In the newest reality TV bomb Life’s a Tripp, Sarah Palin kisses a handgun which she receives for her 48th birthday, but this should come as no surprise for a woman who loves her metaphors with guns.
The Palin matron clearly upstages the show’s main subject, Bristol, although she obviously tries to stay in the background, during the few scenes towards the end of the show, when the family is celebrating her birthday. What is it about Sarah Palin and the camera that loves her? Even when she does kiss her pretty new handgun, she looks fab.
That’s because Sarah Palin is not afraid to be all-woman and all-mom while kissing and shooting those guns, of which she has a formidable collection. And this is why Bristol swoons over her, calling Sarah the best mom in the world. Really, she is. She wants Bristol to get out there and succeed, which is why she insists on staying very much in a supporting role on her daughter’s show. It is admirable, and it’s not her fault if the camera magnet seeks her out.
The show’s overall theme seemed to be the importance of family – and the importance, specifically, of dads, as the episode comes back to the theme of Levi’s absence from Tripp’s life. Willow and Bristol squabble over Bristol’s lack of discipline in bringing up Tripp, and the boy is shown getting into typical 3-year-old mischief and defiance. The family patriarch, none other than Todd Palin, steps into the fray and lays down the ground parenting rules for Bristol, reminding her that her mother Sarah would take on both the nurturing and the disciplining of the children when he was gone on his weeklong job assignments.
If there were ever any doubts about Todd’s presence, role and importance in the Palin hierarchy, those doubts were put to rest during the episode. One word out of him and you know that you don’t mess with Todd, people. He lays down the law and the rule, no doubt about it. He tells Bristol to get off her pity horse and off the couch and do something – like, right now. He is the power behind the pretty face that is Sarah Palin, the political figure, make no mistake.
The Palin clan is an interesting conservative counterpoint – or perhaps complement – to that other conservative reality television mega-clan, the Duggars. Both families seem to be indelibly following a set of rules and lifestyle trajectories etched in stone and not up for debate. Perhaps that is what can be said to define conservative – a complete disregard for questioning the status quo. It is also what makes for the dismal ratings. If there are no questions, there can be no searching. The end.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Comments
#1 Reality
As a long time Alaskan...I can tell you that we don't need to be talking about Palin. She is never going to be elected to anything. I stood in the rain on Denali and Northern Lights holding signs for her in the rain on governor's election day. She is a FLAKE and a FREELOADER who is motivated by revenge and greed, not to mention fame. She is the epitomy of phony, and she is NOT HOT... Angelina J. ? I think not.
#2 Discipline? Sarah Palin???
It should be fairly obvious to anyone who's watched these episodes of "Bristol Palin: Life's a Tripp" that Bristol learned everything she knows about raising children and being the adult insisting on rules and discipline from that mother Todd Palin said managed all that while he was working one-week-one, one-week-off on "the Slope".
In other words, she learned nothing because Sarah Palin was a poor disciplinarian, disinterested in being "the adult in the room". Sarah Palin's son was a vandal and a hockey "enforcer" often suspended from the team for unnecessary roughness. Her older two daughters were wild children, engaging in drinking/drug parties, vandalism, and camping parties without parental permission or supervision. Her youngest daughter has missed school for months.
I think it is far more likely that Todd Palin attempted to instill discipline and order in the household over and over again in those weeks he was back at home from his job "on the Slope". Anyone can guess how well that worked.