Sarah Palin: The Undefeated (2011)

[dreadfulpenny00.livejournal.com]

Sarah Palin: The Undefeated (2011)
Written and directed by Stephen Bannon
With appearances by Andrew Breitbart, Tammy Bruce, Mark Levin, Tom Irwin, and more
Narrated by Sarah Palin (using audio from her book Going Rogue)



I like political movies (Primary Colors, Man of the Year, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington being a few of my favorites). I also enjoy documentaries. So when I noticed that Netflix was now streaming Sarah Palin: The Undefeated, I figured I'd give it a chance. I'm not a big fan of Sarah Palin. Looking at it from the outside, her political career was admirable, especially considering she's raised seven five children during the process. But there's just something about her demeanor that rubs me the wrong way. I put that aside and watched the movie with an open mind.

I have to be honest - The Undefeated is one-sided. As The Road We've Traveled is a butt-kissing tribute to Obama (and even the director admits as much), so The Undefeated is to Sarah Palin. There's various interviews with people from her career as both the mayor of Wasilla and the governor of Alaska, as well as supporters from her vice-presidential run (like Mark Levin and the late Andrew Breitbart). This is all intercut with archive news footage, newspaper clippings, and strange stock footage (for example, while talking about personal attacks made against her staff by her critics, there's stock footage of some ancient medieval battle with people dying on the field played against Palin's own voice -- eerie).

What's interesting is what ISN'T in the movie - not one mention of the "Bridge to Nowhere" or the investigation against her for the dismissal of Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, an investigation that determined Palin abused her power as governor and violated Alaska ethics legislation that she herself signed into law. No talk of her daughter's pregnancy while she touted abstinence education on the campaign trail, which many felt was a serious conflict. Why? It turns out that Palin approached her staff to contact Bannon (as she was familiar with his work) to produce a film putting her in a positive light and explaining her reasons for leaving office while touting her accomplishments for the purpose of laying a fondation for a future presidential run. In short, The Undefeated is a propaganda film.

This movie is basically for rabid Palin fans. For others, this might be more fluff than anything else.

x-posted from mividaloca99

Comments

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

That's just it. In the popular narrative, when people teach abstinence and the kids end up pregnant, it's a failure on the part of whoever taught them abstinence; when people teach birth control and the kids end up pregnant, it's nobody's fault, just one of those things that happens. It's a huge double standard.

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

More accurately, the narrative is that because people sometimes fail at practicing abstinence even though they may believe in it, the standard of abstinence itself is a failure and needs to be done away with. (As well as the parents or the persons themselves being failures.)

It's a lie, but an effective one. It's done deliberately, in order to marginalize and ridicule the standard as well as anyone who holds it, in an effort to get rid of the standard entirely.

What we must do is not get defensive about how people are sometimes weak or how kids often don't listen, but rather point to the standard itself.