oh come on

For the record, I find Sarah Palin to be ridiculous. Insultingly ridiculous as a vice-presidential candidate. Just for the record.

But this photois sexist. A focus on two drooling frat-boys* wearing pink in "honor" of their VP candidate! I mean, she's a girl, right? And girls love pink, right? Gosh, girls are so cute! So silly! I venture to guess that there would probably have been no pink McCain campaign t-shirts printed had Palin not been on the ticket. I don't know; maybe I'm wrong.

I mean, the amount of money they are saying that Palin spent on her wardrobe for the campaign is despicable. Let me be clear about that. That said, I also find it despicable how much the media is relishing in the opportunity to out her as a shop-a-holic. I feel like the argument's going, "What was McCain thinking bringing on a woman? Didn't he know that she would just go crazy with the credit card!? ... but she does look good, huh? Check out those legs," instead of going, "What was McCain thinking bringing on a person who would shift the focus from productive solutions to our nation's complicated problems to petty quibbling over who Obama 'pals around with.'"

This photo is despicable. It reduces Palin to her shapely legs; worse than that it reduces her to the way that attractive young men, mocking her woman-ness in pink t-shirts, gaze at her. I mean, she could be naked, besides those oh-so-girly black pumps, for Chrissakes. You could convincingly PhotoShop those two young men, as well as the slightly older one on the right, into a strip-club scene. The woman was running for Vice-President. Can we please get over the way she looks?

I look at it and hear the words of Jean Kilbourne (especially around 8:12) and Laura Mulvey.

*I realize that I'm rather unproductively stereotyping men in fraternities; forgive me. While I know that not all men in fraternities fit the stereotype I'm using, for the sake of my argument, that mold is a useful characterization of the humiliating and oppressive hetero-male gaze I'm frustrated with.