Snow White Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Laughter, Pleasure, Malice, and the Pursuit of Adult Fun
Gina Barreca, Ph.D. is Professor of English at UConn, and author of It's Not That I'm Bitter: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World. See full bio

Bristol Palin on the cover of PEOPLE?

Is Bristol really the best spokesmodel for Teen Moms?

Essentially what the cover of PEOPLE magazine--you can find it on the newsstand-- says is "Bristol Palin: Knocked Up but Not Knocked Down."

Is that really a theme song we want the teen girls of America to be singing?

According to PEOPLE, Bristol and Levi ("Never date a guy who is named after a brand of pants" should have been her motto--I mean, she wouldn't have a dated a boy named Docker, Cargo, or Cut-Off, would she? Well...) used condoms-- but they didn't use them all the time.

Talk about lazy....

I mean, she absolutely KNEW "the consequences of sex" (the quote on the cover of the mag says she had no idea) because otherwise she and the Puck wouldn't have used Trogans at all. So it's a lie, the worst kind of afterthought: "Okay, I DID this but you shouldn't."

Every human being, from Adam and Eve onwards, who had sex they regretted, has said "Okay, I DID this but you shouldn't."

Look, what this poor young woman is doing is NOT Prevention Activism (which is what the Palins call it): it's pious hypocrisy.

This bright-eyed, white-smiled, well-connected girl is no more representative of most REAL LIVE single moms under aged twenty than Miley Cyrus is reprentative of most eleventh graders.

Most high school girls who get pregnant are not going to look all sparkly cute on the cover of a major glossy; most of them are going to have tough, tough lives and not go to college or lose their baby weight fast or have an ex-boyfriend who will be "encouraged" to make sure he remembers to pay child support by Secret Service guys
coming to his house fully armed.

It's not that I'm bitter, but is Bristol really the best spokesmodel for Teen Moms?



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