tdc observation: the real alaska is not gross
Vanity Fair is proving to be a rag of a publication.
As most of you are aware, the magazine recently published a long-winded, loosely sourced, mostly re-hashed hit piece about Governor Palin. As there have been several well-written posts pointing out how nonsensical thearticle happens to be, I see no need to echo what others have stated so eloquently (see below for links to two of the good ones).
Instead, what I offer here are some observations from a slightly different view. One that is not so much political as social.
the company you keep
Each of us is a product of our environment, are we not?
Some of us grow up in big cities on one coast or the other, while others hail from communities in the Midwest or the Rocky Mountains. The urban dwellers of Manhattan have a different way of life than the people of Iron Mountain, Michigan or Austin, Texas. Indeed, this diversity of culture and lifestyle is what sets the United States apart from the rest of the world.
Similarly, the culture of Alaska is unlike any I have experienced elsewhere. Perhaps due to the relatively small population, being in Alaska feels like what I (a bona fide city girl) imagine a small town to be: people genuinely look out for one another while simultaneously cultivating independent lifestyles for themselves and their families.
Presumably, common sense would say that Sarah Palin, having grown up in this environment, would have similar traits. One would expect her to display the same hospitality, warmth, and kindness that make other Alaskans so endearing. She would not be the overbearing, self-obsessed demon-creature that Michael Gross, the author of the Vanity Fair article, portrays her to be.
Sadly, though, neither common sense nor deductive reasoning appear to be the strong suit of Mr. Gross or his editors.
vanity fair’s alaska is bunk
The tales spun in Vanity Fair last week have nothing to do with the reality of Alaska or Alaskans.
Instead, it was just one more example of one more author and one more publication trying to stir up controversy and readership on the back of the Palin name. Unfortunately for tale-spinner Michael Gross, he attempted to do something that can’t be done with a single article: he tried to contradict the very nature of an entire community with the stroke of a pen and a few creatively edited quotes.
His problem is that too many of us have experienced culture of Alaska firsthand. Too many of us have had offers to come over for dinner, or stay in an extra room, or join in on a family trip to the peninsula. One time is a fluke. Ten times? That’s “just the way people are…”
Vanity Fair’s Alaska is nonsense. It’s a fictional place described by an author who had little interest in sharing anything more than his own predetermined narrative. Sarah Palin’s Alaska, on the other hand, is the truth. It’s true because it’s also my Alaska, and your Alaska.
It’s the place where someone you’ve never met offers to take you on a four-hour sight-seeing drive. It’s a people who invite you into their home and families as if they’ve known you for years. It’s the place where a former vice-presidential nominee stands at a busy intersection in her hometown, waving campaign signs for a senatorial candidate, right alongside the “ordinary” volunteers.
The REAL Alaska is not the stuff of Gross’s article. Not at all. The REAL Alaska resides in the experiences and observations and relationships of those of us who call it “home” or, simply, our “home away from home…”
- tdc
VANITY FAIR TAKE-DOWNS:
- Dr. Gina Loudon sets the record straight on Big Journalism
- Adrienne Ross writes another stellar editorial at Motivation: Truth
*Photo courtesy Sarah’s Web Brigade and Shealah Craighead
