Back in ‘04, when Tina Fey turned “Queen Bees and Wannabees” into a screen play, she was hailed as a feminist who proved that women could be smart, pretty, and funny. During “Mean Girls,” she delivered pithy criticism of how women tear each other down:
“So we’re all here because of this book, right? Well, I don’t know who wrote this book, but you have all got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.”
Somehow, though, in 2008, Tina Fey thinks that sentiment does not apply to starring in comedic routines which deride a vice-presidential nominee as an airhead. Here are links to her “Fey as Sarah Palin” repertoire, which starts by making fun of Gov. Palin for her beauty pageant sash and goes downhill from there. No mention from the supposedly feminist Fey about how Gov. Palin is America’s most popular governor; no mention of how she’s living proof that women can be pretty and enormously successful.
To paraphrase Ms. Fey’s own words, we have got to stop calling other women stupid and incompetent, because it just makes it okay for men to do it, too. Take your own advice, Ms. Fey - and stop selling out feminism for SNL ratings.
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I don’t think the good GOvernor is too worried about “meanness”, I would give you a link to the you-tube video where whe giggles like a schoolgirl as two talk radio DJs call a political rival and a cancer survivor a “cancer” a “bitch”, and make jokes about her weight.
The never once mentioned her policy positions, or anything substantive about her, just tore her down by calling her a disease that almost took her life, a “bitch” and her appearance.
Palin never once demurs from this treatment of another woman, and in fact encourages it with her laughter.
Unfortunatly, the thing keeps being removed almost as fast as it is put up again…I’m sure that it will be back soon, though. Interested parties can find it.
The good governor doesn’t wear gloves, I don’t see why anyone else should have to either.
Here’s a link to one place you used to be able to find it…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/30/82113/4808/746/579971
Teresa’s last blog post..Conservatives terrified by the professional dreams of black youth.
Sorry if this is a repeat of a previous comment, but my last one seems to have been eaten by the aether.
Governor Palin doesn’t seem to worry about “meanness’ not that long ago on You Tube I heard a bit from a radio talk show where two DJ’s had Governor Palin on, and the DJ’s were talking about one of her political rivals.
They called the woman (a cancer survivor) a “cancer” a “bitch’ and made jokes about her weight. Palin just giggled encouragingly during the whole sexist disply.
They neve once addressed substantive issues, only attacked the woman based on superficial charateristics, and made fun of her potentially terminal disease.
I can’t get too worried about respectful treatment of Governor Palin. Sauce for Goose, sauce for Gander, you know?
It’s politics.
Also, supposedly the right was all outraged that Hillary didn’t take proper care of Chelsea because she worked as a lawyer. Hillary was an ice queen bitch because she didnt stay home with her ONE daughter, but Palin ia a groundbreaker because she can supposedly run the country and take care of five kids without missing a beat.
Riiiight.
It comepletely blows my mind that you are complaining about double standards here.
Teresa’s last blog post..Palin’s remora jumping out of hot water.
I don’t think it’s okay to keep perpetrating the sexism - if we do, we’ll keep throwing each other under the bus while men look on and get ahead.
FYI - there’s quite a few women, myself included, who found ourselves cheering for Hillary as time went on. I don’t support her policies, but I’m thrilled that she campaigned as hard as she did, won the popular vote, and really started dragging modern sexism into the light of day.
As for the radio show - from what I heard, Palin was not “giggling encouragingly,” but made a noise that could be described as nervous laughter - not wanting to encourage them, but too shocked to tell them to screw off. (If you’re going to give the benefit of the doubt to Obama for his ridiculous “lipstick on a pig” comment, then you owe the same - or more - to Palin, who, unlike Obama, was not reading off of a nice, scripted speech when it happened.)
Even if Fey has a problem with how Palin acts as a mean girl, she should skewer her for that, rather than mocking her intelligence.
Roxeanne,
Hillary DID get a little more respect as a presidential candidate (only a couple of instances of Republicans calling her “The bitch” in public, only a few charges of “whining” from Palin and a few others). I was referring to when the right really went after her as a potential first lady. My goodness, she was portrayed as a lesbian, and adulterer, a murderer, a neglectful mother, a neglectful wife, a ball-buster, and a criminal. If Chelsea had shown up pregnant at 17, it would have been portrayed as proof that a woman can’t take proper care of her child and work at the same time…since they were constantly screwtinizing every instance of Chelsea in public for signs of bad character, and then just settled for calling her “ugly”.
It would help if Palin would address some of these things. When Obama is called on things, he addresses them in public.
Perhaps is Palin said “I was so shocked that they could talk about a professional woman this way”, I would give her the benefit of the doubt.
When Obama points out that he was NOT talking about Palin, and that even if you force Palin into that analogy, she would have to be the lipstick, not the pig…well, it puts it to rest.
Obama publicly disavows the words of his embarassing pastor, and so I give him the benefit of the doubt,
Sarah publicly praises the witchunter Muthee, so I don’t give her the benefit of the doubt. I assume she approves of his use of mob violence against women to build his power and influence.
I havn’t heard Palin publicly denounce the words of the DJs if she did, she’d have more traction with me.
Teresa’s last blog post..The REAL “Palin Derangement Syndrome”
I guess now there is buzz that Palin might appear with Tina Fey on SNL. THAT would impress me. That would take some moxy and at least a hint of class to be able to laugh at herself.
It still wouldn’t make me vote for her, but it would certainly be impressive.
Teresa’s last blog post..The REAL “Palin Derangement Syndrome”
I find myself torn on this particular issue, because I tend to value calling a spade a spade over any sort of group solidarity.
On one hand, throwing insulting names and comments at a woman simply to demean her, avoid/delegitimize her accomplishments, intelligence, deeply held beliefs, or serious policy positions,is total crap. Take Hillary Clinton, who I don’t like and vehemently disagree with about, oh, almost everything. What does her figure or appearance have to do with ANYTHING that matters about Hillary? She deserves to be taken seriously. Same with Sarah Palin, who entered a beauty pageant to help pay for college, and who has accomplished a great deal in spite of the Old Boy network through hard work, determination, and serious cojones. The media’s job is to report and discuss serious issues in a serious, productive way, not hurl verbal feces at people they dislike, like enraged chimpanzees.
On the other hand, there are some women out there who truly are bitches, bimbos, and/or sluts–women who offer nothing, blithely provide a terrible example to young girls, and actively degrade the culture. For example, Paris Hilton. Is she to be treated with respect she doesn’t deserve, simply because she is a woman? Calling her a bitchy, vapid little ho is not sexism, in my view, although it might be impolite.
Basically, I think women like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, who have spent their lives busting their butts to succeed and trying to make our nation better (whatever we think of their ideology), should be assessed by the media and fellow politicians strictly on the merits of their formidable minds, the actions they take, the way they treat people, and the values they hope to promote. Criticisms based on that are fair game, in my opinion. But fundamentally unserious, shallow, promiscuous attention whores, on the other hand, deserve to get slammed. Advancing ourselves as a gender, if that is possible, would have to include aggressively rejecting and criticising unacceptable role models.
But dude, SNL is a satirical comedy show. Personally, I did not find Tina Fey’s portrayal of Sarah Palin to be sexist or demeaning. I thought it was pretty funny, and I bet Palin would too: homegirl can take as well as she gives. Fey sounded exactly like her, and hey, that Couric interview was pretty disastrous (SNL bait if I’ve ever seen it).
SNL, by the way, has hit Hillary just as hard. And ole Hill turned out to be a good sport, performing a hysterical skit with Poehler’s bitchy, sour “Hillary”–and she did it with a totally genuine grin on her face. I hope Palin does SNL too, because I bet she would be a hoot (McCain and Huckabee sure were). I find it endearing and hilarious when the politicians being spoofed show up and clown around on SNL. I particularly like Darrell Hammond’s Bill Clinton, and Jason Sedaris’ Dubya.
[Deleted by RdL. While I appreciate that you are appearing to make an effort to post legitimate, non-trollish comments on this blog, I’m sick of your incessant trolling, and, of course, the fact that you’ve mocked my intelligence from the first day here, and continue to do so. Enough is enough. Good bye.]
Teresa,
I agree, but, again, it comes down to how much time someone has in her day. Palin isn’t running against Hillary; she had all of about nine weeks to campaign for herself, against the Obama/Biden ticket. Should she spend all her time talking about things that happened to the First Lady in 1992?
Allison & Teresa,
Word on the street is that Palin finds SNL skits of her to be hysterical. That’s fine, because, as Allison said, home girl can take it.
What bothers me (and I thought I made this clear???) is that when women call professional, accomplished women dumb and flakes, it makes it okay for men to demean us, too. Even if we can take it, even if we know that it’s a joke, other people don’t. There are people who say, “I would never vote for Sarah Palin; she’s a joke. Did you see the SNL skit of her?” They treat the skits like reality. They see someone like Tina Fey making fun of her - not for her dogsled and beauty pageant sash (funny) - but for failing the ridiculous pop quizzes that Couric put on her. The questions themselves were not portrayed as the asinine interrogatories that they were - I mean, if you say your guy called for regulation when regulation was needed, why do you need to talk about what he may or may not have done in the 1980s?
Let’s also note that no one has been SNL-ing Joe Biden, calling him a bloody idiot for not knowing about the Constitution, for saying that we kicked Hezballoh out of Lebanon, etc. No - it’s only the pretty governor who is dumb, not the guy.
I tend to agree with Roxeanne on this one. I thought the very first SNL skit was entertaining even though it was obviously slanted in Hillary’s favor (making the sexist attacks against her seem worse than the sexist attacks on Palin). Now, I think SNL is beating a dead horse and Tina Fey, in the process, is becoming an incredible hypocrite, as Roxeanne said. And SNL has crossed the line (not for the first time) with their sly implications of incest in the Palin family and the like. It was a clever and relevant skit the first time around, but I don’t see the point anymore.
I thought that the lampooning of Biden made him look pretty dumb…but we also have a long history of Biden showing that despite a few gaffs he’s really quite smart.
The things I hear about how the Wasilla City Council had to hire a city administrator because Palin was dropping the ball too much don’t fill me with confidence.
There’s too much out there about her being at best a mediocre student, and incompetent Mayor, and an unethical governor…and there’s not enough track record to show that those things are balanced by other instances of competancy.
Honestly, I don’t think she’s very bright. and I think she got where she is on her looks, and her connections. Her “prayer warrior” group is full of very influential people, for instance.
Everyone who is a sucess in politics needs powerful sponsors to get a start, but there are those who have nothing else to offer and Palin just looks that way to me and to lots of other people.
It’s not because she’s pretty, and not because she’s a woman…but because that’s just waht it looks like. It’s up to the candidate to show different…which is basically what Palin said about Hillary. Suck it up and show what you got. So far what I’ve seen is her skill in inciting to riot.
Teresa’s last blog post..Why is this so difficult to understand?