 Sarah Palin |
 "Sarah Palin" |
Tina Fey's sensational portrayal of Sarah Palin is unlike any other political impersonation ever, for one simple reason: it may very well end up defining a major political figure before that figure has defined herself.
Consider SNL's previously most celebrated impersonations. Four others leap to mind: Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford. Dana Carvey as George H.W. Bush. Will Ferrell as George W. Bush. Darrell Hammond as Al Gore.
As much as the NBC-industrial complex wants us to believe those performances affected the elections in which they appeared, I doubt it. The candidates portrayed were already firmly established in the public consciousness when they were parodied. The portrayal that stirred the most talk on the cable yakfests was Hammond's Gore. It was a revelation, highlighting Gore's condescension and his "Me, teacher! Me, teacher!" front-row ass-kissiness. Even so, there was no confusing the man and his parodist. Gore had already been Vice President for eight years.
With Tina Fey and Sarah Palin, it's different. I keep hearing people say that they're confusing Palin and Fey; that when they watched the actual debate, they kept forgetting they weren't watching Tina Fey. This isn't just a testimony to Fey's brilliant performance. It's also testimony to the McCain campaign's flawed rollout of Palin: she really was too sheltered. There's insatiable curiosity about the lady, but we're only getting dribs and drabs. TIna Fey is filling in the rest.
There are of course evident differences between the actual Sarah Palin and Tina's "Sarah Palin".
The actual Sarah Palin, while clearly unprepared for a national campaign, is consumed with ambition and may yet pull it off. She's folksy and flirtatious on the outside, steely on the inside. "Sarah Palin," on the other hand, is more daffy. She wants to rule the world, yes, but she's more of a bubblehead, easily distracted by shiny objects. She's sort of delightful.
The real Sarah Palin plows through her sentences like a Panzer through Poland, butchering innocent sentences, leaving syntactical carnage in her wake. "Sarah Palin" blithely skips from word to word with the blind faith that she'll make it to the other side of the rhetorical rapids without slipping.
The real Sarah Palin believes most of what she says. Or at least you can tell what she believes between the lines. (Her code is pretty obvious.) Meanwhile "Sarah Palin" seems more ... misguided. Somebody told her what to think and, you betcha, she's stickin' with it ... unless someone tells her to change her mind.
Perhaps the best way to understand the difference between Sarah and "Sarah" is through the lens of E!'s The Girls Next Door. The real Sarah Palin is Holly -- eyes fixed on the prize ... the prize being 82 year old Hef. (Holly, in fact, is from Alaska!) Fey's "Sarah Palin" is Bridget from The Girls Next Door. Fun is a major priority. (For those of you wondering, Kendra is a working class Democrat.)
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. Since about half of 'Sarah Palin's' dialog is verbatim from Sarah Palin, I'd say you're wingin' it - they're both more like Paris Hailin' or maybe parasailin'.
Or maybe Sarah's just a Tina Ofay...
Clif Kuplen at 3:30PM on Oct 6th 2008
2. I was never a fan of Tina Fey, as I always viewed her as the primary reason for Saturday Night Live's eventual descent from amazing comedy show to a bastion of mediocrity punctuated by a few laughs and helmed by a less than desirable Jimmy Fallon.
However, she has made up for those boring years with her spot on looks and crafted the perfect air headed personality for "Sarah Palin". And if anything, it further lathers up the massive political hate machine, with the ultimate effort of making Palin look like a buffoon.
Blayze at 3:46PM on Oct 6th 2008
3. Mo, thanks for letting us interview last week in Oxford. Here is the link to the video if you're interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KicPcZKV400
Clint at 5:43PM on Oct 6th 2008
4. Palin Mantis should ditch the glasses and bleach her hair. Hef would LOVE her!
Without blinking she would drop "First Dude", and work her witchcraft on Hef, so he would marry her without a prenup.
Shrew screws Hugh...
in more ways than one.
giftedgirl at 6:10PM on Oct 6th 2008
5. "Sarah Palin" is actually likable and funny.
Smooches, babe. :)
giftedgirl at 7:13PM on Oct 6th 2008
6. Paaaaaaalin
Takes us away
From all that's logical and true
Nincompoop is making red states turn blue
And soon we will be free...
giftedgirl at 8:05PM on Oct 6th 2008
7. Clint, here's the right link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-fJFpxEofM
YOU'RE WELCOME!! or as we say in Espanish "De NALGA" lol
conflay at 9:57PM on Oct 6th 2008
8. Laughing away again at Palinincompoop
Crackin' up at the clueless "hot chick"
Some repubs claim that Magoo's girl does have a brain
But I know...
They're all full of sh*t.
giftedgirl at 12:06AM on Oct 7th 2008
9. Tina Fey's perfomance in last week's "SNL" debate was EXACTLY the way the actual Sarah Palin performed in the debate. At first I thought that it was not going to be funny, but I was mistaken. The repeated references to Ronald Reagan, the claim that she's a veritable "maverick" (WHATEVER, what significant work has she done in Washington?), and her consistent avoidance of questions relating to gay marriage and global warming (Both candidates support civil rights for homosexual couples, but none of them support gay marriage) were portrayed brilliantly. But I was a little offended when "Sarah Palin" said that her two greatest loves were "Jews and Cuban food". As seeing that I live in Florida, you can tell why.
:)
Rebecca at 3:05PM on Oct 7th 2008
10. Cognitive Daily http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/10/face_recognition_we_use_differ.php did a quick survey on these two to find out if readers could tell which was which. Some people actually got it wrong! I couldn't believe it. Apparently it has something to do with how we remember faces we know and faces we don't know. Tina Fey's masterful parodies so soon after we were introduced to Palin did quite a lot to help the Democrats, apparently. Some people think Fey's goofy Palin is the real thing. Yay.
madking at 11:14AM on Oct 9th 2008