly person who spoke English until we moved from Endicott to rural Oxford, New York, when I was in first grade), I am very used to understanding meaning through what might seem to others to be outlandish or fractured variations on standard English. Furthermore, I have spent virtually my entire teaching career (nearly four decades) in arts colleges, where the expressiveness of highly talented students in dance, music and the visual arts takes a hundred different forms. Finally, as a lover of poetry (my last book was about that), I savor every kind of experimentation with standard English — beginning with Shakespeare, who was the greatest improviser of them all at a time when there were no grammar rules.
Many others listening to Sarah Palin at her debate went into conniptions about what they assailed as her incoherence or incompetence. But I was never in doubt about what she intended at any given moment. On the contrary, I was admiring not only her always shapely and syncopated syllables but the innate structures of her discourse — which did seem to fly by in fragments at times but are plainly ready to be filled with deeper policy knowledge, as she gains it (hopefully over the next eight years of the Obama presidencies). This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.
Even if she disappears from the scene forever after a McCain defeat, Palin will still have made an enormous and lasting contribution to feminism. As I said in my last column, Palin has made the biggest step forward in reshaping the persona of female authority since Madonna danced her dominatrix way through the shattered puritan barricades of the feminist establishment. In 1990, in a highly controversial New York Times op-ed that attacked old-guard feminist ideology, I declared that “Madonna is the future of feminism” — a prophecy that was ridiculed at the time but that turned out to be quite true. Madonna put pro-sex feminism on the international map.
But it is now 18 years later — the span of an entire generation. The instabilities and diminishments for young women raised in an increasingly shallow media environment have become all too obvious. I had grown up in a vibrant pop culture with glorious women stars of voluptuous sensuality — above all Elizabeth Taylor, sewn into that silky white slip as the vixen Manhattan call girl of “Butterfield 8.” In college, I feasted on foreign films starring sexual sophisticates like Jeanne Moreau, Anouk Aimée and Catherine Deneuve. Sex today, however, has become brittle and superficial. Except for the occasional diverting flash of Lindsay Lohan’s borrowed bosom, I see nothing whatever that is worth a second glance. Pro-sex feminism has worked itself out and, like all movements, has degenerated into clichés. And even Madonna, with her skeletal megalomania, looks like a refugee from a horror movie.
The next phase of feminism must circle back and reappropriate the ancient persona of the mother — without losing career ambition or power of assertion. Betty Friedan, who had first attacked the cult of postwar domesticity, had long warned second-wave feminists such as Gloria Steinem about the damaging exclusion of homemakers from their value system. The animus of liberal feminists toward religion must also end (I am speaking as an atheist). Feminism must reexamine all of its assumptions, including its death grip on abortion, if it wishes to survive.
The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin’s bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition — without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She’s no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she’s pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite — which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend. And by the way, I think Tina Fey’s witty impersonations of Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin’s cadences and charm, she can’t capture the energy, which is a force of nature.
no, it’s not surprising.
she was denied a tenured faculty position because she did not agree with the feminists.
she got hired at an arts college, outside of the tenure track in her field.
she made her reputation by writing books.
I read this article, and the first thing that came to mind is “Ah, Camille has been annointed as the token liberal to start making sense about Palin, just so the libs have someone to point to and go ‘see, we don’t ALL attack her’.”
Facial features of Native American? If the Left can call Malkin a racist for using street lingo, can we call Camille a racist for this remark?
Articulate. Hypocrite. No need to read further. Next thread.
Camille is a liberal, but not a nonsensical one. She does make sense from time to time, and is not agenda driven like most of the liberal media.
Dream on, Camille. Your boy B-HO will be done in exactly four weeks.
But at least you're not drinking the anti-Sarah Koolaid.
Not surprising to me. Paglia has been turning conservative for years now. She saw the light, for the most part.
So why is she still voting for Obama?
Frankly, I thought the token lib filling that role was Greta...
lol....she has a lot more turning to do. (As she states in the article she's voting for Obama, and is hoping he serves two terms).
Not too surprising, though. She’s one of the few intellectually honest liberals.
I generally find it disappointing to read Paglia. She makes sense for a moment or two and then veers off into some bizarre riff on fashion, Madonna or what have you. Her considerable writing ability masks the fact that she really isn’t much of a thinker.
The same reason so many grandparents are. They've always voted for the guy with a D after their name.
Now give me a memorable line from Sarah. I'll bet three or four come to mind immediately (hockey moms...lipstick...say it ain't so Joe....shout out...extra credit....fake Greek columns)
I'm sure some of their lines looked good on paper too, but hers are memorable because of her delivery and presence.
Slow, but sure. Ed Koch is voting for Obama, too.
Spot on, Camille.
I don’t find this suprising at all. It’s rather consistent with her earlier writings (way, way before Palin even appeared on the radar).
Considering the video FOX News showed of Madonna tonight, ranting against Palin at a concert, I would say Paglia is right on the money.
My daughter's geometry teacher is a hard core Obamanoid...and has used her position to push her political stance relentlessly.
(Not that unusual, I believe. My Freshman Calc professor believed in teaching "Marxist Calculus" -- and this was back in the 70s -- LOL)
Anyway, Monday morning, the kids had a test. She came up to my daugher's place, took her scratch paper, and wrote "She did good Friday night" -- talking about Palin's performance in the debate.
H3ll, the President of the LA Chapter of NOW (or, as Rush says, NAG) formally endorsed Sarah. Not McLame. Sarah.
So who knows???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.