La Scandale de Couture
Oct. 24th, 2008 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceebeegeeTo continue Duncan's Sarah Palin as Evita fantasy:
I come from the people
They need to adore me
So Christian Dior me...
In all seriousness, I am still mulling over how I feel about the whole clothing mishegoss. There are a bunch of different issues at play here (possible misuse of donor funds, the hypocrisy of Palin's message about how "real" she is--the kind of "real" American she says she is, doesn't drop thousands of $ on designer clothing, societal expectations of how a woman "should" look and specifically how a woman in power "should" look). As much as she (or the RNC, whoever was at fault here) should not have used donor funds that way, I find myself incredibly annoyed that yet AGAIN we pore over how the woman looks--how THAT'S relevant. And it's relevant in both ways--we're talking about it, and she/they obviously felt that would be an issue. If she hadn't upgraded her wardrobe (if it needed that--that's another issue, she was a state Governor, didn't she already have a decent wardrobe?), she would've been torn to shreds for being too dowdy or frumpy. Or--gasp--too masculine. No matter what choice she makes, it's the wrong one--the media NEVER shut up about Hillary Clinton's hairstyle when she was First Lady. Somehow, no matter how she wore it, her hair was sending secret coded messages to the rest of us--either it was too preppy, too severe, too girly, whatever.
It can be cute and fun when constituents affectionately tease the people in power. I remember reading a cute article back in 2004 comparing hairstyles of the four men on the two tickets and it was completely non-partisan, very much in jest, and frankly a welcome relief to the general nastiness of the season. They even got quotations from the candidates. But the reason it's fun is because it *is* so ridiculous--because it's men.
I come from the people
They need to adore me
So Christian Dior me...
In all seriousness, I am still mulling over how I feel about the whole clothing mishegoss. There are a bunch of different issues at play here (possible misuse of donor funds, the hypocrisy of Palin's message about how "real" she is--the kind of "real" American she says she is, doesn't drop thousands of $ on designer clothing, societal expectations of how a woman "should" look and specifically how a woman in power "should" look). As much as she (or the RNC, whoever was at fault here) should not have used donor funds that way, I find myself incredibly annoyed that yet AGAIN we pore over how the woman looks--how THAT'S relevant. And it's relevant in both ways--we're talking about it, and she/they obviously felt that would be an issue. If she hadn't upgraded her wardrobe (if it needed that--that's another issue, she was a state Governor, didn't she already have a decent wardrobe?), she would've been torn to shreds for being too dowdy or frumpy. Or--gasp--too masculine. No matter what choice she makes, it's the wrong one--the media NEVER shut up about Hillary Clinton's hairstyle when she was First Lady. Somehow, no matter how she wore it, her hair was sending secret coded messages to the rest of us--either it was too preppy, too severe, too girly, whatever.
It can be cute and fun when constituents affectionately tease the people in power. I remember reading a cute article back in 2004 comparing hairstyles of the four men on the two tickets and it was completely non-partisan, very much in jest, and frankly a welcome relief to the general nastiness of the season. They even got quotations from the candidates. But the reason it's fun is because it *is* so ridiculous--because it's men.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-24 02:56 pm (UTC)Part of her job now is to look good. She's appearing before thousands of people in person and millions of people on television every day. Barack Obama and John McCain both wear thousand-dollar suits all the time - and rightly so. Part of a politician's job is to project an image.
While she is the governor of Alaska and I'm sure it pays well, I'm sure it doesn't pay new designer suit every day money. While Obama (through his books) and McCain (through his wife) have fortunes of their own, it doesn't seem fair to make Palin go through this huge but necessary expense just because McCain picked her out of the blue.
There's just so much to hate about Palin, why concentrate on this?
no subject
Date: 2008-10-24 04:03 pm (UTC)It doesn't have to be about the presidency, either.
Remember the absolute fascination people had during the OJ trial with Marcia Clark's hair, wardrobe, dour expressions and generally anything about her considered unfeminine?
If you're in the public eye, looking good is a requirement if you want anyone to take you seriously. Pathetic, isn't it?
Any woman who is on the national or global stage MUST do whatever she can to look good. Her brain got her there, but if she doesn't look good, she can't get anyone to listen to her. Oy.
I was slightly cheered by the idea that this wouldn't look good for her. I was thinking in terms of ethics. But this will go away very quickly.