An American Lion

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Original Photo Shoot, Runner’s World Magazine

I don’t know where I stand on this issue. On the one hand, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin posed for this shot, and she posed for it for Runner’s World magazine. The context of the photo essay, and the accompanying interview, was to allow her to talk about why she is a runner. Now, Newsweek has appropriated one of the more eye-catching photos and has run it as their cover—changing the context slightly from a photo about physical fitness to one about politics and news.

Sarah Palin’s image is everywhere as she launches a highly-anticipated book tour this week, but the former Alaska governor is unhappy with at least one media organization’s depiction of her.

Palin took aim at Newsweek’s eye-catching cover this week that shows the former vice presidential candidate in her running outfit - an image that was apparently lifted from a Runner’s World photo shoot months ago.  Writing on her Facebook page Monday night, Palin said the depiction is flat out “sexist, and oh-so-expected.”

“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,” Palin wrote. “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,” Palin also said.

The photo is accompanied by text that states “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sarah? She’s bad news for the GOP - and for everybody else too.”

Would it be fair to take something that someone did for a magazine that covers health and fitness issues—containing a light, almost vapid question and answer about only those topics—and try to apply that context to some other more serious publication? If you’ll notice, the running shoes that Palin posed with are conveniently cropped out of the Newsweek cover (as is the banner for her son, who was deployed with the US Army at the time of the photoshoot). [Correction: CNN arbitrarily cropped the cover. I have just seen the Newsweek cover, and her running shoes are NOT cropped out. As the kids say, my bad. ]

The running shoes are what provides much of the context for the photo that you see above. This pose is similar, but the context is still the same—this is about a runner, and her running attire is depicted along with the shoes:

I think there’s a case that could be made that the context of the publication matters. Many musicians and comedians have been interviewed for Hustler magazine. Do you suppose that the context of that interview could be one thing, and then trying to run the same interview in Teen Style would make it something frightening and offensive? Would it be fair to take something someone said for one audience and then try to reprint that for another audience?

I learned two things from the Palin interview in Runner’s World. One, she has run a marathon in less than four hours, which is pretty impressive. Two, John McCain’s sole means of getting exercise is to go wading in a creek.

Now, do you want to know what is really sexist? What is really sexist is to now compare how Palin has been depicted to how Dede Scozzafava has been depicted.

Do you really think that Scozzafava’s moderate and mainstream views were the real reason for her rejection? Why would the Republican Party run from a woman who could win a seat in Congresss? Was it because she was some sort of liberal insurgent? Or was some of it driven by her image, which is more of a career woman—more of a real woman—than the image projected by Palin, who is also a career woman, but one who began her career in television and with a beauty pageant. Who’s more real to you? I know a lot of people who look more like Scozzafava than Palin, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with either one of them. Our prejudice is towards beauty, in most cases.

What Sarah Palin should take from this incident is this, and this is ultimately how I come down on this issue—you can’t pose for photos and not expect the media to change the context, crop out things, and turn them into something that fits their narrative. She should never have expected that her book tour wouldn’t be met with some serious pushback.