A Review of Sarah Palin's Alaska

Mixing nature, family and politics, Sarah Palin's Alaska positions the Mama Grizzly in Chief for reality-TV fame

By James Poniewozik Friday, Nov. 05, 2010
    • Gilles Mingasson / TLC / Getty Images for Mark Burnett

    In a still from the reality show Sarah Palin's Alaska , the former governor buys a gun at a shop in Wasilla.

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    Eventually, the Palins erect a 14-ft. privacy fence, which Palin, just as any other concerned parent would, analogizes to securing the U.S.-Mexico border. "I thought that was a good example, what we just did," she says. "Others could look at it and say, 'This is what we need to do to secure our nation's border.'"

    Liberals can dispute whether Palin can call herself a feminist, but she certainly believes the personal is political. And there's a ton of personal in Sarah Palin's Alaska . She makes cupcakes with daughter Piper, who, we learn, calls her mom "Sarah" when she wants to get her attention. When teen daughter Willow has a male friend visit, Palin points to a baby-proofing gate at the foot of the stairs. "It's not just for [toddler son] Trig," she says. "It's for 'No boys go upstairs.' " (The boy hops the gate anyway.) Eldest daughter Bristol and grandson Tripp — whose out-of-wedlock conception became news during Palin's 2008 VP race — are often on the scene too.

    Above all, there's hubby Todd, Palin's "helpmate," working the camera in the family TV studio and bouncing around ideas on tax policy. He talks her through her fear of heights when they rock climb on Denali. She needles him over his macho pride in "bringing home the bacon" when he catches the first salmon.

    In style, Sarah Palin's Alaska is a hybrid of various popular shows that TLC's parent company, Discovery Networks, puts on. There's the domestic hurly-burly of Kate Plus Eight , the wildlife vistas of Planet Earth , the blue collar work of Dirty Jobs , the rugged, forbidding Alaska of Deadliest Catch . But all the natural majesty is seen through a Palinesque frame. While fishing, the Palins spy a mama bear — Palin's chosen metaphor for fierce, female GOP pols — defending her territory. (Lest the moment be too perfect, Palin allows that the mama was a brown bear, not a grizzly, her preferred rhetorical species.) "I love watching these mama bears," Palin says. "They've got a nature humankind could learn from."

    The Simple Life
    Producer Mark Burnett ( Survivor ) makes full use of Alaska's rich natural photo-op reserves: Palin shooting a rifle, felling a tree, trekking in snowshoes. And the episodes open with a country-rock anthem — "You need a place to be your/ Sanctuary/ Follow me there/ Come on, follow me there" — that you could, closing your eyes, imagine being played as someone takes the stage at a convention.

    In other words, you're seeing more than pretty mountains. You're seeing Sarah Palin, through her state, embody a nostalgic America almost unrecognizable in the rest of the country today: where blue collar work can earn a good living, where people live close to the land (using four-wheel-drive vehicles because they need them) and where the good life is blessed without seeming snobby. (When the Palins go salmon fishing or rock climbing, a "bush plane" pulls up to the dock on the lake in their front yard; they road-trip across the state in a mammoth tour bus befitting Spi&numl;al Tap.)

    Does showing this image on reality TV humanize a controversial public figure while burnishing her tough-woman cred? Or does it weaken a politician who already faces doubts about her qualifications for high office? That depends in part on how much you believe the old yardsticks of authority — projecting gravitas, finishing terms in office — still matter. GOP guru Karl Rove has said the show does not send a message "that helps me see you in the Oval Office." But Palin does not seem to especially crave Rove's approbation or consider Establishment criticism a liability. And if you were positioning a candidate for office, you could do worse than spend an hour a week placing her amid a rich landscape that embodies frontier optimism and individualism. The Palin's in Sarah Palin's Alaska is a possessive. But you could be forgiven for suspecting it's really a contraction — Sarah Palin Is Alaska — or for wondering if someone is hoping for a spin-off: Sarah Palin's America .

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