If you haven’t already heard, Sarah Palin is the current cover girl of Newsweek. Fair enough–she has a new book out. But the magazine chose to use a photo originally taken for an August 2009 article in Runners World about health and fitness. Runner’s World claims the picture was provided to Newsweek without Runners World’s “knowledge or permission” by the photographer’s stock agency. There has already been a good deal of commentary, some glee, and even speculation it was intended to rally conservative support for 2012. But for once, I agree with the former governor. Her statement on mirrors my reaction:
The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner’s World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness — a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention — even if out of context.
I am extremely disappointed in Newsweek for pulling a fraternity-prank-like stunt. Yes, I strongly disagree with Palin’s political views about almost everything, but that does not make their decision acceptable. Choosing an out-of-context image is not only dubious, but a manipulative move, unworthy of the magazine. Misrepresentation may indeed sell well, but it comes at the cost of integrity.
In the broader context, I am sick of this sexist nonsense. How are we to encourage more women to consider a career in politics when the media casts every female as a ‘pin-up’ or ‘bitch’ with no middle ground? As I’ve written in the past, while candidates should never be chosen based on a number of X chromosomes, it would benefit everyone if women became more involved in the decision-making process given we represent about 50% of the population. The way Clinton and Palin were treated in 2008 made Washington seem like a boys club. I often wondered how many girls might be completely turned off to politics by watching the unrelenting onslaught of ogling, sexy photo-shopping, and worse that ensued from across the aisle. And so, with many miles to go toward achieving an equal voice in America and around the world, Newsweek’s latest faux pas sets us back.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Hmmmm, I’m getting an error message in trying to access the links in your last sentence.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Completely agree.Newsweek shouldn’t try to be the Jon Stewart show. It wasn’t smart of the magazine.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Ugh. Who reads Newsweek anyway unless they’re in the waiting room at the dentist’s office? What really bugs me is that this feeds into Palin’s persecution complex. When someone in the media does something this stupid, it just gives her more ammunition to claim that all criticism of her is sexist.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Thanks Anna. All links are working now.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Is the problem that you can see her legs? Would you suggest a burkha? Are female athletes exposing too much? Should beach volleyball be banned? I think people’s reactions to images says more about themselves than the picture itself.
She stood there and obviously posed for the picture within a deliberately prepared scene. She knew what kind of picture was being taken.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:08 am
The controversy Palin has kicked up about the cover will move more people toward buying her book. In essence, she’s using her own flesh shots to line her own pockets.
Is it so wrong that Newsweek does the same? Newsweeks job is to sell magazines. This cover will make people pick the magazine up.
Both are benefiting.
In a larger sense, marketers and salesmen have always used flesh, especially female flesh, to sell their goods. Sarah should have foreseen this when she decided to go leggy for the health magazine. She can’t blame anyone but herself.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Palin herself has played up sexism. Who winks like that during a Vice Presidential debate, seriously? Why not rally behind some strong women who aren’t doing things to set feminism back 30 years? I’d rather just let Palin disappear into obscurity.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Here is some hard science for you:
“new scientific research indicates that women should wear clothes that bare 40 per cent of their flesh to maximise their chances of attracting men”
“The findings were based on work by four female researchers”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6586031/Women-should-bare-40-per-cent-of-their-bodies-to-attract-men.html
November 18th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Racism is getting a good squashing this term; those that still scrutinize by color are getting more and more desperate, and it shows.FOX news is a good example of lunacy, and never at a higher level, EVER in history. Still think it’s a coincidence?
November 18th, 2009 at 11:32 am
I’ll agree that the Newsweek cover is over the top. But defending Sarah Palin isn’t feminist. I know Bill Kristol would like you to think so. (She’s like a feminine, not a feminist, Nixon.)
Sarah Palin is the reductio ad absurdum of Republican anti-intellectual populism. If you read this piece it’s not hard to see Sarah Palin as the next in line in the Reagan-Quayle-Bush-Jr. lineage:
http://www.kzoo.edu/polisci/dlipson/105/shogan.pdf
The way this works is, you dumb down the candidate to make them “authentic” for the base, and then the party’s most regressive policy architects dictate policy:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/15/the-palin-project/
It’s a twofer.
Surely, this is a savage, cynical, anti-democratic, incompetence-riddled way of governing. And it has everything to do with the reason why Chris had to write *The Republican War on Science*.
It’s not just a matter of disagreeing with her “political views.” It’s more than that.
I don’t think it’s a shock that Newsweek did this. The shock is how low a quality candidate she is, and how the Republican base just goes head over heels for her to the point of self parody.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I cancelled my subscription to Time and Newsweek about a decade ago. For me they are pretty much irrelevant now. The Economist is about the only magazine I regularly read.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:40 am
@Somite – you obviously missed the point by a wide margin. Are you smart enough to understand that she never would have taken that picture had she known it would end up on the cover of Newsweek? That photo was taken for Runnder’s World, and appropriate for that magazine, not for Newsweek. It was a deliberate smear by Newsweek and clearly intended to marginalize her.
@Blogger – so in your opinion, she is to blame for Newsweek using a photo that was clearly intended for another purpose in order to smear her? Really? Is she also responsible somehow for David Letterman cracking jokes about her teenaged girls? Whatever.
The rampant sexism in politics will never be minimized until we start holding the news media to the same standards for reporting on women as men. The misogynistic portrayals of both Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton during the last election cycle show clearly that sexism is alive and well in politics, especially at the national level. I even saw an article about Justice Sotomayor touting the color of her fingernails. Ridiculous!
Now that there is a person of color in the White House, I think we can be well comforted that the racist element in this country has been properly marginalized, but where is the outrage (especially on the left) over the continuing mistreatment of women by the press?
November 18th, 2009 at 11:49 am
“She stood there and obviously posed for the picture within a deliberately prepared scene. She knew what kind of picture was being taken.”
But she also knew that the picture was being taken for the typical light-weight profile in a running magazine, where such dress is appropriate. She could not be held to have consented (morally, that is, not legally) to its use in any other context, such as for a profile in a straight news or political magazine, where such dress is not appropriate.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:50 am
The misogynistic portrayals of both Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton during the last election cycle show clearly that sexism is alive and well in politics, especially at the national level.
The two don’t even belong in the same sentence together.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:58 am
“she is to blame for Newsweek using a photo that was clearly intended for another purpose ”
She should have foreseen that that innocent use could be put to not so innocent uses. If there was no picture, there would be no controversy.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
So she can pose demurely for Runner’s world but not Newsweek? Context based flesh exposure?
Please..
November 18th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
This whole thing is just silly. We see photos of our president shirtless and in shorts without a hint of this faux controversy. It’s not like this is the only way Sarah Palin is portrayed. As much as I disagree with the governess of Alaska I have never doubted she is a complex and subtle woman with many aspects, this is a photo of one. It doesn’t make me think more or less of her. Both Sarah Palin and SK should learn that if they cry wolf like this one day the wolves will be at the dooor and when they cry out we will not come.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I find myself agreeing with arguments on both sides of this discussion. For example, it’s correct to observe that it was unfair in some manner for the stock photo agency to sell the rights to the photo to Newsweek when Ms. Palin had posed for the photo in the expectation that it was for the cover of Runners World. On the other hand, she surely signed a contract granting the rights of the agency to do so, and was surely paid for it. So, who’s in the wrong here? The photo agency is legally in the right, but ethically? Tricky problem here.
Then there’s the question of whether Ms. Palin has exploited her good looks for political advantage. If she has, then there’s a “live by the sword, die by the sword” element to consider. But has she? I compare her behavior during the campaign with that of Ms. Clinton and I definitely see a big behavioral difference. Ms. Palin played the “cutsie” card on occasion. Ms. Clinton was never cute in her behavior. She was a serious politician at all times. Ultimately, this is a purely subjective judgement. I believe that Ms. Palin did indeed exploit her good looks, but only occasionally.
We should also remember that male candidates have exploited their good looks as well. This is not a one-sided issue.
Obscuring the issue is the response of the body politic. There were plenty of people who commented favorably on Ms. Palin’s good looks, and plenty of people who disparaged Ms. Clinton’s appearance. Similarly, commentary on Mr. Obama’s looks was common.
So is it sexism? I’m not as willing to leap to that conclusion as some of our commentators. Presidential elections are so intense that people pounce on the tiniest details. Consider some of the issues that played a role in last year’s election: Mr. Obama’s birth certificate, his failure to wear a flag lapel pin, his supposed gaffe regarding people resorting to guns, his association with a supposedly anti-American church, his association with an ex-radical, etc. On Mr. McCain’s side, there were occasions when a big deal was made of trivial misstatements on his part, suggestions that he was approaching senility because he sometimes paused in the middle of a statement, and a lot of nastiness about his wife’s behavior — as if that were relevant.
So the real problem here may not be sexism in particular but a general tendency to accentuate every possible angle of attack. If we examine the last six months, now that the passions of the election cycle have cooled, I think it’s fairly obvious that sexism has not been demonstrated against Ms. Clinton in her role as Secretary of State.
This is all very complicated and I don’t think it’s clear that sexism is or is not a serious factor at work here.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I agree. Poor choice on Newsweek’s part.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Some people spell “door” as “dooor”…..it’s latin……
November 18th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I agree that this was sleazy on Newsweek’s part.
But given your consistently misleading portrayals of the New Atheists for the last two or three years, who are you to talk about sleazy tactics?
November 18th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Ha, I doubt this wasn’t purposeful, on either parties side. The issue isn’t feminism, it’s racism, and the extent to which racist parties are flighting to in an effort to secure a ‘white’ person back into the house in 2012. Obvious Campaigning Is Obvious.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Did anybody else notice Sarah’s casual disrespect for the American flag, just draped over a chair, and her leaning on it?
Crucify her!
November 18th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
@Paul: Yes I believe the symbolism is: “Sex Will SELL Americans Into Submission”
November 18th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Erassimo,
I mostly agree with your assessment that the situation is not simple. Palin has played to her looks, done the cute wink thing, etc., so that’s something worth bringing up in the media—but preferably, in a somewhat more abstract and evaluative way, rather than putting her bare legs in a contrapostto pose on the cover.
It’s a bit of cheesecake, and a bit of a portrayal of her as a fluffball. She is an airhead, but the cover photo shouldn’t prejudge that issue. (It would be very different to use the picture in an article, inside, among other pictures in various contexts, and with a reasonable caption.)
It might be an honest mistake on Newsweek’s part, but seriously, it’s Newsweek. If they’re not thinking about these issues, and noticing an appearance of prejudging things, they’re negligent and deserve criticism.
BTW, I’d object similarly to pictures of somebody like Reagan doing something like chopping wood on his ranch, if the picture is on the cover with no caption. (Remember that? All the photo ops with him being apparently vigorous and ruggedly cowboyish, despite his age, in the context of age concerns at time? And then he apparently did develop Alzheimers to some extent, while still in office, despite the reassuring photos.)
You shouldn’t pander to handlers’ image management, or do the opposite, and you should always be aware of those issues if you’re responsible for a cover photo millions will see.
Of course that doesn’t sell.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Sheril, thanks for fixing the links. I’m with you in that I disagree strongly with Sarah Palin’s politics but using that photo for that particular article was insulting.
The cover article is about Sarah Palin’s general effect on national politics, not Sarah Palin as a runner or Sarah Palin’s use of her looks. It is ostensibly about Sarah Palin as a political figure, a political force to be reckoned with, but you’d never guess that from looking at the photo.
When you see that cover photo, do you think, “This is someone who is potentially a presidential candidate.” No. Did Newsweek have other photos available where Palin was dressed in her roles as governor and vice presidential candidate? Of course it did. But Newsweek chose a cheesecake photo instead to illustrate an article about a politician’s effect on national politics.
Remember the furor over the photo of Obama in Kenyan garb that surfaced during the campaign? Would using that as a cover photo have been appropriate for an article about Obama’s impact on American politics? Other commenters have mentioned that Obama has been photographed shirtless. Would a beach photo of Obama be appropriate as a cover photo for an article about Obama’s effect on politics? Of course not. It would be immediately decried as disrespectful if the accompanying article was about national politics and not, say, about the Obamas vacationing in Hawaii.
It’s all about the context. They wrote an article about Palin as a national political actor who has had a serious impact on the Republican party, and who galvanizes Democrats to work against her. She should have been portrayed as a politician.
And yes: this does send a message to girls.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Two women actually were in charge of the cover art for this issue of Newsweek. Am I missing the part where this is sexism? Sexism about women by women? What a strange world we live in….
November 18th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
bilbo,
Women can pander to sexism for money, and some do it often. For a living, even.
I have a friend who’s a newsbunny… um, I mean, an on-air TV reporter. She is under no illusions that her extreme good looks weren’t very important, and more important than for the men at the station, but she took the job anyhow.
Sex sells, and a lot of people sell it. I thought everybody knew that.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
re bilbo’s comment at #27 (unless the comment numbering jumps around yet again),
I just saw the post from Paul W. @#28 (agreed, Paul W.) and to add to that I would speculate that given that most mainstream media people are not Sarah Palin-style evangelical conservatives, there may be a strong temptation to make her look like a lightweight who is unpresidential.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I think the point is that she did a photo shoot for runner’s world showing her in running clothes, then Newsweek chose to use that on their cover in a deceptive manner, as if she posed that way for Newsweek, or as if she normally dressed like that in the office, or had dressed that way intentionally to show off her gams for some other reason. There’s nothing wrong with the picture (except as Paul W. points out, her apparent disregard for the flag), and it would be one thing if it showed up in a comedy sketch or a random weblog, but for a major news magazine to choose that photo for its cover is really pretty poor journalism. Will it sell magazines? I suppose. Does that make it right? What if instead it was an irresponsible headline about the world ending in 2012? Would that sell magazines? Would that be acceptable journalistic ethics? I think not.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
My long-standing judgement of this book (Newsweek) is completely consonant with the wide-spread annoyance at this cover.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I would speculate that given that most mainstream media people are not Sarah Palin-style evangelical conservatives, there may be a strong temptation to make her look like a lightweight who is unpresidential.
On the other hand, it may be that she indeed *is* a lightweight who is unpresidential. I mean, what’s the argument that she isn’t?
November 18th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
@Paul W. – The right are notoriously inconsistent on the flag. If you burn it as an act of solemn protest, that should be crime. If you use it in advertising, toss it over a chair and lean on it, plaster it on t-shirts, that’s just being patriotic, even if it’s against the law.
Remember the whole Janet Jackson thing on the Super Bowl that god a lot of conservatives upset? I remember watching it thinking: “was her breast bare?” but couldn’t be sure and wouldn’t have seen anything without a TiVo. What upset me was Kid Rock in the same halftime show wearing an American flag with a hole cut in it as a poncho, then taking it off and tossing it offstage. Where was the conservative outrage at this clear act of disrespect for the flag? I don’t think the flag is holy or anything, but I sure expected someone on the right to talk about this. Apparently they were all too busy TiVo-ing Janet Jackson’s breasts to notice the 3 minutes of flag desecration.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Jon at #31,
Actually I think she’s a narcissist and a pathological liar with a great deal of charisma who has millions of fervent supporters who see her as their standard-bearer and who will work tirelessly to get her in office.
But then, plenty of male politicians have had those qualities as well, and some of them have gone on to become president.
So I don’t see her as a political lightweight. I see her as a galvanizing political figure. She galvanizes me to work against her, but I know plenty of people in the conservative area I live in, who would love nothing more than to see her in the White House, because they feel a connection with her: they feel she represents them.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Okay, now it’s Jon at #32 . . . . I think I’m going to quit attempting to reference posts by exact number, and instead borrow from my husband’s sense of reckoning clock time. The above comment of mine, around #34-ish, was in response to Jon’s post at #32-ish.
And now around here it’s noon-ish, so I believe I’ll have some lunch.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Did you check with Mooney? Because I think it’s called “framing.”
exhibit A: http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2008/08/two_images_of_atheism_hate_ver.php
November 18th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
It’s A PUN!!!
Sarah’s book, her tour and everything else (including this manufactured controversy) is her gearing up for a (likely) presidential run in 2012. Therefore the folks at Newsweek were making a visual pun by showing her in running gear!
Har-de-har-har (slaps knee)
It’s not about sex. If Newsweek wanted to use a sexist image of her in little clothing, why not use an old photo of her in one of her beauty pageants?
I’m more surprised that she didn’t insist on an exclusivity clause in the contract she signed with Runners World. If she’s so concerned about how she is portrayed in the media then it was a HUGE oversight on her and her lawyers’ part to overlook that.
Maybe she wanted a controversy, nothing like a good controversy right when your book hits shelves, lots of free press there.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Excuse me Madam, but there is nothing wrong with highlighting Palin’s love of running and raising awareness of the healthy activity among the public. It’s just that it should have been on a sports magazine.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Sven,
Yeah, that was a classic. I especially like the way that Nisbet hatefully chose the worst possible picture of P.Z. that he could find, hatefully accepted apologists’ the frame of him as a hater—carefully avoiding acknowledgement of who and what PZ was actually protesting and why—and emphasized it with the most hatefully-chosen pull quotes…
Yep, those New Atheists are hateful and polarizing, all right. Not like the sweetness-and-light accommodationist framers.
Framing in action.
Oh yeah: Overton Windows. Won’t someone please think of the Overton Windows?
November 18th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Too many people assume that appreciating women for their beauty and appreciating them as people are mutually exclusive, but I strongly disagree. For one, a woman’s beauty is part of who she is as a person: the two cannot be so easily untangled. Two, women can be valued for their minds and bodies at the same time. Unfortunately, though, I find Sarah Palin’s mind to be of little value!
November 18th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Sven,
I posted a response to your comment, but apparently the framing vs. opinion-window-that-shall-not-be-named censorship filter ate it.
Harrumph.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
OOPS, MY BAD! There it is.
(How long do you have to wait to see if something actually disappeared, if it doesn’t show up, or say it’s in moderation? I thought five minutes would do it, sorry.)
November 18th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Magistramorous,
Too many people assume that appreciating women for their beauty and appreciating them as people are mutually exclusive, but I strongly disagree.
Um… do you think you’re disagreeing with anyone here when you say that?
We are talking about a picture of a politician on the cover of Newsweek.
November 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
So I don’t see her as a political lightweight. I see her as a galvanizing political figure.
She’s a galvanizing figure who is a lightweight. As soon as you put her in a puff interview, let alone one with substance, her credibility collapses with everyone except the base. You have to really mess up badly to be a GOP leader and attacked by the Wall St. Journal edit page.
November 18th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
The photog who sold the photo to Newsweek broke his contract.
“What on earth was Sarah Palin thinking when she posed in a pair of teeny-tiny gym shorts for a photograph that ended up on the cover of Newsweek — a cover she has called “sexist”? Perhaps she was thinking that her image would only appear in the magazine she was posing for, Runner’s World, and nowhere else, at least not for months and months. If so, she had good reason — since, as DailyFinance has learned, the photographer who shot the picture violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek.
–
a spokeswoman for Runner’s World confirms that Adams’s contract contained a clause stipulating that his photos of Palin would be under embargo for a period of one year following publication — meaning until August 2010.”
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/18/palin-photographer-breached-contract-with-sale-to-newsweek/
November 18th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
@ Jon, around #44ish,
She’s an intellectual lightweight, for sure. But Reagan was attacked by establishment Republicans as well. So was W. So I’m not sure she can be written off that easily.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Bush and Reagan were good politicians. Palin isn’t even that. She spent many pages in her memoirs trashing campaign staffers. How do you get good talent when in your short career you’ve spent copious ink *punching down* on the talent that was trying to help you get elected? You’re not winning friends and influencing people. That’s just one example of her *political* incompetence. Bush and Reagan were at least conservative movement team players and had a loyal staff. Palin can’t even get that part right.
By the way, I hope she does go far, because she’ll make the other candidates veer far right during the primaries and ruin their chances.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
GusSnarp you can watch this video of the SuperBowl performance he actually does not throw the flag off the stage. He takes it off and hands its behind him to a stage hand waiting for it. He was trying to represent the US by wearing the flag. Kid Rock is actually one of the biggest Pro America believers you could ever meet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYAEjBadPnc
Sarah Palin even says so in her new book. On page 300 I believe.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Now maybe it’s because I’m reading this on a blackberry, but I see nothing in writing on the newsweek cover which indicates that the article is about anything dealing with sex. If its simply because they used an image of her in althetic wear, then is espn sexist? Is any newspaper who covers the olymics? There are plenty of skintight or revealing outfits. But no one said it was sexist for usatoday to show images of michael phelps in his speedo. And their main focus isn’t about showing skin, or even sports. Sure they cover it, but then should things like that appear on the sports page only? Basically, what I’m getting at is, raising a fuss over this just leads to more. You want to be against this sort of behavior from a magazine or television? Don’t buy it. Some beer ad shows bikini models? Don’t buy that brand. if the product does something you don’t like, it’s simply going doing it if it sells. To take it to a nerdy place, comic book companies are constantly being bitched about online for idiotic stories, random changes of character personality, and never resolving major issues within the confines of the medium. And yet, those types of stories sell extremely well. Simply put, people buy it to read and complain. Which means more will be made, because that’s what’s generating talk and money. If everone who didn’t like it stopped buying it, trash wouldn’t get made. It’s pretty simple. Ignore the talking heads (not the band (unless you don’t like them)) and support what you like, not what you don’t.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
@ Jon #47 or thereabouts,
I hope you’re right and I’m wrong about her future in politics
November 18th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Blogger, that’s useful information. If indeed the report is true and the photographer violated their contract, I think that Ms. Palin should sue them for breach of contract. Unfortunately, she’ll get bad press for pursuing such a course and she can’t collect much from the photographer. I may not like Ms. Palin’s politics, but I readily condemn any gross breach of contract such as this.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I would speculate that given that most mainstream media people are not Sarah Palin-style evangelical conservatives, there may be a strong temptation to make her look like a lightweight who is unpresidential
Forgive me if I don’t find a person being in shape and frequent exerciser “unpresidential.”
Don’t get me wrong – Palin’s a nutjob and not fit for office, but because she dons running shorts evey so often isn’t one of the reasons why she’s not.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
@ bilbo, #52 or so,
Being in shape and exercising is not the issue here, nor is exercising unpresidential. Heaven knows we’ve got plenty of photos over the last twenty years of presidents exercising, even in running shorts.
It’s Newsweek’s use of that particular photo — which is not of Sarah Palin actually running or exercising, but is of Palin modeling exercise togs — to illustrate an article about her impact in politics. The problem is the context.
Even Sarah Palin called it sexist, as Sheril quoted her above.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
@Laura – OK, a stagehand caught it. He still threw it. I don’t really care if he’s patriotic or not, he’s a sweaty rocker doing a humping dance while wearing an American flag with a hole cut in it. Then he flings it off behind him as if it is meaningless. That’s showing disrespect to the flag. It’s also illegal. This is what I mean though, we’ve forgotten how to be respectful, forgotten all the rules, as long as we’re flaunting our own personal patriotism for the crowd, who cares how the flag is supposed to be treated. If you aren’t patriotic and you treat the flag badly, I actually don’t mind so much. What bothers me is people who claim to be patriotic, but can’t be bothered to learn proper flag handling.
UNITED STATES CODE
TITLE 36
CHAPTER 10
§ 176.
(d)The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.
(e) The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.
(f) The flag should never be used as a covering for a ceiling.
(i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.
(j) No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations. The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing. Therefore, the lapel flag pin being a replica, should be worn on the left lapel near the heart.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Boy have I gone off topic.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Um, really, sorry about that. Remind me not to comment on blogs past my bed time.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Gus… no problem. It happens.
FWIW, I suspect that the part of the U.S. Code you cite doesn’t actually create laws in the normal sense, with penalties and stuff. I think that section is mainly a bunch of definitions—what the state seal and flag consist of, what proper handling of the flag consist of, etc.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s generally illegal to handle the flag “improperly” by all those persnickety rules.
And personally, I don’t really care about flag handling. As far as I’m concerned, if you buy a flag, it’s your property to do with as you please. Certainly you can burn it, but you can also drape it over a chair and lean on it, or cut a hole in it and wear it as a poncho.
What I don’t like is all the right-wing hypocrisy about it. (If Obama draped a flag casually over a chair and leaned on it to model clothing, it would be all over Fox as a demonstration of his lack of patriotism and maybe even unAmericanism.)
I think it’s ridiculous that we treat symbols as though they were literally sacred. (And there’s something weird in the code about how we should treat the flag as though it were a person. When we start according symbols the regard due to persons, something is way, way wrong.)
November 19th, 2009 at 11:18 am
@Paul W. – Yeah, that’s what happens when I comment late, I get long winded and unintelligible. What you said is really the point I meant to make – it’s the hypocrisy that bothers me most (although I have been so indoctrinated into respect for the flag that I do cringe when I see some of these things). I would rather see an honest protester burn the flag than see a supposed red-blooded, patriotic American treat it casually with no regard for the rules, like Palin does in this picture.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Anna K,
Even Sarah Palin called it sexist, as Sheril quoted her above.
I generally agree with you wholeheartedly, but I gotta say, this is beneath you. When was Sarah Palin ever right about anything?
Semiseriously, the McCain-Palin camp & their right wing media chorus demonstrated a willingness to hypocritically play the sexism card during the campaign. They said outrageous stuff about how the liberals would make sexist criticisms of Palin in ways they never would—easily refuted by miles of footage and tape of right wing pundits talking about Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, etc.
They’re perfectly happy to be anti-feminist most of the time and play the martyred feminist card when it’s to their advantage.
IIRC Jon Stewart had a funny bit showing the very same pundits defending Palin against that ghastly sexism (mostly but not entirely imagined) and, in old footage, gleefully calling liberal women “shrill,” etc., implying that their looks were unacceptable, etc.
And of course, on right wing radio during the Clinton Years, there were years of frequent call-ins where the callers would talk about how ugly Hillary Clinton was, suggestions that she was probably a lesbian because of her “unfeminine” speech, etc.
(Remember the whole travesty about Hillary’s comment about being too busy with politics to stay home baking cookies, and then having to publicly bake cookies to prove she wasn’t anti-housewife?)
I throw up a little in my mouth just thinking about it.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
@ Paul W., agreed. People play it as a political card.