When She Said She Wanted to Tea Party, that Wasn’t an Invitation
Sarah Palin will be in Chicago May 12 to raise money for the Republican Party, but the event at Rosemont Theatre isn’t the only one using her popular appeal to draw a crowd. If the tickets for the fundraiser are a bit rich for your budget–or if you’d just rather ogle her naked than hear her speak–there’s also the Sarah Palin lookalike contest at the Admiral Theatre (a gentlemen’s club).
A contest like this is like an outsized, publicized catcall. And as always happens with catcalls, someone will surely rush to defend the Contest as merely a “compliment,” or simple admiration. In fact, the Sexy Sarah Palin event (“less taxation, more flirtation!”) purports to be “supporting the Tea Party movement,” donating a portion of the proceeds to the cause. But how can you explain the sentiment behind such an event without addressing the belittlement of Palin herself? Okay, so you find her attractive. That is not, in itself, injurious. But to subject her to sexual scrutiny (by proxy and without her consent), during the very same evening she is giving a political lecture, is to suggest, loudly, that you disregard whatever she has to say and offer her physical appearance as the more proper means of assessing her. That however she intends to define herself, she cannot escape her other role as the object of YOUR sexual fantasy. Even if you say you’re on the side of her political project, there’s no way to get around the fact of your subverting her chosen identity.
This is how catcalling always works, on the street, in the officeplace, or through an orchestrated media event: the message to the catcalled woman is not just, “I find you attractive,” but, “whatever else you are, remember you are still the object of male desire.” That’s why it’s offensive, even threatening, when it happens. And the organizers at the Admiral aren’t leaving it as a joke amongst their audience–they’ve invited Palin to be a “celebrity judge,” making damn sure she’s aware of exactly how they’ve pigeonholed her. (She hasn’t responded, surprise surprise.) This is a hostile act, no matter how you slice it.
