Actually, It Could Only Be 2/3rds of a Slap in the Face

Andrea Tantaros is fired up -- FIRED UP! I tell you! -- because Newsweek has slapped Sarah Palin in the face . . . . . (well, actually, only 66% of her face) . . . .
. . . . . . . by showing her as she actually looks. The horror.

"Any woman who sees this cover would be shocked and horrified."

[You can see an image of the cover here.—MM.]

Tantaros also states the following on her blog (not linking! not linking! not linking! I refuse!):

"Palin's got an election to win, a jam packed campaign schedule, a state to run, and five children. She's not perfect. She's real. That's why "folks" love her. She deserves the same treatment as other candidates: a fair shake and a flattering cover shot." (emp. mine)

I see. A flattering cover shot. Not a real cover shot. (Note: Newsweek has a policy about retouching, and claims that it does not retouch cover-shots without making it clear that they have done so.)

I bring this up not because I give a rat's ass about Palin's "unwanted facial hair", or Tantaros' blood-pressure, but because I think that it illustrates perfectly the amazing, complex, fucked-up maze that women navigate every day in this culture.

Sarah Palin is selling herself as "real" -- but if she looks too real, this is an insult to her, according to Tantaros. However, Tantaros' approach is basically: "Your real face? Ewwwwww. Gross!" (and I find myself wondering: How is that not insulting?)

Sarah Palin is selling herself as "experienced" -- but she's supposed to look like a fresh-faced 20-year-old. No wrinkles, no pores, no "unwanted facial hair" (honestly, every time I hear that phrase, I want to open an orphanage for unwanted facial hair).

What's also interesting to me is the choice of the shot. It's an very unusual framing (go ahead, do a Google image search to see just how unusual it is for Newsweek to use up 90% of the real-estate on their cover with just 2/3rds of someone's face).

Jeff Bercovici (again, not linking), in an article charmingly titled "Did Newsweek Have to Show Palin's 'stache" said:

"To me, the implicit message of the photo . . . . . . seems obvious: Here's your beauty queen, your MILF, your 'hottest governor from the coldest state.' How do you like her now that you've seen her crows' feet, her clumpy mascara, her bloodshot eyes, her faint mustache, her cakey makeup, her gaping pores, etc? (Rachel Sklar says the cover is "fair and flattering"; I disagree. It's horrifying.)

To his credit, he does later wonder if it's sexist of him to be wondering about this in the first place. (Gee, ya think?)

The framing of the shot is weird, though -- what are they trying to convey? That if I'm not careful, I will be sucked into the wink-vortex of Sarah Palin's left eye?

Nothing that I'm about to say takes an iota away from the fact that I think Sarah Palin is epically inequipped to be Vice President, that I think her policies and practices are abhorrent, and that I experience her personal presentation as smarmy and disgusting.

But . . . . . and . . . . .

She's going to take shit if her close-up portrays her as less than the perfected patriarchal ideal of feminity, and she's going to take shit if her close-up is retouched. She's going to take shit if she's not staying home with the kids, and she's going to take shit because she's paying too much attention to her kids and not enough to her work. She's going to be objectified as a sperm repository, probably by men who say they despise her but who would "hit that" anyway.

And it won't be because she's Sarah Palin. It will be because she's a woman.

[H/T to Shaker and Hoyden Lauredhel.]