-
Alan O’Day, R.I.P.
May 20, 2013 | 1 comment
-
Elijah Harper, R.I.P.
May 18, 2013 | 1 comment
-
That’s a Lot of Caca in Caracas
May 16, 2013 | 7 comments
-
Canadian PM: Keystone XL Pipeline “Absolutely Needs To Go Ahead.”
May 16, 2013 | 2 comments
-
Has Obama Done Sufficient Damage Control With The IRS?
May 15, 2013 | 8 comments
The Spectacle Blog
When the Kennedy Center announced it was bestowing the Mark Twain Prize to Tina Fey last June, I made the case that she wasn’t funny.
She was given the award on November 9th and PBS broadcast the ceremony this past Sunday night. Needless to say, I didn’t watch the proceedings. I was too busy watching Sarah Palin on TLC. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one.
As it turns out, Ms. Fey had some choice words for the former Alaska Governor, although they weren’t included in the broadcast:
And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women — except, of course — those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape ‘kit ‘n’ stuff. But for everybody else, it’s a win-win. Unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years — whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know — actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster.
Well, what do you know? Tina Fey still isn’t funny.
View all comments (22) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/16/fey-still-isnt-funny
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Steve| 11.16.10 @ 10:30PM
It's all in your perspective. If you have a very insular, radical liberal worldview like her, than I imagine the above lines would be hysterically funny. To most people with a Judeo-Christian conservative, not so much.
Jeff Perren | 11.17.10 @ 12:33AM
I'm an atheist and not a conservative and I find Tina Fey unfunny and her views morally offensive.
Hank| 11.16.10 @ 11:54PM
This speech didn't seem all that funny. But I'm sorry. Fey's impression of Palin on SNL during the 08 election was brilliant -- probably the best satirical impersonation I've seen in years. And yeah, lots and lots of people felt the same way. Loosen up fellas. Fey made fun of Palin. That's what we do in this country. Palin wanted one of the most powerful positions in government. We get to make fun of her. Journalists get to ask her questions -- even mean, trick questions. It's how it works.
wodiej| 11.17.10 @ 8:29AM
Making fun of others is what we do in this country? No, that is what unkind, heartless people do. There is nothing remotely funny about a laugh at someone else's expense. EVER.
Hank| 11.17.10 @ 12:17PM
Yes.
We make fun of politicians and people who want power over us.
It's our way of reminding ourselves -- and them -- that we are a free people, that we are skeptical of those who think they can run everything.
You want to have command control over the largest nuclear weapons arsenol in the world?Prepare to get laughed at. And prepare to get asked tough -- yes, tough -- mean, unfair questions that are designed to make you seem foolish. Why?
Because if you can't handle Tina Fey, if you can't handle Katie Couric, how can you handle anything a president is asked to face? How can you expect us to take seriously the idea of you dealing with Iran or N. Korea. It's a test as much as anything.
Simon| 11.17.10 @ 12:26AM
Loosen up, Hank, that means we get to call Obama the biggest dumbass that never got a diploma for real or even passed the bar, yup, he's that dumb. Had to have it all paid for.
There's much more where that came from. With Palin, all Fey had to go on was the look and the voice.
Barack wanted one of the most powerful positions in government, now he proves why Palin will get it.
Hank| 11.17.10 @ 12:12PM
Yeah... But you have to be funny for it to work.
Dave B| 11.17.10 @ 12:34AM
I agree with Hank yet I think Fey has entered into the realm of "creepy" when it comes to Sarah Palin just as David Letterman did. It's one thing to make a joke or two but it's something odd to be obsessed about degrading someone on a constant basis. The phrase "they doth protest too much" comes to mind with the both of them. I think they both have a crush on her, admire her, and they can't seem to "square it away" with their friends and their own thoughts of the way things should be so they have to go overboard. Fey remembers the ratings skyrocket when Palin appeared on the program and seems to be clinging to the Palin brand for her own survival.
AR Ar ar| 11.17.10 @ 7:51AM
Another bitter liberal woman (a la Maureen Dowd) Must be tough to be perpetually angry. Here's an award for HER, specifically and she can't let go of something even long enough to enjoy the elevation she received, merited or not.
Video Savant| 11.17.10 @ 8:02AM
Yes, Fey's take on Palin is funny. Definitely meaner than it needs to be to be funny, but funny nonetheless.
However, I think it's clear that what drives Fey is a not just a quest for funny, but also an increasingly desperate need for validation and acceptance within her circle of group-thinking liberal showbiz pseudo-intellectual dunderheads. Humor is her ticket to hanging out with the so-called cool crowd and becoming part of it.
Was Fey's adolescence brutal? You betcha.
I offer as evidence of her shallowness the fact that she agreed to be honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the Kennedy Center, only to use the occasion to castigate the person for whom the award is named:
“I hope that, like Mark Twain, a hundred years from now people will see my work and think, ‘Wow! That is actually pretty racist.’”
If she truly finds Twain and his body of work as offensive and racist as she's been taught to believe it is, she should not have accepted the award. That would have actually shown some backbone, however misaligned.
But vanity knows no bounds, and besides it was an irresistible opportunity to polish her liberal cred in front of her fellow traveler dumbasses.
Voting on Nov 2 was hugely satisfying. And voting with my remote control in the interim is not only a good substitute, it's an important part of my conditioning regimen for 2012.
wodiej| 11.17.10 @ 8:31AM
there is nothing funny about making fun of another person. I find it to be cruel, heartless and unnecessary. There are plenty of ways to derive humor without hurting another person. It's wrong-period.
George S| 11.17.10 @ 9:08AM
Fey is not, IMO, trying to be funny. She is instead applying the left's Alinsky tactic of marginalizing Palin with ridicule, to make her unelectable. It may very well work, as it did with Dan Quayle. Hence the 'honors' the left bestows her.
Richard| 11.17.10 @ 10:25AM
I'm still trying to understand how the Kennedy Center could conceivably, in any universe and under any interpretation of reality, consider Tina Fey in the same breath as Mark Twain--or even consider her as anything more than a minor league lip who is puffed up beyond reason with a mistaken sense of self-importance. Mark Twain was a true wit. Tina Fey is witless in all the ways that liberals are witless about almost everything. I have lost all respect for the Kennedy Center
as an institution for recognizing and promoting uniquely American achievements.
JP| 11.17.10 @ 10:26AM
About 99% of today's comedians have political ideas (if you can call them that) 180 deg opposite of mne. But, many of them have great talent (the late George Carlin, Dana Carvey, Dan Akroyd, etc..). Fey just isn't that funny.
BTW, most conservatives can laugh at themselves. Liberals cannot. They are in fact humorless.
Ferd Berfle | 11.17.10 @ 10:28AM
William F. Buckley was asked to appear on Laugh-In, and he said, "Not only do I refuse to appear, I resent having been asked!" He did go on, and Dan Rowan himself said that Buckley had a delightful sense of humor. And in all this, Palin has shown she has a sense of humor AND class. You betcha your sweet bippy!
Iowa| 11.17.10 @ 12:01PM
Seems to me that Tina Fey has made a great deal of money at Sarah Palin's expense. Perhaps it would occur to Fey at some point to acknowledge that and say thank you.
Yosemeti Sam| 11.17.10 @ 12:12PM
Fey?
Feh!
mejamom| 11.17.10 @ 12:35PM
Humor is in the eye of the beholder. I happen to find "30 Rock" very funny. It can be dumb humor, but it makes me laugh.
Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin is right on and that shows talent. However, I was also confused why she was honored with The Mark Twain prize. She hasn't been around long enough.
JP: Again, humor is subjective. There are plenty of liberals who laugh at themselves and plenty of conservatives who are appalled that a liberal would impersonate one of them. Haven't you been reading the comments?
Naddy Bumpco| 11.29.10 @ 7:04PM
Is Tina Fey married? Or is she another one of the perpetually angry liberal women who vent their acrimony at the unfairness of the world on a daily basis to whoever is so unfortunate to be around them. In Fey's case she has a TV show that reaches millions (I guess) and except for the off chance that she happens to look something like Sarah Palin actually has nothing to contribute to our society. Hey maybe Fey should run for Mayor of a small Alaskan town. If she survives that without eating her toes off on some icy cold winters night maybe she'll actually grow into the person that Sarah Palin already is.
Mark Perkins | 12.5.10 @ 12:08AM
1. Bill Cosby. Robin Williams. Carol Burnett. Thank you, sir, for pointing out three of the funniest comedians of the Johnny Carson era. Perhaps next you can explain how Tina Fey just doesn't match up to the high standards of Groucho Marx or Charlie Chaplin or, hell, Mark Twain.
2. Naddy: Tina Fey is married and has kids.
3. Iowa: She has thanked Palin, repeatedly. Consider the speech about which this blog was written: "I would be a liar and an idiot if I didn’t thank Sarah Palin for helping me get here tonight. My partial resemblance and her crazy voice are the two luckiest things that have ever happened to me."
3. If you haven't actually watched 30 Rock, I'd save the accusations of it being some crazy lib show. It is liberal, of course, but not especially so (by standards of television shows). And there are literally hundreds of hilarious pokes at liberal-elitism, self-satisfaction, and hypocrisy (one of my favorite lines comes when Liz Lemon, Fey's character, is confessing her deepest secrets to another character: "There's a 50% chance that I'll tell all my friends I voted for Obama, but I'll secretly vote for McCain" or something like that).