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The Education of Bristol Palin

  • Posted on October 17, 2010 at 12:42 am

Bristol Palin could surely be the girl next door.

I haven’t been watching “Dancing with the Starts”.  However, I have seen enough of it this season through small clips to wonder what’s going on with Bristol Palin.  We all know the story about Bristol and who her famous mom is and all the problems that may go with being a child of politics.  The show has used Bristol for the obvious reasons of obtaining ratings.  What is sad to see is the way this child is being put into some fairly risqué dance routines that don’t seem to fit her personality at all.  She is being used and abused by a system for a monetary gain.  It makes me wonder what this young woman would do for money?  I think Bristol could easily have been on this show and not have been put into the sexy situations and the show could still have great ratings.  For some unknown reason the show executives have decided to portray Bristol in a fairly raunchy way which I think undermines all young women and surely portrays Bristol in the poorest light possible.

I feel she is being forced to do the opposite of what she is really about.  I saw the first dance where she was dressed like her mom and then her coat was ripped off to reveal a rather sultry, flashy, hooker type dress.

This dress is so un-Palin like and highly suggestive.

This may have been a statement that Bristol was trying to make, but I highly doubt it.  What troubles me is seeing mom in the audience whooping it up when Bristol looks to be rather uncomfortable in her own skin.

Some people probably have no sympathy for Bristol because she is getting paid to do this show.  However, I wonder if this young woman realizes how she appears to be some comic parody.  She is supposed to be representing “abstinence”.  In every aspect of the show that I have witnessed she has been portrayed more like a harlot than a confused teen.  She is fairly young and inexperienced.  She made a mistake as a youngster and she is living with the consequence of her mistake.  This new Bristol seems to have given up something precious from the old Bristol.  That would be the “self respect” thing.  I don’t believe for a minute that this young woman really wants to be portrayed as she is currently is or else she is just clueless to the image that she is playing.  In the most recent dance she wore seamed stockings and a shirt.  She actually pulled off the shirt of her dance partner as though she was so full of lust she had to have him right there and now.  This is a new level of trash TV and I’m appalled that Bristol has been put in this position and doesn’t seem to realize how she is being made fun of in many ways.

I think it’s a way to make fun of her and probably her mother’s stance on some issues.  However, mom has “bought” into this because money seems to trump anything else that really matters. The fact is it is tough to see Bristol as an abstinence proponent as it seems to be a case of “Do as I say, not as I did.”  However, she could be a great spokesperson to show young teens that there are consequences for having sex that you may have to live with in the future.  However, Bristol’s life seems to be better than ever.  She gets to be on a TV show.  She’s making a lot more money than any other kid her age would be making if they were in the same situation, young, unwed with a child.  It’s really about the education of Bristol and this education seems to be about making money while the press still thinks you have value.  There is a certain amount of sleaziness to all of this.  What won’t Bristol do for money?  She obviously gave up some of her virtuous clothing choices to appear on this show but more than that she seems to be willing to try to appear to look like some unrestrained sex kitten for ratings.

I am troubled by all of this.  I look at Bristol with the eyes of a mother and also with the eyes of a woman.  I see her as being betrayed by her female qualities for the sole purpose of selling a product and the product is sex.  It really is abusive to all young women to see her portrayed in this manner.   We are back to the Madonna/Whore phenomenon.   A woman must be portrayed as the good girl or the bad girl, the Madonna or the whore.  Bristol is a “fallen” woman as she had sex without marriage and she wasn’t able to cover it up like most young women because she got pregnant and chose to keep the baby.  I guess now that she is a “fallen” woman it’s okay for her to be portrayed as a slut.

This is how Bristol is being portrayed on the internet. This is fake for now.

Bristol’s mom is so busy campaigning and selling her own books that she doesn’t seem to mind the image that her “fallen” daughter is sending out to other young women and of course living with while she dances and prances on this show.  This is poor parenting from my point of view.  I know we have little control over what our children do in life but mom doesn’t have to sit there acting like everything is fine and dandy talking about “Bristol the Pistol” as though she’s just a sweet little girl from Wasilla, Alaska.  No, Bristol is getting an education but it’s not the kind of education most of us want for our daughters, nieces, friends, sisters or any young woman we really care about to get.  Bristol is discovering her worth is related to what her body can give her.  Right now her body is selling sexual fantasy.  It’s an image most of us wouldn’t want attached to our young ones.  Most of us want our children to get a real education by going away to college and learning about life under the bubble of the perfection and idealism that college can sometimes be.  Bristol seems to be attending some kind of college of hard knocks but the money is so good that she doesn’t see what she’s lost in the process.  Kids can be stubborn and sometimes they revolt from what their parents want but some how I don’t think Bristol’s mom seems to mind where her daughter is right now.  I just wish they could both see what I see.  Bristol may be having fun with all of this and maybe I’m an old stogie but truthfully there is more to being a woman than just trying to appear sexual.  This young woman saw two roads and she chose this one.  I wonder what the other one would have brought her.

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The Stepford Wives and Women Today

  • Posted on April 6, 2010 at 11:16 am

The Stepford Wives Movie With Katherine Ross and Peter Masterson.

For three bucks I purchased the original “Stepford Wives” movie from BigLots.  I had never seen that movie even though it came out in the seventies.  The remade version with Nicole Kidman in my opinion is just about awful!  I always loved Katherine Ross because I thought she was so beautiful so I decided to watch it.  It was interesting watching the old cars and the way people dressed in the seventies but some things stay the same, like the beautiful wife married to the balding, not so great looking, guy.  The movie is largely a statement about the threat women’s liberation is to men and their egos.  In the original movie we don’t end up with a satisfying ending.  In fact we are terrorized in the final thirty minutes of the movie when we realize what’s really happening.  I could feel the terror and confusion that Katherine’s character felt when she was trying to figure out what was happening in the village of Stepford.  Why were these wonderful, engaging, thinking, talented women suddenly turning into robotic images of themselves?  She was in fear of losing herself.  Just as all women secretly fear losing their identity when they marry a man and take his name.  In fact many women today keep their maiden names so they can hold on to their own identity whether it is for work purposes or to continue their heritage.  In the movie the men have formed a club, a club of men that work to make their lives perfect.  Perfect means a wife that is more like a robot than a human, a wife that will think you are a great lover, even if you aren’t, and one that will build you up and make you feel like you are the most important person in the world and can also cook.  The movie assaults men by making them appear to care only about the outward appearance of their women and nothing else.  The men were faced with a decision to rid themselves of their “nagging” wives by “creating” a better model of the imperfect one, one with larger breasts who could dolt after her husband and never challenge him in any way possible.

I used to think we have come along way baby, much like the Virginia Slims commercial from decades ago but now I feel that women have taken a huge step backwards.  It was brought home in the 2008 election when both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were treated with such disrespect by the media, bloggers and even other candidates.  We all remember hearing about Hillary’s “cankles” and Sarah’s beauty was served up to destroy her credibility.  I thought we were living back in the fifties with the attitude toward these two women in politics.  I realize now that given the decades between the Stepford Wives and today nothing has really evolved all that much.  Men are still pigs as witnessed by the behavior of the Tiger, Jesse and Johns of the world.  Women are still trying to please their “man” as witnessed by the women who choose to get involved with these characters.  Most were probably opportunists that used their bodies to get what they thought they wanted, fame, fortune or whatever they were seeking but none of them were looking for self-respect which is foreign all of them.

As a young woman I never wanted to be “dependent” on a man.  I don’t know if it is because I have ten brothers or what.  I just knew that I wanted my own identity.  As an older woman I don’t care one way or the other but I am “man-less”.  I am a divorced woman of many years and I have never been interested in any real relationship since.  In fact I never put myself in situations where I could develop another relationship.  That in itself is probably strange for most people to understand.  However, I do have a strong sense of who I am as a person and what I’m willing to put up with.  In the Stepford Wives movie women with a strong sense of self were eventually beaten by the man and their identities and lives were brutally destroyed.  In real life today women are still putting up with men who don’t appreciate who they really are.  Women are still buying every product they can to please their man whether it be some beauty product, fancy negligees or even implants.  While women do everything they can to attract their man and keep him men continue to think the world revolves around them.  They have been told by their mothers that they are perfect and many of them believe it.  They can be bald, fat, and ugly but women will still appreciate them.  Women on the other hand better stay as they were in their twenties and thirties or they may risk losing their man to the younger version of themselves.

I don’t think women need to be more like men.  I just think it’s time that both sexes were honest with each other about what they need.  Men need to listen to their mates and really appreciate them and women need to see men as more than a paycheck.  Men control the world but need to let women have more involvement in the process.  The world would be a better place if we could use both sides of our brains.  Depending on men for everything only utilizes half of our potential as a race.  If we want peace in this world then we should try putting women of substance in powerful positions.  If we want equality then we should treat each other with respect.  If men love their daughters they should push for equality of the sexes and equality doesn’t mean a woman can choose which implant to get or what dinner to cook.  Equality means making decisions on your own without being pushed into situations you really don’t want to be in.  Equality means not being discriminated against because you are female.  Equality means you will be respected because you are human not because you are a man or a woman.

The Stepford Wives never knew what was happening until it was too late to change the inevitable.  People today, both men and women, can stop this disrespect of women by not feeding the frenzy pushed by the media and not buying into every gadget that is supposed to bring you fulfillment in finding a mate.  Equality will come when we have self respect.  This is not equality.  http://www.pressherald.com/news/Women-march-topless-in-Portland-without-incident.html While women might think acting like a man will get them what they want; it doesn’t.

Source: Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer The Portland Press Herald

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