Sarah, Thy Name Is Parody

Along with pestilence and a third world war, many consider Sarah Palin to be another sign of the impending apocalypse. Meanwhile, pundits and strategists can't stop masturbating over the idea of Karl Rove building Palin from scratch out of spare body parts and the souls of evil orphans like some kind of Fem Frankenstein.

Others, namely comics, see her as a punchline and think she has arrived ripe for parody.

Sara Benincasa is one of the most celebrated Sarah Palin impersonators. Her first Palin parody video has been viewed over 200,000 times on Youtube. Benincasa is a New York-based comedian and writer, and while Tina Fey and Gina Gershon may be household names, Benincasa's videos have been the biggest hit on the internet.

Recently, she sat down for an interview with me and we discussed all things Sarah Palin.

Why did you choose to imitate Mrs. Palin?

Sara Benincasa: My comedy partner Diana Saez and I were hanging around one night after a satisfying evening of Ethiopian food. We started wandering around the Internet to read about the new presumptive Republican VP nominee, Sarah Palin, who had just been announced as McCain's pick the previous day. What we read was so disturbing, so ridiculous, and ultimately so hilarious that we decided to work out our collective reaction to this nightmarish woman by slapping some makeup on me and turning on the camera. We just let the camera roll for an hour and a half and improvised the whole thing.

Do you think the prospect of Mrs. Palin as VP is more frightening or hilarious?
Sara Benincasa: Frightening. The hilarity is merely a coping mechanism.

Do you think parody and comedy are necessary because they're coping mechanisms?
Sara Benincasa: Sure, and they're also another form of citizen response and resistance.
I think they're as valid a form of resistance as protest, letter-writing campaigns, and other symbolic moves.

Since the videos went viral, Benincasa has been interviewed for online articles by ABCNews.com, Newsweek.com, and Wired.com. At one point, the video made the front page of CNN.com and Wolf Blitzer played a clip on "Situation Room:"

Is there a deep, dark, twisted part of you that thinks you and Sarah would really get along?

Sara Benincasa: Oh, God, no. She's like the evil popular girl in your high school, the one who secretly cut herself under the desk while reigning supreme over the Student Council meetings. She'll never realize that there's something wrong with her and she'll never get help because her narrow point of view suits her just fine. Plus,she's pretty, so why worry?

And tell us how you feel about this whole "experience" issue, Sara(h)...

All of the Palin videos are available at http://www.youtube.com/user/SaraBenincasa.

Benincasa can be contacted at: sarabenincasa.wordpress.com and sarabenincasa.com

Diana Saez: dianasaez.com

Comments

[floridagatorfan1]

sara benincasa you are a GEM!!!

i want stuff---a sara benincasa t-shirt? or bumper sticker????

get on ok???

[TRYKER]

Some of the comments here say they agree with what Palin said, or argue against it.
What the hell did she say?
She didn't say anything, she mangled a long sentence and wobbled away.
Yes, we can thank her for being so universal in her looks that she has imitators galore all over the globe. At least she gave us something we can use.

[lamarguerite]

Thanks Sara for being such a keen - and hilarious - observer of Ms. Palin! Parody is a powerful took, and you know how to use it so well.

For readers hungry for more Fake Sarah Palin, you can visit her blog at http://whatssarahthinking.com

[CitizenE]

Sarah Palin on American Oil:
"Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our domestic markets first."

Personally I agree: they don't flag the molecules, nor in the sense of Congress today, are there restaurants serving fungi when eltists can't compute holding the bag for caribou jerkies; it's all in the aurora borealis, you know, God's plan for ME.

[cnobody]

well, i kind of agree with her on that stance, although i don't support more drilling. right now our own country is exporting record amounts of oil to foreign markets. that doesn't seem to fit with the whole "we're too dependent on foreign oil!!!" rhetoric. now, i'm aware that there are different grades of oil and i'm certainly not educated on the markets, but it does make sense, at least to me, to keep U.S. oil here in the states, and import less of it. but like i said, i'm ignorant of th market details.... now back to your regularly scheduled show.

[CitizenE]

I was speaking to her twisted syntactical rhetoric.

What you are speaking to are transportation costs. We purchase from oil companies that are multinational in their resource supply. American oil is part of their pool. We drill; more goes in the pool, but our benefit only comes from expanding the pool to lower the price. Obviously, oil companies are interested in lowering their transportation costs. The oil companies have their financial arrangements with the countries supplying the oil. Some countries with huge oil reserves per capita, unlike ourselves, like Venezuela where there is a nationalized oil supply keep prices for locals down. In Alaska, Palin charges the gas companies; the Alaskan tax payers get rebates, and the cost of Alaskan oil at the pump is hiked for the rest of us as passed along operating costs, to some degree negating the cheaper transportation costs. Perhaps Sarah Palin is considering a nationalized, socialized energy program, but I doubt that will appear on the horizon, especially from Republicans. Most of our oil comes from the Americas--Canada, Mexico, Venezuela; our own oil is a spit in the bucket. But the reason we get so much from those countries is that it costs oil companies less to get it here. Again, what she says would make sense if we nationalized and socialized our petroleum industry: do you think this is what Mrs. Palin intends behind all this rhetoric?

[IslandGyal]

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[MizLiz]

I thought I was listening to scenes from "Fargo"!

[deliriousgod]

Oh I think every white person could do some Sarah Palin. Dig around in ugly things your parents stopped saying in the seventies(hopefully) and jokes your unmarried uncle tells. I have some Sarah Palins in my family but no one is asking them to be VP running mates.

[JonG345]

i officially have a crush on this girl. there, i've said it.

[brenner21]

Funniest part: Wolf telling you to check out "our Situation Room screen saver"

[united for change]

Sher's teh awesomesauce, no doubt about it.

There's actually an accent note, though, that is pretty crucial to Palin's "thing", and would improve her impersonation manyfold. Fey got it; it's the flattening of "-ing". Not 'speaking'.. 'doing'.. 'hunting'.. but

'speakeen' ... 'doeen' ... 'hunteen'.

Other than that, super! And scary.

[zoozey]

Yes, I have noticed Palin doing (sorry, "doin') that. But I think that she may have just recently picked that up to try to appear folksy and that is her idea of what "southern" is. It sounds really, really, fake from someone who has an otherwise sort of (movie) FARGO accent. Palin is so easy to parody, because she is such a joke.

Hey, maybe her name is really "Paling...."

[Beorh]

It IS Paling! hahahahahaha! Her name is Sarah Paling! duuuh... how could we all be so dumb?

[frustratedinohio]

Thanks for the lesson.

[hudsuckerproxy]

If Governor Wingnut's alarming promotion to the national stage has a silver lining, brilliant parodies like these are it.

[larry278]

Is Sara old enough to be VP? If Obama dumps Biden & her Hillaryship doesn't want 2d billing, he could do a lot worse. If McCain dumps Sarah, Sara would clone into Cheney. Think, John, think.

[jeanrenoir]

Actually, Palin and McCain are simply the evil popular girl and guy in high school, a perfect matched set of egomaniacal narcissists, she being the pretty girl who lords it over everyone else, he being the "heroic" macho man who does the same with the guys. Both are bullies, pure and simple. In other words, JERKS of the first order who now deserve to be destroyed in this campaign. It increasingly looks as if they will be. Almost--almost!--enough to make one believe in an angry, just Providential God.

[Lizbud]

I agree. Malheureusement, jeanrenoir, it's the popular jock and the evil cheerleader who too often get elected. The voting public aspires to be like them and identifies with them in a perverse reversal.

[kate eryn]

All demonizing aside, which is also parochial in its nature, these two folks are simply unsuited to lead our nation out of its current critical status. Maybe once we've achieved a stable, affluent society with the loving parental affection of foreign allies we can let "Palin/McCain" act out our student body government fantasies, but for now I'd rather rely on someone with an actual platform and an actual solution.

P.S. Tina Fey for VP!

[whit4brains]

OMG! That chick is hilarious!