rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

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

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

^^^this

My people have been so persecuted.

by Yankee comedy writers. *smh*

that possum's what been up 'n bit my momma's neck brace

i don't think anything in the whole of 30 rock was as harsh as conan was to the kenneth actor in that documentary. was that a bit (i hope)?

Yeah most people in NYC think if you are from the south you are from the land of Kenneth.

tbf...

keep forgetting this is not actually the 30 Rock thread

Xposts, but what would Liz Lemon need to do in order not to be considered conservative? Party all night and do drugs? Wear flamboyant clothing? Are these the hallmarks of forward-thinking and progressive people?

i tried to draw a clear distinction btwn political conservatism and what i was calling liz/tina's "personal conservatism"

also, i get the nagging feeling that this discussion really should move to the 30 rock thread at this point

once i saw some show like right before 30 Rock that was some asian dude going CHANG CHANG CHANG CHANG to the tune of 'Carol of the Bells.' Is that racist?

okay i am going to rudely interject without having completely caught up on the thread--30 rock doesn't strike me as conservative necessarily (although i guess that word could have a lot of meanings; sometimes i think comedy is inherently conservative), but it does strike me as particularly ruthlessly deflating of beliefs tina fey herself might be suspected of having--feminism, "bourgeois liberalism" as someone put it upthread. also that second season episode that carrie fisher guest-starred in still sticks in my craw because there's something so upsetting about how it disposes of her and liz's relief to be on the winning side at the end. generally, i think tina fey's humor is kind of ruthless, particularly towards herself.

for that reason, though, i think it's pretty good on race generally because it deflates a bourgeois liberal type who wants to believe she's a beacon of racial tolerance but reveals herself to be not so much a lot of the time. to be fair, i missed most of the third and fourth seasons. definitely think this discussion of race is interesting; will now catch up on thread.

i have a lot of *feelings* about the sensibility of the show, for sure. it's so funny and so clever but sometimes the politics bother me. i might be a little too earnest to really handle tina fey.

i also defer to al; feel like he's the privileged critic of 30 rock on ilx.

well said

xpost awwwww

if anything i'm too much of a stan of the show to cede ground to criticism, which is part of why i was relieved to have to dip out of this thread a few hours ago

it does strike me as particularly ruthlessly deflating of beliefs tina fey herself might be suspected of having--feminism, "bourgeois liberalism" as someone put it upthread. also that second season episode that carrie fisher guest-starred in still sticks in my craw because there's something so upsetting about how it disposes of her and liz's relief to be on the winning side at the end. generally, i think tina fey's humor is kind of ruthless, particularly towards herself.

for that reason, though, i think it's pretty good on race generally because it deflates a bourgeois liberal type who wants to believe she's a beacon of racial tolerance but reveals herself to be not so much a lot of the time.

this is really, really otm by the way and i wish i'd been able to express it remotely as well upthread. i think one of the defining traits of Fey's sensibility is an antipathy toward patting yourself on the back for having the 'right' beliefs, especially as a form of comedy (she used the term "clapter" to deride the way The Daily Show would whip up audience reaction in a "you said it! preach on!" kind of way as opposed to pure laughter).

no, you are v insightful about it; also stans are the best people

xp see! otm

hahaha i agree with horseshoe too despite having fought about this w/ al upthread

maybe the episode where Liz gets obsessed with Designing Women is evidence of how TF might be wary of making a kind of tritely 'empowering' woman-centered sitcom. like, if she thought being a role model or setting a brassy strong liberal woman example was more important than being funny the show would probably be more like Murphy Brown.

i should prob just read Bossypants already.

i can see that perspective, but to me the show feels sometimes like it's really hard on women as an epiphenomenon of tina fey being really hard on herself. which can make it hard/frustrating to watch sometimes. and i would trace that to her work on Saturday Night Live before, too.

i also feel like i expect impossible things from her because she means a lot to me, so smart, so successful against ridic odds. i unfairly want to accuse her of having become male-identified out of necessity considering the world she has successfully infiltrated. i am a little overly invested in tina fey.

anyway, racism

yeah i kinda wonder if that's the place that a lot of these over-the-top thinkpieces about TF are coming from. but at least from my perspective, she seems no less committed to feminism or her idea of womanhood than, say, Janeane Garofalo, but a lot more committed to that not making her increasingly strident and humorless. which i respect a lot just on an artistic/comedic level, although maybe it requires some male privilege to view it from that distance.

xpost haha

think tina fey's in that weird unsustainable position where everything she does causes people to raise their standards for her, but then i like tina fey a lot too

oh horseshoe just said that

naw you said it better. it's what happens when you break a ceiling all by yourself. a nation of weirdo women turns its lonely eyes to you.

the high standard tina fey sets doesn't make me judge her harshly, it makes me judge lena dunham harshly tbh