“Sarah Palin’s Alaska” conjures images of taxidermy-endangered species, Zambonis over frozen lakes, and drills off the Pacific – not the stuff of ideal nature programming. This fall, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” will not only be an ecologist’s worst nightmare, but also a new reality show starring everyone’s favorite ex-vice presidential candidate.In the documentary-style series, Palin will do what she does best: deliver scripted, prompted, heavily-edited rhetoric while propped against a background of Alaskan wilderness.
Environmentalist, Palin is not. But what the former Alaskan governor, of “Drill baby, drill” fame, lacks in a sense of ecological responsibility she makes up in opportunism.
Discovery bought the rights to the eight-episode series at a reported $1 million a pop, said Reuters. “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” will join the ranks of The Learning Channel’s (TLC) family-friendly programming, including “Jon and Kate Plus Eight” and “Little People, Big World.”
TLC’s Web site released a statement from Discovery’s Chief Operating Officer Peter Ligouri, who said, “Discovery Communications is so excited to help Sarah Palin tell the story of Alaska … to reveal Alaska’s powerful beauty as it has never been filmed, and as told by one of the state’s proudest daughters.”
Palin is famous for shooting Alaskan wildlife, just not with cameras. In her family home in Wasilla, animal skins cover the furniture, an assortment of antlers guard the walls, and stuffed wildlife grace the coffee table.
Putting aside Palin’s campy taste in home-decor, her political resumé makes her an even less likely candidate for hosting a nature show. This is the same Alaskan who consistently fights against expanding the endangered species list to include her home state’s wildlife, enthusiastically supports offshore drilling, and denies environmentally-based causes of global warming.
In a 2008 op-ed piece for The New York Times, Palin wrote, “(Polar bears) are worthy of our utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat. But adding polar bears to the nation’s list of endangered species, as some are now proposing, should not be part of those efforts.”
It seems that the hunter is Palin’s cause, her endangered species of choice. The former governor’s efforts against the polar bear are only slightly less obvious than her support for aerial hunting. In this sport, pilots take to the sky and chase fleeing wolves to exhaustion while hunters shoot at the animals from the safety of the helicopter. Palin has promoted legislation and even offered bounties to uphold this decades-old tradition.
An educational documentary series should be a welcomed addition to the nature-programming scene. But for a politician who sides with oil companies in discussions of endangered species, this show is yet another exploitation of Alaska’s natural beauty.
Since leaving her post as Alaska’s governor in July 2009, Palin would seem to have put her political drive on the back burner. But many speculate that Palin is utilizing the blurring separation of Hollywood and state to her political advantage.
In the time since her summer resignation, Palin published a best-selling autobiography, joined the right-wing ranks of Fox News as a regular contributor, and made numerous television appearances, perhaps most notably on the “Oprah Winfrey Show.”
Creeping her way into the mainstream consciousness, nothing Palin does between now and the 2012 election (in which she is speculated to run) will be politically neutral. And “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is just another kissed baby in the course of her political career.
This nature series will work to erase an environmentally unfriendly political history from the minds of TLC’s family viewers. The campaign trail begins here.
As Palin’s name becomes a brand bought by an increasing number of networks, it is less likely that the sun will ever set on Sarah Palin’s Alaska. Viewer, beware.