Tina Fey received an Emmy Saturday night for her impression of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Life. She thanked her parents who are life long Republicans for their patience.
It will be interesting to see if Ms. Fey receives a congratulatory note from Ms. Palin. I am betting yes.
You betcha!
She deserves more than that. She saved our country. If not for Tina Fey, there would still be millions of Americans who think Sarah Palin is a viable Presidential candidate.
Wait, wait, what?
You say there still are millions of Americans like that.
Even though she’s an idiot? Even though it’s perfectly obvious the comedienne who so savagely mocks her is about 80 times smarter than she is?
What? Really? Millions of people are that incredibly dumb?
Good thing this is a big country.
I used to love Saturday Night Live. But over the past few years it has devolved into being mostly snarky, downright hateful and often boring, and most of the major players are second-rate compared to years past.
Justin, you are falling all over yourself with the namecalling on this one. Good, keep it up. Your nastiness is just what most moderates see when they think “far left.”
By the way, the Emmys are awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which is comprised of Hollywood insiders. So basically it’s Hollywood voting for itself, and often has very little to do with the films and TV shows that viewers thought were best. Recall how “Brokeback Mountain” was snubbed for Best Picture in 2006. Why? Because the Academy likes to reward their friends, and they weren’t going to stick their neck out for an independent film that year, least of all a “gay” one. And while the film industry is politically very liberal, and donates lavishly to liberal candidates, it is still homophobic to its core.
So, really, who cares about the Emmys? I know what I like, and I don’t need some “Academy” to tell me what entertainment is worthy.
I haven’t watched SNL since Eddie Murphey days, and I don’t even know how long ago that was. I won’t deny that Tina did a good job, and I thought Palin was a good sport about the whole thing. The fact that the left and the “moderates” used it as another club to bludgeon her, well, if it wasn’t this, it would have been a dozen other things, so OK. There is a couple of guys doing songs on SNL that I think are pretty darn funny. They have an album called Incredibad, and their name is The Lonely Island. This right here is art, if you ask me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4
Geez, que touchy! I have to say, wasn’t it Sarah Palin who went on Saturday Night Live, very admirably I might add, and demonstrated that she did have somewhat of a sense of humor about herself?
In defense of SNL and its players, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig, Andy Samberg, and Seth Meyers (all cast members or recurring players during this last season)are both critically acclaimed and well-loved for their performances on and off the show. Have you checked out the mass popularity of SNL’s Digital Short series?
I mean, the classic days of SNL are great, and its first players are icons. I have religiously watched the show for years, and love to watch classic moments in rerun. However, the bit about how SNL isn’t good anymore gets tired. You always hear someone say it, yet the show is still on the air, and its sketches regularly make it to viral video or water-cooler discussion. True, its comedy level waxes and wanes, but I never count it out:)
Slowpoke, the Lonely Island is exactly what I was talking about. Great stuff! I mean crude and all, but hey, I can laugh at that:)
Only in America…
Can you really be as dumb as everyone says, and STILL get elected governor of a state? Me thinks that she is much smarter than the true ‘dumb’ ones that say not!
Can you get elected as Governor after dropping the F-bomb on WTOP radio?
Some how I don’t think that F is for family. 😉
Sarah Palin was a good sport about SNL.
I never quite felt the same about the show after they made fun of Chelsey Clinton who was about 14 at the time.
Chris, I have no answer for ya on that one. I had the story but couldn’t get the sound embedded. No flash of brilliance hit me this morning so I just linked it.
Maybe he was trying to say something else. Flippin’ or freakin’ or something. It makes no sense why he would have said that. I see a glitch in the future. He isn’t my candidate of choice but I wouldn’t send him packing because of a dropped F bomb. It made him more human to me. I just want to see the spin over it though.
This sounds like an admission that SNL was in the tank for Obama. If equal time had been given to parodies of Obama, I would not be so cynical. SNL could have produced wickedly funny skits about ‘hope and change’ and the Greek column speech. Given the evidence, I must conclude that SNL and Tina Fey were in the political advocacy business and this Emmy was pay back for a job well done.
@Moon-howler
No, the f-bomb certainly isn’t the end. Now, those comments on working women and feminists is another thing.
Kelly, are you really that cynical? If your theory is correct, how does that explain the shots they took at Chelsey Clinton who was a child back in the 90’s? How about the digs taken at other candidates?
Did you see the skits on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? They weren’t too flattering either. Fey was just perfect for the part and did a better job of capturing the candidate. Some was talent, some was God-given attributes like her appearance.
Justin, I think you are giving Tina Fey a little more credit than she deserves…saving the country? With Palin, I don’t think people really had to think much about it. You were either a Palin type or you weren’t and you didn’t need Tina Fey for guidance.
Is there no happy medium between Kelly and Justin?
Totally agree, Chris. All of it just seems incongruous though, doesn’t it?
I did see the skits on Hillary and Obama. Who got the worse end out of all those? Clearly it was Hillary.
Now that Obama is the only game in town (i.e. he’s the president), SNL will take its shots against him, just as it took shots at Bill Clinton and family when he was in power.
But in the run-up to the elections, the clear focus of SNL was on Palin. I grant that Fey was perfect for the part, but it was a match that aligned perfectly with the overall view point of SNL. And SNL ran with it for weeks.
So I am actually agreeing with JustinT. SNL painted Sarah Palin as an idiot and made it cool for the under-30 crowd to support Obama.
Kelly, do you think they set that tone or do you think that the audience sets the tone and they pick up on it?
I am thinking back to other elections.
I think in general that it was cooler to vote for Obama if you were under 30. No argument on that one. Same with Kerry (well sorta), Gore, and Clinton. I don’t think that SNL set that tone as much as the country. Shoot, take it back to McGovern, RFK, JFK. Those guys all had a huge following of young people, although not necessarily for the same reasons.
Moonhowler is right. SNL did choose to skewer Obama and Biden, and continued after the election. I think President Obama got at least equal parody time.
Fred Armisen has played him consistantly, and pokes fun at his idiosyncracies. Did you see the “Solid as Barack” sketch that made fun of the fact Obama was buying a show-length block of advertising time, and then turned it into a musical variety hour? There was also “‘The Rock’ Obama, which made fun of habit of not being aggressive enough with his opponents. They parodied his debate style (both with Hillary Clinton and with John McCain). SNL also made a TV Funhouse cartoon about Obama and his relationship with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. I’m sure you can find more examples.
You have to remember that Fred Armisen is a full-time cast member and Tina Fey was no longer in the cast; she just came back for occasional appearances as Palin. That automatically gave SNL more opportunities to do Obama impressions. Amy Poehler’s Hillary impression and Darrell Hammond’s McCain impression also got a lot more air time than Palin’s, since they were both full-time, as well.
In my opinion, SNL does a pretty good job of really trying to spread the parodies around.
and yes…I am an SNL geek:)
Kelly, While many people now remark on some of the shabby treatment of Palin, there was shabby treatment of Hillary also and no no one seemed to notice. It was just accepted. Hillary was held up to all sorts of expectations that had this silent, unspoken..’If she were a man…’ in front of it.
At the time I could pick out the sexism. I can’t recall examples now. It was that dangerous, insidious ‘ism.’ It didn’t bother me as much that it was there as much as it bothered me that no one noticed.
By the time Palin came along, people started noticing mainly because it was hard to ignore a freight train in the living room. Palin and Clinton were both victims of extreme sexism, in my opinion.
Obama didn’t do it. The media and the population did it. It showed me how far we hadn’t come. As much as I don’t think Palin was vice presidential material, I do believe she was treated horribly.
Got my Emmys mixed up with my Oscars. No matter, same principle of the industry awarding it’s own, and has very little to do with what viewers prefer. Comedy styles in general have devolved into a very direct and sarcastic delivery, with very little subtlety anymore.
DiversityGal: You made my point for me. The sketches on Obama were relative softballs — they treated him with kid gloves. In contrast to Palin, there was no attempt (that I saw) to make Obama look like an idiot or an incompetent. Parodying debate style is not the same as parodying intelligence/common sense.
If they had wanted to parody Obama’s common sense/gaffes/nonsensical statements, there was plenty of material.
I mean “its”.
@Moon-howler
I do not think that it was the population so much as the media. I cannot read people’s hearts to know whether it was sexism or not. But there was definitely favoritism directed toward Obama at the expense of Hillary and Palin.
I had forgotten about ‘Solid as Barack.’ That was hilarious.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbc.com%2FSaturday_Night_Live%2Fvideo%2Fclips%2Fobama-address%2F787181%2F
Here is a skit that sure dishes it out on the Democrats.
http://www.tressugar.com/2423416
Here is a link to many of the oldie but goodie SNL political skits.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/snlvideos/SNL_Videos.htm
I think the sexism would have been there regardless of who the males running were. I don’t think Obama or McCain caused the sexism…I think it was there in the first place. It is hard to separate the media and the population since most of what I saw was via media, although I did pick up on it just talking to people.
My favorite retort was…why are we having this conversation in the year 2008. I was appalled over the cookie flap back in 92 with Hillary. This past election just showed me not much had changed.
Many people are very uncomfortable with females in roles that have been traditionally male. President, minister, doctor, etc etc. And for that matter,what forces us to say male nurse? female general?
Oh, kelly3406…I see there will be no pleasing you:)
Think there’s room on Mt. Rushmore for her image??
Sarah Palin complained about Tina Fey bitterly to that Zeigler arse….but then Palin complains about everything….BWAHHHHH.
Fey made reference in her acceptance speech about Palin BAILING on her job right before 4th of July weekend, lol.
Sarah Palin-Tonya Harding 2012!
There was some sexism going on there in the way people delighted in her most embarrassing moments. Some men have this thing for her which adds to it in a Letiecq-sleaze sort of way. Blondes are made fun of also for being clueless and out of their league. You wouldn’t do that to a man most times. Unless his name is Quayle.
It really is a shame that Palin represented herself so poorly. But it mostly reflects on McCain for picking her. This falls in the “how stupid do they think we are?” category.
Shelly, why do you think McCain picked on her? I saw no signs of that during the campaign. He still speaks highly of her, whether he means it or not.
Well, we’ve been finding out since late January!
The physical likeness and mimicry were startlingly close, but I’m not sure it is great art. Mrs Palin was so profoundly caraciature-able that a lot of the humor consisted of very straight verbatim feedbacks of things Mrs. Palin actually said. Where’s the accomplishment in that?
“wasn’t it Sarah Palin who went on Saturday Night Live, very admirably I might add, and demonstrated that she did have somewhat of a sense of humor about herself”
Palin looked like the imbecile that she is going on that show, swaying along while Amy Poehler did that rap about her.
McCain enjoys the show. He actually hosted it years ago and did a funny John Ashcroft. To my shock, McCain came on 2 nights before the election, with his loss certain, and made fun of himself (Home Shopping Network parody). I’m sure that Palin did it because McCain recommended doing it.