Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Symbolism of Bristol Palin

Bristol Palin is seventeen. She is unmarried. She is also five months pregnant.

Personally, this is no big deal. I feel sorry for her, in that no matter what happens to her baby, that choice, that decision will be with her for the rest of her life.

In today's society, where children are expected (and usually want to) leave home around age 18 and strike out on their own, deciding to keep a child means having to grow up very, very fast. All of the usual adult responsibilities -- finding a place to live, rent, utilities, independence -- all have to be renegotiated to include a small child who is utterly and wholly dependent on another young person for their very survival.

Give the child up for adoption and there's always a lingering emptiness that only the child could fill. Plus, there's the endless questions: is my child alright? did s/he find a loving set of parents to raise her/him? is s/he finding their way in life? is s/he happy? is s/he looking for me as much as I wish to be looking for him/her.

Abortion is often just as complex. The job of raising a child may be alleviated, but the reality of that child, of that life carried inside of you, that life that was a part of you, growing with and through you, never goes away. Estimated delivery dates are often remembered as would-be birthdays. They return on a yearly basis to those uncertain of their decisions or those who always have that lingering "What if..." in the back of their minds.

Any way I look at Bristol Palin's pregnancy it's a less than perfect situation. Not just for her, but for her family as well. If I had a 17 year-old daughter who was pregnant I know we would fully support whatever decision she made. If she decided to keep the child it would be the full family that raised that child, not just our daughter (and the sperm donor, should he decide to participate).

There are two things that disturb me about Bristol Palin. One is personal, for her, and another is far more symbolic:

First, being a seventeen year-old pregnant girl cannot be easy, even in the best of circumstances. Even with the full support of the family (or, reportedly, not) it's still a life-defining, life-altering challenge.  That Brisol's pregnancy is being played out on a national stage with full national attention is not just sad, its the ugliest sense of a combination of obscene (in the true Greek sense of the ob skene meaning) voyeurism and invasion of privacy.  For God's sake, let the poor girl have her privacy.

As pure symbol, devoid of person, personality and individualism, strictly viewed as an object for semeiotics, Bristol the Symbol is something quite different.

The right wing of the American politics has been quick to either brand the issue as Bristol and her family as having chosen life (now leave her alone) or being strictly a private family issue.

Now, I admit if the roles and parties were reversed we really would not know what the response/reaction would be.  However, being a relatively intelligent and knowledgeable person who follows politics, I have considered the idea for many days and I keep coming back to the same conclusions.

If, for instance, Barock Obama, another presidential candidate affiliated with a major non-Republican political party, or if Joe Biden, a Vice Presidential candidate with a major non-Republican political party, had a teenaged daughter who was pregnant, I believe the public and media discussion would be completely different.

Instead of being a respected, sequestered "private family matter" or "personal decision" the issue would be preyed upon a daily basis by the Righteous Right.  This would not be a "family who chose life", this would be a "family who, obviously, failed their daughter and have failed in their primary role as parents", who "failed to instill teach their daughter the fundamental difference between right from wrong" and "have burdened themselves and their daughter with a mistake that will distract them all from the important issues facing our country."

Worst of all, this  would have been portrayed by the Righteous Right as a personal failing by the parents and a moral failing by the parents as well as their fundamental beliefs, both as (whatever-deficient-sect-of) Christians., and as Americans.  This would not be framed as a "Choice of Life" but as a basic Moral Failing of the Parents, as the inability of the heads of the family unit, the basic unit of all America, to lead and guide those most close and important to that unit.

And, if you can't lead and guide that basic, most fundamental unit, how can you ever hope to lead an entire nation.



It's the Righteous Right's fundamental hypocrisy concerning the Symbol of Bristol Palin that I find most gut-wrenching and most offensive.

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1 comment:

Lou said...

Amen to all that. It is truly amazing how condescending the right wing can be to the opposition but throw up a wall of silence and cover-up when it is one of their own.

By the way, I am a friend of Mike's (zeppomarx) and a frequent contributor to his LiveJournal.

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