PrintDecember 9, 2010
West Wing's Aaron Sorkin Condemns Palin, Hunters
From West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, we now have a definition of sports hunting. Seems Sorkin is none too happy with Sarah Palin offing a caribou in a recent episode of her reality show on The Learning Channel.
Sorkin, a frothing liberal, writes about Palin:
You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals."
Sorkin is right, in part. Former Governor Palin, along with an estimated 12.5 million hunters in America, tend not to kill caribou, deer, or whatever other game for survival. Hollywood and Manhattan denizen Sorkin must be thinking about Jeremiah Johnson -- the movie that is, which starred Robert Redford as the legendary mountain man and bear hunter. Now, Johnson was a fella who had to kill to eat.
As to killing for fashion? Nope. Don't know too many hunters who lug their kills' furs to Giambattista Valli's or Dries Van Noten's shop to whip them into a smart fashion. But why would Sorkin want furs or skins for fashion?
Seems that the intrepid Aaron Sorkin is something of an apostate when it comes to animal rights. Sorkin admits that he "eat[s] meat, chicken and fish, ha[s] shoes and furniture made of leather." Wow. Sorkin gets a point for being so politically incorrect. Must be scary for Sorkin to walk the red carpet at premieres knowing that some PETA loony with splash him with red paint.
Of course, what's grabbing headlines is Sorkin's outlandish, if not bizarre, claim that Palin's shooting a caribou on camera was the equivalent of her making a snuff film. Here, Sorkin is showing off his off-kilter judgment and strange values.
Snuff films, as Sorkin knows, involve actually murdering a human being on film for the enjoyment of diabolical viewers. That Sorkin would compare Palin's felling a caribou -- or any sports hunter bagging a furry four-legged creature -- on film to the heinous, inhuman act of a filmed murder for the pleasure of true degenerates is a gaudy display of the vacancy sign that hangs from Sorkin's ears.
But taking on Ol' Sarah Palin will earn Sorkin kudos from the creatures that inhabit Malibu, Beverly Hills, Soho, and Tribeca, where most of the hunting is about skirts, bars, nose candy, and the next deal.
America's sports hunters number in the millions. Most sports hunters have real families, hold down real jobs, and make real contributions to their communities; they don't make their dough posing and sprinkling fairy dust.
But Sorkin would have to go on location to find sports hunters in places like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas and, yes, Alaska to learn what they're really all about. Forbidden Zones, all, to the Hollywood and Manhattan arts set -- unless they're assured well-appointed trailers, fat paychecks, limos, damn good caterers, and upscale lodging somewhere.
Sorkin should skip the goofy moral commentary and stick to what he knows best: making highly politized schlock like West Wing.
