http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/07/01/sarah-palin-anti-fandom-and-the-nature-of-political-celebrity/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/07/01/sarah-palin-anti-fandom-and-the-nature-of-political-celebrity/comment-page-1/#comment-96084 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:51:41 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=9942#comment-96084 Really good points. I used to study civil religion in America, and to extend your argument (re Christlike suffering and martyrdom), what this then becomes is an affective embrace and popular means to merge the religious and the political through daily practices of citizenship (because, of course, you find in the church pulpits and pews of America’s right-wing churches as well).

]]> http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/07/01/sarah-palin-anti-fandom-and-the-nature-of-political-celebrity/comment-page-1/#comment-96082 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:23:47 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=9942#comment-96082 There’s a massive religious overtone, too, to claiming victim status, as it makes one Jesus- or at least saint-like. Indeed, I don’t see a conservatism anywhere else in the world that is as fond of claiming it is being lashed and crucified. And yet once again this proves how the political right in America needs to actually read the Bible they claim to be following and/or read some world history to see that religious and political persecution take way nastier forms than being made fun of by Jon Stewart, or having Bill Maher use a four-letter word to describe you. The irony here, too, is how this victimhood cohabits with sabre-rattling bravado, all of which is most evident in Palin (shouldn’t the moose-hunting, leather jacket-wearing “Mama Grizzly” be above crying to the teacher because someone called her a poopyhead?)

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