McCain Campaign: SNL Portrayal of Palin Was Sexist

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Most people have seen the opening sketch of the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live — the one featuring Tina Fey’s dead-on impersonation of Sarah Palin. (Video here.)

Now, Fey’s Palin is a bit empty-headed. She’s portrayed as a superficial and illegitimate usurper of the role Hillary Clinton (played by Amy Poehler in the sketch) ought to rightfully play.

It would be pretty hard to label a sketch as sexist if it portrays one woman as intelligent and capable and another as shallow and untested. In fact, comparing two people on their merits, with no regard to their sex, would appear to be the opposite of sexism. Right?

Not during an election year. Everything is a potential talking point. Here is John McCain’s favorite CEO and sexism-crier-in-chief, Carly Fiorina, trying her best to attack the sketch on MSNBC:

“I think that [the sketch] continues the line of argument [against Palin] that is disrespectful in the extreme and, yes, I would say, sexist. In the sense that just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance. She has a lot of substance.”

WTF does that even mean? Criticizing a woman for having less substance than another woman is sexist? Criticizing a woman for having different views than another woman is sexist? Disagreeing with a woman’s views and thus portraying her as having less substance as another woman is sexist?

Or is the correct answer that anything that attacks Sarah Palin effectively is sexist?

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate