I remember when Madonna was a rising star and even if you didn't like her music, you had to watch.
The videos, cranking out their steamy controversial sexual and religious connotations. The book, the interviews, the documentary she made, "Truth or Dare" so ahead of its time, way before any reality tv, in which Warren Beatty, her then-lover laments that in Madonna's life, if she can't be filmed, she won't be interested in doing it.
Madonna was so cutting edge that subsequent to her going out there on the publicity limb, there were actual college courses dedicated to her, units of Women's Studies Syllabi that outlined several weeks of working toward a cultural understanding of her influence on women, children, men, relationships, sexual identity, female empowerment, S and M, bondage, freedom, and more.
Sarah Palin strikes a similar chord in me as I watch her shamelessly propagandize herself, marketing her particular brand of woman power as the hottest thing since Cleopatra and a lot more fun! Her daughter's pregnancy and early motherhood, her simultaneous late motherhood of a child with special needs, Dancing With The Stars, Sarah's Tea Party exploits and TLC Reality television show and finally, her book tour which is already garnering such controversy as a result of her comments about the Obamas that people can't wait to read it just because they dislike her so very much.
She is unabashedly attention-seeking in a way that says to me, simply: "Madonna." She uses whatever means necessary to get you to pay attention to her, whether you want to or not. Television, radio, books, tweets, blogs, interviews, ads; I will not be surprised if she comes out with a Miley Cyrus duet or a Whip My Rifle Back and Forth video. To tell the truth, I don't understand what Sarah Palin stands for, at all, and I'm not quite sure she does, either. I only know that she knows that she wants you and me and everyone else, to know her and buy stock in her because, well, she wants you to.
It may be that young women in forty years will study the influence of her "work" as the sun sets on her life and career (although in her eighties, she still may be very relevant).
But for now, let me just say, I will sit on the sidelines and watch and hope that, like Madonna, Sarah Palin too will someday just mellow out and do some yoga.
Aimee Boyle is a writer, teacher and mother in CT. She is a regular contributor to EmpowHER.