rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

sure no but i'm just saying his character is defined by his political beliefs far more than hers

can't recall Liz espousing a political position of any kind tbh.

some dude OTM

Jack's rightwing politics are part and parcel of his persona as a powerful white man. Liz's politics are nonexistent.

and a LOT of his throwaway lines are more cutting jokes at the expense of the GOP than a whole season's worth of SNL fox news sketches. (xpost)

i mean its possible that i am such a wussy bourgeois liberal that i consider "getting jokes out of both sides of an issue" a kind of inherently conservative gesture. like i said it doesnt *bother* me. i still think its the funniest show on tv!

yeah i guess my sense is that making fun of the crazies in the GOP barely counts as "political humor" at this point. also youre crazy if you think liz's politics are "nonexistent" -- shes explicitly and clearly a liberal feminist. i mean this comes up super frequently, its part of the jack-liz relationship.

haha are you coming out as a closet West Wing fan (xpost)

that slate piece is pretty good, really, especially in how it characterizes the show's relationship to feminism and gender (not to liberal politics in general).

like i guess when i watch the show jokes at jack's expense are more often than not these kind of cartoonish "crazy tea partiers!" jokes that dont really touch on the ideology at the heart of the modern GOP. whereas the jokes at liz's expense are actual critiques of her "liberal values" -- i.e. the 'equality' episode

i think a lot of Donaghy lines are slightly more specific than "lol greed is good amirite" but fair enough

xp - that in turn suggests that the show takes liberalism seriously and only sees conservatism as a crazy sort of joke

when Jack 'wins' an argument with Liz it's because the company that made her great jeans is secretly owned by Haliburton and the joke's on her, not that Haliburton is actually awesome and she shouldn't be chagrinned by that

yeah, i mean i dont think that 30 rock gives jack, or conservatism, a pass

how about the ep a few years ago with carrie fisher? seems impt to this discussion.

donaghy is slightly cartoonish but his, idk, para-political identity as a competent, hard-driving self-made executive is not really undercut ever, and liz's (and others) characters objectives bend around that

xps

when Jack 'wins' an argument with Liz it's because the company that made her great jeans is secretly owned by Haliburton and the joke's on her, not that Haliburton is actually awesome and she shouldn't be chagrinned by that

― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, May 14, 2012 4:42 PM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right but this is one of the oldest conservative zingers in the book! like that occupy wall street photo with all the arrows pointing out that they bought their clothes at the gap or whatever.

“We have been creating and solving this country’s problems for 200 years. Where’s our history month?”

i thought that joke where the baby kept saying 'mommy' and jack kept thinking she was saying 'money' was pretty lol

I think that Slate piece is sort of right but maybe runs a little too far with the argument.

its also kinda whiny. the slate piece.

one of the show's running jokes is the way kenneth's aw-shucks, god-fearin' nice guy shtick occasionally lets slip a whiff of fascist intolerance. and jack is constantly making throwaway jokes about ostensibly trivial environmental and human consequences. american conservatism on 30 rock is a stupid, monstrous lie, a con that rich people use to get their way and manipulate rubes. liberalism, otoh, is a complex philosophy that decent, intelligent people struggle with in actually trying to negotiate life.

Liz's politics seem more like a satire of lazy kneejerk liberalism or liberals with latent prejudiced and/or conservative beliefs than an actual "no really check out this dumb lib" kinda thing imo.

coincidentally the new inquiry had an essay a couple days ago about 30 rock/tina fey and women/feminism

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-unfuckables/

like the famous "will say i'm voting for obama and then vote for mccain" line is liz in a nutshell

i'm probably the worst person to say this but sometimes you can outthink yourself on something like this and i think that's what the 30 rock conservative argument is doing

Liz's "feminism" is basically limited to herself and how she thinks she deserves a job/respect/authority. I can't recall a single instance of her addressing an actual liberal cause like, say, being pro-choice or against the Iraq invasion or anti-global warming or whatever. Her worldview is completely myopic, it's a politics of narcissism.

idk about that article? i mean

She is currently in a Garnier Nutrisse shampoo commercial in which she tosses her glossy mane without a trace of irony.

the irony is that she's wearing a wig imho

to be clear im not endorsing the TNI article, presented w/out comment

how about the ep a few years ago with carrie fisher? seems impt to this discussion.

Not on topic, but Laugh-in makes a return in the most recent live episode.

donaghy is slightly cartoonish but his, idk, para-political identity as a competent, hard-driving self-made executive is not really undercut ever, and liz's (and others) characters objectives bend around that

I agree--and this is where some of the sense of the shows conservativism comes from--but I suspect this is mostly a result of Tina Fey being more comfortable satyrizing herself.

sometimes you can outthink yourself on something like this and i think that's what the 30 rock conservative argument is doing

Nah, for me it's more of a vibe I get from the show, and my analysis has more to do with why I feel this way; is there something there, or is it just over-sensitivity on my part.

Liz's "feminism" is basically limited to herself and how she thinks she deserves a job/respect/authority. I can't recall a single instance of her addressing an actual liberal cause like, say, being pro-choice or against the Iraq invasion or anti-global warming or whatever. Her worldview is completely myopic, it's a politics of narcissism.

― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, May 14, 2012 4:52 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I think this is right. Her liberalism is very, very thin to begin with. Jack's politics are of course also a politics of narcissism and selfishness, it just so happens that Reagan conservatism openly embraces that kind of selfishness, so there's nothing inconsistent about him.

To me, Alec Baldwin's character is more or less the kind of guy that would hang out with Stephen Colbert's character. Just a bit more inside the bubble for narrative reasons.

30 Rock is one gourmet food montage short of a Nora Ephron movie

someone who has neither seen 30 Rock nor a Nora Ephron movie ^

yeah wait what

it might be a lil sexist and it might be a lil racist and it might be a lil conservative, but it is NOT ANYTHING LIKE a Nora Eprhon movie yeesh

calibrate the hamm blackface calibrate the hamm blackface calibrate the hamm blackface calibrate the hamm blackface calibrate the hamm blackface calibrate the hamm blackface calibrate the hamm blackface calibrate the hamm blackface

Liz's "feminism" is basically limited to herself and how she thinks she deserves a job/respect/authority. I can't recall a single instance of her addressing an actual liberal cause like, say, being pro-choice or against the Iraq invasion or anti-global warming or whatever. Her worldview is completely myopic, it's a politics of narcissism.
Correct. She always struck me as one of those irritating "I'm not like those OTHER girls" types, only without any awareness of this at all.

even-keeled, virtuous, self-aware characters don't make good comedy

the TNI article make the valid point that there is something deeply conservative about tina fey's comic persona (both as liz lemon and otherwise). not politically conservative, exactly, but "personally conservative" maybe.

both tina and liz are "good" and "normal". they're smart and responsible people who know how to behave. they shun impropriety and gaucherie, priding themselves on their ability to make reasonable decisions and keep their lives in order. 30 rock clearly sees shares this sensibility, treating its less self-consciously "proper" and/or middle class characters as comic grotesques. it even mocks twofer for being too proper. there's only a very narrow cultural/social bandwidth in which 30 rock characters are allowed to exist in and still seem "normal". and the gauche behavior of abnormal people is constantly on instructive display: this is how not to be.

perhaps this kind of conservatism, the kind that patrols the boundary between "normalcy" and "weirdness" (and which should not be confused with political conservatism, though the two can definitely overlap), is an essential component of all comedy. i suppose that's true, but might still argue that 30 rock is more conservative in this sense than it really has to be.

"[whatever it's other flaws] the TNI article does make..."

i'm not saying we shouldn't hold tv shows to account, i just think criticizing sitcom characters for having exaggerated flaws is, well, maybe missing the point?

i just think criticizing sitcom characters for having exaggerated flaws is, well, maybe missing the point?

yeah, that's were i wound up. did want to point out that there's a kind of apolitical conservatism that's expressed fey's basic stance: "i am a decent person. i don't do drugs or sleep around. i wear normal boring clothes, like normal boring stuff and get to bed at a decent hour (and secretly think poor people are kind of gross and trashy hee)."

"expressed in fey's basic stance..."

both tina and liz are "good" and "normal". they're smart and responsible people who know how to behave.

Liz is responsible, not sure I would sign on to the other two.

"i am a decent person. i don't do drugs or sleep around. i wear normal boring clothes, like normal boring stuff and get to bed at a decent hour (and secretly think poor people are kind of gross and trashy hee)."

Liz totally sleeps around, her fashion choices are routinely ridiculed, she does not go to bed at a decent hour she stays up all night watching reality TV and having weird sex etc.

i dunno. the way i see it, lemon considers herself a smart, educated, moral, socially-conscious person. she constantly falls short of her self-image or gets pushed off her high horse. for me, that's funny, not because "ha, dumb liberals can't live up to their ideals," but because "ha, that's me."

also does the author of that article consider 'an activia microwaveable panini' to be gourmet food y/n

they did calibrate the hamm blackface to be suggestive rather than over-the-top like they did with the jenna blackface episode, which puts forth the idea that there is a tasteful amount of blackface, which I don't agree with. this really ties into a larger complaint about 30 rock that they've settled into a comfort zone.

I can't believe someone came up with the concept of "blackface calibration" and didn't think "this may be taking ironic distance a step too far, posting this on the 'is this racist?' thread"

if the show is horribly prejudiced against any group in particular it's probably people from the south

Liz totally sleeps around, her fashion choices are routinely ridiculed, she does not go to bed at a decent hour she stays up all night watching reality TV and having weird sex etc.

no way does liz sleep around. she's a serial monogamist. he fashion choices are ridiculed as dowdy (i.e. conservative, boring, lazy, old-fashioned). she may stay up late watching bad TV on occasion, but we know she isn't clubbing or anything too wild. she's at home being normal. she's conservative. she values dependable, responsible decency more than wildly impulsive extroversion. jenna is the one mocked for sleeping around, and the show expresses real disgust at her behavior and morality.

if the show is horribly prejudiced against any group in particular it's probably people from the south

and comedy writers