You know, I didn't set out to dislike Sarah Palin. I really didn't. I thought...Hey! New Player! Intelligent! Attractive! Has a family! Is Random (i.e. refreshing or the image of which has not been seared into our retinae by over-exposure).
But while I do think she's intelligent, I also think she's a nasty piece of unprepared wackjob work. Nasty? Fine. You'd be hard-pressed to convince me anybody since Lincoln hasn't been nasty. But ignorant? Unacceptable. Thinks humans cavorted with dinosaurs? Embarrassing.
So I balk at images of Palin fans (see photo, appearing in today's Los Angeles Times) waving Rosie the Riveter posters that say "We Can Do It!" redrawn to resemble this Alaskan femme. But though the Sarah posters are the symptom, they're not really the problem.
Thing is, Rosie was an icon designed to represent and encourage the female workforce that took over American industries during WWII while the menfolk were at war, and that image has a specific place in history.
Neither Sarah, nor anyone else besides those ladies, has that specific place. They say history repeats itself. It doesn't. Mark Twain said history rhymed. I think that's a lot closer to whatever truth is. There are trends found in history and the human behavior that makes it all worth recording, but no event, let alone a series of them, can happen exactly the same way twice.
Rosie meant something. Those women were pioneers. They rose to the challenge.
I'm not going to say that Sarah Palin doesn't "mean" something or that she isn't a pioneer because, truth be told, she is. No one can turn away from the fact that she's the first Republican female VP candidate, whatever her intellectual or training-oriented qualifications may be.
But that doesn't mean her fans have the right to co-opt a symbol. No one does; that's the point. Even were Sarah to be an unassailable paragon (and she isn't), I would still find it inappropriate to see her on that poster because to change it would be to adulterate it.
There is no replicating individuals or events. It's a disrespectful oversimplification to take these images or characterizations and apply them to the present. It's actually a disrespect to all parties because it implies that such things, acts or people are replaceable.
Those desiring mascots badly enough should have both the creativity to make their own and the deference for the past and for others' beliefs to leave preexisting, if extant, emblems alone.
This piece originally appeared on Pop + Politics.