Ok, I normally leave stuff alone in Sarah Palin land because I don’t generally subscribe to knocking down other women unless they deserve it, and as far as I can tell, except for whining in public that people are somehow violating her rights by disagreeing with her, she hasn’t done anything too terribly rag-worthy.
Until now.
As you know, I have an interest in the environmental media and its various offshoots, and how environmental communication is also political communication. I, therefore, had a pretty tall interest in this show. This show, however, will help you get over any interest you might have in it, because it is, in a word, boring. BoRING.
This show is on TLC, the “Learning” Channel. TLC brings us other such educational offerings as “Obese People! Doing Things! Let’s Stare From the Comfort Of Our Living Rooms!”; “More Obese People! Doing More Stuff! Let’s Stare More!”, and “How To Have Too Many Kids and Then Abandon Them Like the Dickwad You Are” (Jon and Kate plus 8).
So my expectations weren’t high. Which is good. Here’s how it goes:
Hard Christian Rock band song and sweeping vistas for the intro.
More sweeping vistas.
Family is cute.
MORE VISTAS.
Sarah explains to us the VISTAS and her special relationship to them and how she’d rather be in THE WILD than in some stuffy old office somewhere. Enjoying all this beauty is clearly her first priority, as is evidenced by her willingness to run for national public office, appear on any national television show on a moment’s notice, and the constant clicking she does on her Blackberry throughout the show.
Cute kid says something obviously fed to her by producers.
Todd Palin grunts. Todd comes off as the sort of barely sentient, baseball-cap-donning, dead-eyed knuckle dragger who would join any mob that proffered him the opportunity to witness bloodsport. Now, I doubt Todd is ACTUALLY that, but her people should probably work on this image.
Sarah explains that ALL THESE VISTAS are resources that hard-working Alaskans can cash-in-on um exploit utilize in a utilizey sort of way, adding to America’s greatness. Clearly, we need to drill for oil in these VISTAS.
THERE ARE MORE VISTAS!!
Boy, howdy, the family’s in the kitchen. Gran is folksy. My heart warms. This is just like at my house, only with muffins and people who seem determined to prove they have not two brain cells to rub together. Yet, THEY’S POWERFUL FEMININE FAMILY VALUE BEING ADDED HERE in ALL THIS FOLKSY TOGETHERNESS….while Sarah pokes her Blackberry and checks her email.
It’s time to go a-fishing by the bears! It’s what any mother do on a normal day, really, take her daughters a-fishing near the bears with her very own reality television crew. Shucks! No mama grizzlies for the crew to capture on the wide-angle! It’s just one GREAT OUTDOORS MOMENT AFTER ANOTHER!!!
A VISTA!!! An airplane! The possibility of a crash!
Aw we learn what true family discipline is: no boys upstairs, and there are the TODDLER GATES to PROVE IT and to THWART any virile males incapable of a) just stepping over it or b) just moving it the way any other adult can. (However, the toddler gate intelligence test may be an explanation for the males in this hardy clan, all of whom seem to be living embodiments of “the odds are good, but the goods are odd.”)
SNOWSHOES!
SARAH PALIN IN SHORT SHORTS! OOooooo cheesecake for the modest Pentecostal.
MORE VISTAS.
(Did I mention the SWEEPING VISTAS?)
Next on the TLC: OBESE PEOPLE WITHOUT VISTAS!!!