Column: Hustler Makes Porno Flick Titled 'Nailin' Palin'

This story was written by Bryan Murphy, The Daily Campus

Larry Flynt, founder of Hustler, has made an X-rated movie using an adult-film actress who resembles the governor of Alaska. The movie, starring adult actress Lisa Ann, is entitled "Nailin' Palin," and it will feature her engaging in foreign "relations" with her Russian neighbors, as well as a threesome between Palin, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

And it is already selling advance copies.

For some, its merely a way of spreading the truth. For others, it's a way to devalue Republican vice presidential candidate Palin as a human being, a political candidate and a woman. How better to marginalize a candidate than by appealing to the most animal instincts of her critics? How better to make Palin nothing more than an object than by reducing her to, well, an object?

By depicting Palin as a brainless sex object andtaking advantage of the popular notion that she is a political fantasy, Hustler Inc. and Flynt are perpetuating the idea that any woman, no matter how accomplished, can be reduced to the sum of her bedroom prowess. And he's not the only one. Palin, Clinton and other high-powered women have been intentionally attacked, cited as incapable of doing their job because of their gender and demeaned because of their habit of wearing skirts.

In the film, Flynt reinforces those ideas, making certain to incorporate the other women in high office in this country into a threesome fantasy. It's no secret that the threesome is the most profitable and sought-after scenario in adult entertainment. Marketing to the masses of young men consuming this material by putting three powerful women into that situation makes clear the result of Hustler's art: There's a possibility that the movie's consumers will see the precedent and apply it to all future female candidates.

America would like to consider itself enlightened. We've come a long way, baby, or so it is said. America crucifies its pariahs -- Don Imus, Lawrence Summers, etc. -- in orgiastic displays of our enlightened moral principle. But the specters of racism and of sexism have not yet been exorcised from the national consciousness, as this recent presidential election has shown. And there simply isn't enough space to go over both "ism's" here.

The unfortunate specter of sexism has hung over this presidential election from the moment that Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy during the Democratic primaries. Sexism had seemingly been eliminated along with Clinton -- for a reversion to the normative mean of pure patriarchy in presidential elections, which is hardly any better -- when Palin stepped onto the scene with her introduction as McCain's nominee.

McCain's reasons for selecting Palin have always seemed suspect; she certainly lacks the political experience that might be expected of the candidate for such a powerful position. It seems likely that Palin was selected simply to cement McCain's "maverick" status, a truly deplorable circumstance which speaks volumes about our national character -- how sad it is when it is viewed as entirely off-the-wall to select a member of a group comprising over 50 percent of the population as one's vice presidential nominee.

However, "sexiness" is the ultimate weapon of those who would demean Palin as an individual. The sexy paradigm serves as a particularly insidious tool because it sneaks in through the front door of supposed positivism -- who doesn't want to be sexy, right? But as the sexual compliments flow over Palin, they wash away the respect she deserves. In the modern mindset, a woman cannot be both sexy and powerful.

And of course, leave it to the "alternative" media to finish what the mainstream media has started.