The US Republicans are getting very angry these days, aren’t they? Those McCain rallies are starting to get a bit boisterous whenever the uppity Negro – you know who I mean – gets mentioned. Well, if they were lacking something to get really angry about, they’ve got a good cause now. Yes, it’s your friend and mine, that old sexist reprobate Larry Flynt, who’s releasing a Sarah Palin-themed porno under the Hustler imprint.
We should, of course, have seen this coming a mile off. Larry loves his political satire, as Rev Falwell painfully found out. He’s quite serious about political advocacy, especially around civil liberties issues (check out his book Sex, Lies and Politics for an idea of what makes him tick politically). He hates the religious right, and he really, really hates the moralising hypocrites who are so much in evidence on the religious right. So Palin getting the scabrous Flynt treatment is only natural. Not to mention the Republican base’s outrage at Palin being sneered at by metropolitan elitists, which has some truth behind it – as a born-and-bred hillbilly, Larry is allowed to sneer at her cornpone folksiness all he likes.
So, hitting the video stores soon will be milftastic industry veteran Lisa Ann playing America’s hottest governor. I can’t honestly say I’m familiar with her body of work, although the cognoscenti reckon she’s a reliably filthy performer, as one would hope. You may cast your eye over the image above and say that she doesn’t really bear that striking a resemblance to Governor Palin, but at least she’s in the right age bracket, and you know, the right hairdo and a pair of power specs might work wonders. I’m also intrigued by the casting of socialist porn star Nina Hartley in the role of Hillary Clinton.
But, much as I love Nina, this opus probably isn’t going to make my must-watch list. Although the concept is sound, I confidently expect the execution to be horrible. For one thing, Who’s Nailin’ Paylin is a shockingly lazy title. Larry should be ashamed of himself, especially with a gimme like Drill Baby Drill conveniently to hand. So we probably aren’t talking the height of sophistication here. Anyway, it can’t possibly be as funny as the classic Linda Lovelace for President.
Unless, of course, Larry throws in some unspeakable act involving a moose…
But I suppose this is what you get when you’ve a succession of facile male media pundits who can’t seem to find anything worth saying about Palin except to remark on her sex appeal, or to put it more bluntly her fuckability. This might go some way to explaining why Palin’s polling numbers are a good deal higher among men than women. (I’d also not be surprised if she had developed a lesbian cult following. She has that tomboy-femme thing that lots of gay girls find irresistible.) But really, you’re electing one of the highest offices in the country, and the eye-candy quotient of the running mate becomes one of the major talking points?
And don’t even get me started on Justin Webb…
Harpymarx said,
October 13, 2008 at 1:08 pm
And the film also involves “the Guv” getting physical with 2 Russian soliders….apparently.
Oh My!!
Madam Miaow said,
October 13, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Hmmm. There’s a bit of a “soil the bitch” thang going on here that makes me squirm — and not in a nice way.
How do you bring down a powerful woman? In the heads of all those little boys with the vote over there, imagine her fucking. A lot.
“… socialist porn star Nina Hartley …”
What the frack is one of them?
Madam Miaow said,
October 13, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Oh, THAT Nina Hartley. She of the finest pussy-eating lesson evah! And I’m not talking stir-fried in a wok, people.
Is Air Lingus like Air Guitar?
Mark P said,
October 13, 2008 at 9:21 pm
It’s a pretty grotesque move from a pretty grotesque company. There are no shortage of reasons to criticise Sarah Palin and no shortage of legitimate ways to do it, but this is clearly dripping with misogyny.
harpymarx said,
October 13, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I agree with what Madam Miaow and Mark P. say and indeed there are legitimate ways of criticising Palin (sorry if I sounded flippant in my original comment) and this exposes the misogyny as opposed to criticising Palin’s politics. The usual sexist double-standards.
Madam Miaow said,
October 13, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Harpy’s right about double standards. The visceral emotion involved in sexualising and then trashing her takes the place of legitimate criticism and I feel I’m being suckered by charlatans.
Even loathing Thatcher, I still found myself defending the disgusting monster from mysogynist attacks as to join in would be to participate in an attack on ourselves as women. All those words you can submit to and submerge into: bitch, harridan, virago, whore, cunt … Hey, they’re talking about us, sis. Annoying ’cause some of those words are highly satisfying to use. (And “bitch” describes pretty well the phenomenon of women who hate women of whom there are a few around, let’s not pretend otherwise.)
But if Flynt ends up making me defend Palin I’m gonna git me one a them BFGs the little lady likes to flaunt …
BTW, did anyone notice how little the actress gets paid for this job? It was advertised as $2,000 to $3,000.
harpymarx said,
October 13, 2008 at 11:53 pm
“Even loathing Thatcher, I still found myself defending the disgusting monster from mysogynist attacks as to join in would be to participate in an attack on ourselves as women.”
Indeed Madam Miaow. The number of the times I heard so many criticisms of Thatcher based on the fact she was a woman as opposed to her vile and vicious anti-working class policies. Attack her politics not her gender. It was an excuse to indulge in misogyny.
splinteredsunrise said,
October 14, 2008 at 7:50 am
Well yes, it’s in poor taste, and yes, it’s deeply sexist. This is of course Flynt we’re talking about, not John Pilger. I always expect him to take the low road, and because he’s the court jester and grotesquerie is his stock in trade, that’s why the flippant response.
I actually thought the really shocking misogyny came out during the Democratic primaries, but not many people seemed to notice it. And I say that as someone who really doesn’t like Clinton. Palin has got a terribly easy ride by comparison.
On the other hand, Nina Hartley is definitely one of the good guys. I wish she was running for president.
ejh said,
October 14, 2008 at 8:15 am
I actually thought the really shocking misogyny came out during the Democratic primaries, but not many people seemed to notice it. And I say that as someone who really doesn’t like Clinton.
You wouldn’t provide us with some examples?
skidmarx said,
October 14, 2008 at 9:22 am
My great aunt was a member of the Labour Party for 60-odd years and told me once she couldn’t bear to watch Thatcher on TV. She might have referred to her as “that woman”. Isn’t it inevitable that strong dislike of politicians will in some way focus on their personal attributes, and that any unpopular politician will have people say “They are only being attacked/ attacked harder because they are female/gay/black”? There was an article in yesterday’s Guardian claiming this of Baron Mandelson of Fop.
Jimmy McNulty said,
October 14, 2008 at 10:55 am
I genuinely did not know that Mandelson was of Jewish descent until Henry McDonald in the Observer told me that Anti-Semitism was the reason nationalists didn’t like him.
Sexism against Hilary? ‘Iron my shirt’ signs at rallies, ‘vote for a bro not a ho’ signs at rallies, etc, etc. I don’t like her either but you gotta say she was was picked on. Whereas Palin has played up the VPILF thing to an extent.
Chris Williams said,
October 14, 2008 at 11:42 am
Oddly enough, the thing that wound me up the most about criticism of Thatcher was the line “She’s not _really_ a woman”, said by both men and women who would have considered themselves to be on the left. They were categorising ‘real women’ as women who signed up to a certain set of values regarding (I think) an idea of sisterhood. It seemed to me, then and now, that this was as intellectually dodgy as it was morally repugnant: it merely turned the traditional ladylike attributes upside down, rather than going beyond them any.
skidmarx said,
October 14, 2008 at 1:11 pm
When I hitched a lift with a Nazi once, he told me “Behind every problem in the world, there’s a Jew. Jack Straw’s a Jew, Mandelson’s a Jew. Tony Blair’s a Jew, you can tell because his ears are lower than his nose.”
Off topic I see today’s BBC News has an item on how the retail sector in Six Counties border towns is escaping what Ricky Hatton calls the credit card crunch.
“She’s not _really_ a woman”
I don’t recall this. Maybe I was too young. I can remember “When Britain was a kingdom we had a king, now we’re a country we have Margaret Thatcher.” I would have thought obsession with her sexuality was stronger with Tories perving over her.
‘Iron my shirt’ signs at rallies, ‘vote for a bro not a ho’
OK the first is bad. The second just seems to have found a convenient rhyme. I hardly think anyone was actually suggesting she’d been peddling her ass in Times Square, except conceivably as a political metaphor.
almata said,
October 14, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I once met Nina Hartley (and her boyfriend and girlfriend) at a Socialist Scholars conference in the 90’s. Hers was one of the best attended events of the conference. Of course the room was filled with excitable leftist porn fans, which kind of made me squirm a little bit. This was no Adult Video Awards ceremony and the Nina’s fans, especially among the more vanguard elements, all seemed to show up as if they were going to a XXX theater in the seventies— all long coats and hats pulled down. Nina (and her partners) were unapologetically red. She ended her talk be saying that if she could she would give everyone in the room head at which point three sex-deprived Workers World members fell off their chairs. She even asked to pose with me for a picture because she liked my commie t-shirt (which I have sadly misplaced). Viva Nina!
ejh said,
October 14, 2008 at 1:40 pm
‘Iron my shirt’ signs at rallies, ‘vote for a bro not a ho’ signs at rallies, etc, etc.
Was there a lot of this though?
I know it’s hard to quantify – and for that reason, not an entirely fair question to ask – but it’s worth asking nevertheless. It might have been rife or it might have been one poster and one T-shirt at one rally apiece.
Madam Miaow said,
October 14, 2008 at 4:52 pm
“My great aunt was a member of the Labour Party for 60-odd years and told me once she couldn’t bear to watch Thatcher on TV. She might have referred to her as “that woman”.”
Remarkably restrained of your great aunt, skidmarx, considering all the epithets she deserved.
I couldn’t help laughing at ““When Britain was a kingdom we had a king, now we’re a country we have Margaret Thatcher” for a mo. And I sometimes catch myself, when the red mist descends, calling some parties “cunts”. (Whoo!) We all have baggage because we live inside the system, not on a mountain-top above it. But it’s good to take stock and understand where it comes from so we’re not blindly led by the nose (or any other anatomical region) up someone else’s ideological garden path.
skidmarx said,
October 14, 2008 at 4:55 pm
It might even have been “That awful woman”.
Is it possible that Iron My Shirt Guy was a plant by the Clinton campaign ?
skidmarx said,
October 15, 2008 at 8:38 am
A friend of mine standing for student union finance officer once was very upset when one of her posters was defaced with the words “Well fuckable”, so I can see that such attacks work. Though in her case when you look like Minnie Driver but better looking it’s not all that surprising, and her left-wing opponent did complain that that was what got her elected. Mind you, the last time I saw her she was teaching econometrics at a fairly prestigious university.
ejh said,
October 15, 2008 at 8:48 am
What’s econometrics?
Trivia question for the day: which pop singer of the Seventies and Eighties is now a Professor of Design?
splinteredsunrise said,
October 15, 2008 at 9:11 am
It’s that curious discipline that seeks to reduce economics to the certainties of mathematics. And if you think that’s bad, thank Christ the cliometrics fad in history departments didn’t last.
D. J. P. O'Kane said,
October 15, 2008 at 10:06 am
WTF is cliometrics?
As for Larry Flynt, this is a man whose magazine once carried a front page image of a pair of women’s legs sticking out of a mincing machine. What more proof do you need, regarding the question of what Larry Flynt really is? I mean, what does that fucking tell you?
Oh, and this Nina Hartley – do her movies avoid the use of misogynistic of the Flynt type, or is she also enmeshed in the system in the manner Madam M. describes above?
Garibaldy said,
October 15, 2008 at 10:23 am
For a great attack on cliometrics by a serious historian, people should read Hobsbawm’s On History, which has a fairly devestating attack on the whole concept.
skidmarx said,
October 15, 2008 at 11:21 am
“I mean, what does that fucking tell you?”
That he’s not afraid of powerful imagery. Before I accept a negative connotation (that you don’t actually clearly articulate) I’d have to see the image and its context.
Of course Larry Flynt has made a life of objectifying women. Maybe such objectification may be objectionable in many public arenas. But why should someone not be allowed to do so in private for sexual satisfaction, or do you think closing one’s eyes during sex and fantasising about someone other than your current partner should be outlawed?
D. J. P. O'Kane said,
October 15, 2008 at 11:30 am
I prefer to think of it as doing my duty to the party, you petit-bourgeois reactionary.
Chris Williams said,
October 15, 2008 at 11:43 am
Birmingham? I go to to the annual conference of the Economic History Society often enough to note a distinct shortage of eye-candy. Of either sex.
Cliometrics did last, it’s just that all the cliometricians decided to join economics departments where they are happy. This is annoying, as it was handy having some people around the place who could count. The bigger problem is that nobody does economic history A-Level any more, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about why and how the early C21st is screwed up.
ejh said,
October 15, 2008 at 1:09 pm
more potatoes, a few articles of cotton clothing for his family, soap and candles, some tea and sugar, and a great many articles in the Economic History Review
I did a term’s Economic History at Oxford. Afterwards, Christ, you could understand why Thompson wrote that. Absolutely no willingness whatsoever (the dons, that is) to entertain the idea that there might be anything to quarrel with in a historical process so long as average living standards were a little bit higher at the end.
splinteredsunrise said,
October 15, 2008 at 2:13 pm
And this might add a little context.
Chris Williams said,
October 15, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Yes, ejh, but some bugger needs to count this sort of thing up, once in a while, or we are left merely with Panglossian eedjits claiming that everything’s OK cos Hayek said so, and the only ‘alternative’ seems to be swirling meta-narratives failing to contradict one another while spindoctors ‘create reality’ without regard to the fact that nature bats last. Drives me mad – can you tell?
But more to the point, who is skidmarx’s foxy friend?
Brigadier Miaow said,
October 15, 2008 at 3:02 pm
“… or do you think closing one’s eyes during sex and fantasising about someone other than your current partner should be outlawed? …”
Only if the punishment is absolutely terrifying and doled out by a six foot dom commissar with stupendous breasts. Will we have those after the revolution? Will we?Willwewillwewillwe? Huh?
(Down, Caesar, this is not for you. Have a Bonio instead.)
D. J. P. O'Kane said,
October 15, 2008 at 3:27 pm
What I want to know is, what does Mrs. Sunrise think of her husband’s ‘gentleman’s gallery’?
Brigadier Miaow said,
October 15, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I hear it on good authority, D.J, that “Mrs Sunrise” is packed away safely in her box under the bed until Splinty gets out the old bicycle pump which he is wont to do of a Saturday night after a good political meeting down the Three Ferrets.
I used to do clitometrics, y’know.
splinteredsunrise said,
October 15, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Ouch! And a bicycle pump, forsooth. I haven’t even owned a bicycle since I was ten. Back in the old days in Corca Dorcha when we all had bare feet and grey wool breeches…
Phil said,
October 15, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Aha! The mask slips at last! Your name’s JAMS O’DONNELL!
Brigadier Miaow said,
October 15, 2008 at 8:47 pm
“Ouch! And a bicycle pump, forsooth. I haven’t even owned a bicycle since I was ten.”
How else you going to blow up the inflatable Mrs S? A foot pump lacks the finesse and erotic symbolism, although mouth-to-valve would at least develop your embouchure so no-one could accuse you of being a Poor Mouth again without fear of contradiction and osculation.
skidmarx said,
October 16, 2008 at 9:13 am
“It’s that curious discipline that seeks to reduce economics to the certainties of mathematics”
When I studied economics at university it was noticeable that virtually all my peers had taken exclusively arts subjects at A-Level, and having done no mathematics for two years were generally ill-equipped for the compulsory Maths For Economics course in which the most difficult maths was some simultaneous equations. Perhaps some reasonable degree of numeracy would help in considering economic questions.
Nikolkisska said,
October 29, 2008 at 6:05 am
Разбей на абзацы, а то читать тяжко
RobM said,
November 6, 2008 at 9:57 am
Well, i guess they won’t be making a sequel anytime soon.