Julianne Moore Humanizes Sarah Palin

In the HBO docudrama “Game Change,”Alaska’s infamous Gov. Sarah Palin, played by Hollywood star Julianne Moore, is a role model for women. America’s right wing is outraged.

If Julianne Moore’s version of Sarah Palin had been running for office in 2008, who knows how the election might have turned out? In the role of Alaska’s ex-governor, Moore plays Palin minus the shrillness, the insolence and the trailer-trash sexiness Palin’s detractors found so unbearable.

Moore’s Palin has great empathy for little people and is determined to protect her family from exploitation by the media; she deserves sympathy as well as respect for her struggles in an impossibly difficult situation. Instead of dismissing Moore’s interpretation as “Hollywood lies,” Palin might have given her a sisterly hug instead.

An imposition and a security risk

Even if every word Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s campaign manager, gave to journalists after McCain’s defeat had been lies, there was still ample proof for Palin’s ignorance in her scandalous television interviews. The more director Jay Roach looked into the Palin character, the more he sympathized with the woman who was torn from America’s hinterlands and thrust upon the national stage only to soon be treated by McCain’s team like a recalcitrant prisoner.

“Game Change” fairly showed that Palin dealt with the multinational oil companies and often cooperated with her political opposition. That may have been good enough for an Alaskan governor, but for the number two spot in national politics, just a heartbeat away from the presidency, many conservative columnists considered her an imposition and a danger to national security.

Here’s where Jay Roach and scriptwriter Danny Strong go too easy on a wildly cursing Sen. McCain who can’t get along with Palin’s deservedly worried husband. McCain has also refused to watch the film that he says contains unattributed quotations, fictitious situations and Palin caricatures.

McCain’s wife Cindy adds angrily, “I lived this, and from everything I’ve read and heard, it doesn’t even resemble what took place. I can go to Disneyland for fiction.” She added, Sarah Palin is “a strong and independent woman. I think what happened to her was entirely unfair.”

Palin’s colleagues and admirers have produced their own video titled “Fact Change” that reminds the public how effusively politicians and many journalists praised her electrifying charisma. They see Palin as being martyred by liberal conspiracies and right-wing betrayal. She will, by the way, get her revenge a few days from now when her propaganda film “Undefeated” is released.

Palin ended her political career in July 2009 when she resigned as governor of Alaska. She remains influential in Republican politics, and her “Mama Grizzlies” more often than not attained their electoral goals. She remains a star for the many delighted women fans who feel they were both understood and represented by Palin.

It must be this loyalty that moved Palin to announce on Super Tuesday that, if called upon to help her troubled party, she’s not rejecting the possibility of entering the race this summer. And if it does get to that point, she needs to study Julianne Moore’s portrayal of her. Sarah Palin could learn a lot from Sarah Palin.