Tonight marks the final two hours of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” on TLC, an eight-week reality show designed to teach us more about both: Palin and Alaska.
What have we — the casual political observers but fervent reality-television watchers among us — learned?
First, the positives.
1. Alaska is a star. The show is a splendid advertisement for the state’s majestic peaks, lonely tundras, growling grizzlies and thundering herds of caribou. Alaska ho!
2. Though at turns gratuitously carnivorous, the show provides a rare, unvarnished visual account of real-life food production in the 49th state: Blood, guts and halibut-clubbing. Shocking? Yes. Real? Also yes. While most of us go to great lengths to avoid knowing how our food gets to our tables, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is remarkably frank.
3. The kids are all right. Piper (her third daughter, named after the small aircraft), especially, is a pistol.
Through the series, we’ve followed Palin and her brood on a series of Alaskan adventures: rock climbing, bear watching, logging, fishing and shooting. Palin works hard to prove she merits her queen-grizzly status.
We’ve learned that Palin is an enthusiastic saleswoman for her state. That she is a skilled multitasker. An energetic social networker. And, if we’re to believe what we see in the final edits, she’s not a bad shot (at least when clay pigeons are the quarry — she had a bit more trouble downing a caribou).
But what we reality-show junkies have learned most about Palin — however we feel about her politics — is that she is, and appears to want to be portrayed as, a committed (and talented) snarkist.
Eye-rolling, for which she frequently scolds second daughter Willow, abounds in Palin’s own close-ups. Scowls and scoffs accompany lines like, “conservationalists write me nasty letters using their pretty little pencils on their pretty little stationery. Where do you think your pencil and your piece of paper come from, people? It comes from a tree!”
She dismisses a sea-otter expert who’s just explained why the furry creatures roll in the water with a wave of her kayak paddle and a cynical, “What a cool granola life you’ve got going here! Jeez, I’m jealous.”
And while Palin scours the family’s bus-sized RV for ingredients for campfire s’mores, she mumbles, “This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert.”
English organism
Palin also portrays herself as an enthusiastic spinner — no surprise for a politician — but she is surprisingly, defiantly transparent about it. She explains her now-famous coinage of the nonword “refudiate” to husband Todd: “I pressed the ‘f’ instead of the ‘p’ and people freaked out. So now we’re saying no, no, no … the English language is a moving, breathing, evolving art. I can invent a word! So now, guess what? ‘Refudiate’ is now the number two search term on Google trends. Make lemonade out of lemons.”
Crafty? You bet. Trustworthy? Presidential? Hmm.
As contemporary television goes, it is all riveting. Producers at TLC know what they’re doing. This is, after all, the network that brings us “Toddlers and Tiaras,” and “Extreme Couponing.”
But even if it were the first lady’s mission to snatch cupcakes from babes, and even if Palin has a point about “conservationalists,” and even if this expert tweeter really did typo her way into the Oxford English Dictionary, her disdainful delivery overshadows whatever wholesome substance may lurk inside. Hers is timbre you’d expect from a Real Housewife commenting on a frenemy’s outfit, not a probable presidential candidate who, to put it mildly, needs to drastically broaden her appeal — and convince the great middle that she won’t roll her eyes at them, too — if she wants to win.
Centrist voters, so totally underportrayed on the television they’re glued to, and yet so totally indispensable to any candidate’s 2012 hopes, love to watch a snarky reality-show star. But vote for one?
Maybe, as some pundits say, Sarah Palin is using her show to burn a path to the White House. If it pays off, it will rank as the shrewdest political move we’ve seen in this new world of multimedia campaigning.
Just for the money?
Maybe Palin is just using politics to enhance her media presence — and make money. After all, the president’s salary is a finite sum. Not so a multiplatform reality star’s income. Television appearances, Twitter followers, Facebook friends — all are exchangeable for hard currency, in book contracts, speaking gigs, production deals, product endorsements. (Just ask “Jersey Shore’s” Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, who parlayed perfect abs into a cool $10 million last year, according to reports, 25 times what the president makes.)
But there’s a catch: Unless she’s a candidate, Palin’s not famous. She must run for president to keep herself on television and to keep the checks coming. If she doesn’t, she’s not relevant in the lower 48. Her show won’t be renewed. Her book deals will dry up. Even Fox News will stop calling.
Palin will run. Not because she really wants the office, but because she knows that the most riveting reality show on the dial is a presidential campaign.
But winning could be dangerous for the Palin brand. It would distract her from Twitter, take her off book tour, compromise her shooting schedule. Dampen her snark.
Her formula is starting to look like this: Run, but don’t win. Talk about a Palin Paradox.
Then again, there’s no better global photo op than an inauguration. Except, perhaps, as President Richard Nixon learned, a presidential resignation.
Think she wouldn’t be able to spin even that into gold? Then you don’t know Palin.
Sarah Palin in 2012? Yes, please. Right after “Sister Wives.”
Two new episodes of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” air tonight beginning at 6 on TLC.
