Last Saturday featured the premiere of the highly-anticipated HBO movie, Game Change. The story of the 2008 presidential campaign, it gives the audience a behind-the-scenes look at John McCain's campaign against Barack Obama. More importantly, it's about the game changer he needed to get people excited about his campaign: Sarah Palin.
Everyone knows Sarah Palin. The virtually unknown Governor of Alaska became a national sensation overnight after John McCain announced that she was his running mate. Now she is a reality TV star, Fox News correspondent, and an ubiquitous staple of late-night parody and mockery. But Game Change introduces us to the unknown Sarah, the woman she was and how she became the woman she is.
Back in 2008, John McCain wanted to run a "clean" campaign. His campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt (the puppet master played by Woody Harrelson who is probably the star of the movie) comes up with the idea of portraying Obama as a "celebrity" which leads to the memorable attack ads portraying Obama as someone who is all style and no substance. Unfortunately, McCain and his advisors discover that celebrity is what sells these days and they are still lagging behind in the polls. Desperate to inject some life into this flailing campaign, Schmidt decides that what McCain needs is a woman, someone who will get him polling higher with female voters and therefore overtake Obama's lead. With only a few days left until the Republican Convention, McCain's team has to race to find the ideal candidate, and of course, they find Palin.
At first, everything's coming up roses. Palin excites the Republican base, says all the right things, agrees to everything, and seems to be the perfect counterpart to McCain. But after the honeymoon period is over, things start going downhill fast. Her work as Governor, her policies, her family life, everything comes into question as the 24-hour news channels scramble to find a good story on this hitherto unknown woman. McCain's advisors are in for a nasty surprise when they discover that maybe they didn't do a very good job of vetting Palin before setting her up for the chance to become the second most powerful person in government. We all know about the insane interviews, the rambly run-on sentences, the "I can see Russia from my house," etc. What's more interesting is watching these advisors scramble to teach Palin about foreign policy, beginning with what exactly happened in World War I and where Germany is on the map, or trying to figure out a way to make her seem intelligent enough for the debates.
The SNL parodies are brought up throughout this film and offer a nice contrast to the Palin portrayed in the movie. Julianne Moore is doing her best to make sure her portrayal does not come off as a Tina Fey-style caricature and she does a wonderful job of humanizing Palin. You can understand how this woman feels as she faces the onslaught of information and the realization that she isn't prepared to handle things, all the while desperately missing her family. However, your sympathy won't last long. Sarah Barracuda can't be kept down for long, and once she is force fed her lines and starts winning admirers among the Republican proletariat, the power quickly goes to her head.
The movie portrays the ascendancy of Palin - everyone is convinced that she will disappear after McCain loses the election, but it becomes only too clear to the audience why that never happened. Regardless of her stupidity, Palin is a celebrity, and that's all it takes to get ahead in America. She's a star who can memorize the right lines and isn't going away without a fight. And that's why we're probably never going to forget the name Sarah Palin, as much as we would like to.
Everyone knows Sarah Palin. The virtually unknown Governor of Alaska became a national sensation overnight after John McCain announced that she was his running mate. Now she is a reality TV star, Fox News correspondent, and an ubiquitous staple of late-night parody and mockery. But Game Change introduces us to the unknown Sarah, the woman she was and how she became the woman she is.
Back in 2008, John McCain wanted to run a "clean" campaign. His campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt (the puppet master played by Woody Harrelson who is probably the star of the movie) comes up with the idea of portraying Obama as a "celebrity" which leads to the memorable attack ads portraying Obama as someone who is all style and no substance. Unfortunately, McCain and his advisors discover that celebrity is what sells these days and they are still lagging behind in the polls. Desperate to inject some life into this flailing campaign, Schmidt decides that what McCain needs is a woman, someone who will get him polling higher with female voters and therefore overtake Obama's lead. With only a few days left until the Republican Convention, McCain's team has to race to find the ideal candidate, and of course, they find Palin.
At first, everything's coming up roses. Palin excites the Republican base, says all the right things, agrees to everything, and seems to be the perfect counterpart to McCain. But after the honeymoon period is over, things start going downhill fast. Her work as Governor, her policies, her family life, everything comes into question as the 24-hour news channels scramble to find a good story on this hitherto unknown woman. McCain's advisors are in for a nasty surprise when they discover that maybe they didn't do a very good job of vetting Palin before setting her up for the chance to become the second most powerful person in government. We all know about the insane interviews, the rambly run-on sentences, the "I can see Russia from my house," etc. What's more interesting is watching these advisors scramble to teach Palin about foreign policy, beginning with what exactly happened in World War I and where Germany is on the map, or trying to figure out a way to make her seem intelligent enough for the debates.
The SNL parodies are brought up throughout this film and offer a nice contrast to the Palin portrayed in the movie. Julianne Moore is doing her best to make sure her portrayal does not come off as a Tina Fey-style caricature and she does a wonderful job of humanizing Palin. You can understand how this woman feels as she faces the onslaught of information and the realization that she isn't prepared to handle things, all the while desperately missing her family. However, your sympathy won't last long. Sarah Barracuda can't be kept down for long, and once she is force fed her lines and starts winning admirers among the Republican proletariat, the power quickly goes to her head.
The movie portrays the ascendancy of Palin - everyone is convinced that she will disappear after McCain loses the election, but it becomes only too clear to the audience why that never happened. Regardless of her stupidity, Palin is a celebrity, and that's all it takes to get ahead in America. She's a star who can memorize the right lines and isn't going away without a fight. And that's why we're probably never going to forget the name Sarah Palin, as much as we would like to.
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