Culturebox: Sarah Palin's Alaska

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television Sarah Palin's Alaska The former governor is a natural TV star, but it's Piper who steals the show. By Troy Patterson Posted Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010, at 7:22 PM ET It should go without saying that reality television is Sarah Palin's true calling. Liberated from the constraints of substance, possessed of a killer smile, instinctive in her camera hogging, she's a natural. On Sarah Palin's Alaska (TLC, Sundays at 9 p.m. ET), Palin continues her innovations in making the personal political and the political into postmodern theater. "People know me from the political stage," she says at the start of series, "but I'm a mother of five, and it's important to me that our kids see everything that Alaska has to offer." Also, it's important that people see her seeing that they see everything. Focusing on the clan's outdoor activities and kitchen-island mini-dramas, the show approximates a hybrid of TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8 and Teddy Roosevelt's African Game Trails. Spicing its nature jaunts and domestic scenes with empty sloganeering, it also constitutes the local travelogue of a national demagogue. No one but Palin could do this kind of show. Can you imagine a reality show titled Joe Biden's Delaware? It is tempting to take a page from the Onion and envisage the vice-president, sunburned on the boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach, brown-bagging a 40 and checking out the asses of anything that moves, but more likely, the show would mostly find him playing disc golf in Iron Hill Park. And spare me the comments that Dick Cheney's Wyoming would be an elimination competition set at a quail hunt. To continue reading, click here. Troy Patterson is Slate's television critic. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate How Strong Is Joe Miller's Argument Against "Leeza Markovsky"? I Played For the NFL's Most-Annoying Head Coach Shafer: Why Do We Give Away So Much of Our Privacy on the Web?	Advertisement
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