Too lightweight for Sarah Palin jokes

On the strength of Hugh Grant's movie persona, we chose last night to watch Marc Lawrence's 2009 movie, Did You Hear about the Morgans? Grant plays Paul Morgan, who is separated from his wife Meryl, played by Sarah Jessica Parker. New Yorkers, he's a lawyer and she's the head of a real estate agency. Because they are seen by a murderer to have witnessed the act, they are co-opted into a witness protection program and end up in the very small town of Ray, Wyoming, guests of the Wheelers.
    The movie attempts to derive humor from contrasting their eastern values with those of the locals. For example, having seen Emma Wheeler purchasing guns at a big discount store before they know who she is, Meryl says upon being introduced, "I thought you were Sarah Palin." And when Emma offers them "bacon or sausage, or both" for breakfast, Meryl says she's a vegetarian, a member of P.E.T.A. "That stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals." Emma replies that she's a member of P.E.T.A. too. "I'm for People Eating Tasty Animals."

But these jokes just don't work. The movie is so lightweight that it can't supply the bite required by the rather serious material of Sarah Palin, guns, eating animals, walls lined with trophy heads, and smoking in restaurants.
    It's too lightweight, too, to justify an actor of Grant's ability to convince an audience that he's a real person, though it's about the right weight for the Sex in the City maven.
    The movie sorely disappoints, although I did enjoy its using Paul Morgan's having had sex with another woman in Los Angeles as the reason the Morgans were separated. This seemed a clear reference to Hugh Grant's having spoiled his relationship with supermodel Elizabeth Hurley by having a tryst with a black prostitute in that city in 1995. Paul's attempt to downplay the affair seemed reminiscent of Grant's real comments at the time. For example, "I think you know in life what's a good thing to do and what's a bad thing, and I did a bad thing. And there you have it."

Sarah Palin may be a lightweight herself, but her power to rouse destructive passions is no laughing matter. When otherwise intelligent people say that they all-caps LOVE her, you know that they're unconscious of something very wrong inside themselves, often a virulent racism that they suffer from but deny they do, not only to others but to themselves.