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.
― kitty shayme (some dude), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:28 (eleven years ago) link
i should prob just read Bossypants already.
― kitty shayme (some dude), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:30 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:32 (eleven years ago) link
anyway, racism
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:35 (eleven years ago) link
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
― kitty shayme (some dude), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:36 (eleven years ago) link
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
― good men like my father, or president truman (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:38 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:39 (eleven years ago) link
the high standard tina fey sets doesn't make me judge her harshly, it makes me judge lena dunham harshly tbh
― kitty shayme (some dude), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:41 (eleven years ago) link
there are more ways to be funny than the tina fey way! thank god! (let's not do this itt)
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:42 (eleven years ago) link
haha sorry i couldn't resist
― kitty shayme (some dude), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:45 (eleven years ago) link
horseshoe start a thread on how comedy is inherently conservative
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:48 (eleven years ago) link
what if i lazily search ilx to see if i have expounded on that topic before? (i don't have anything that interesting to say about it tbh.)
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:49 (eleven years ago) link
idc
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:50 (eleven years ago) link
some dude and horseshoe otm, esp the part of shoe's post SD quoted
― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:51 (eleven years ago) link
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.
i think there's maybe a sense that she has to be tough enough, ruthless enough for comedy, especially as a woman, and that makes her extra harsh towards her own feminist/liberal pieties
― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:53 (eleven years ago) link
threads started at 10 pm on a monday night est are the most-responded-to-threads iirc:
is comedy inherently conservative?
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:57 (eleven years ago) link
Tracy: Affirmative action was designed to keep women and minorities in competition with each other to distract us while white dudes inject AIDS into our chicken nuggets. That's a metaphor.― judas, a homo (elmo argonaut), Monday, May 14, 2012 8:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― judas, a homo (elmo argonaut), Monday, May 14, 2012 8:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i remember the moment i saw this line delivered thinking "this is gonna be an awesome fucking show"
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 05:24 (eleven years ago) link
ps if u accuse me of otming a tracy jordan line i will play basketball with your ribcage
I actually agree that 30 Rock is unfair in its treatment of Kenneth and possibly even Twofer. However, what attitude does anyone think the show should take towards a character like Jenna? I never thought that she is ridiculed for sleeping around per se. She is ridiculed for her extreme narcissism and gold-digging. I never even thought her relationship with Paul was portrayed completely unsympathetically.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 05:38 (eleven years ago) link
sympathetic grotesquerie, a hard line to walk but they pull it off okay. mostly due to the shows very careful sympathy for paul. i don't know that the show ridicules jenna for sleeping around, exactly, but it does seem to view her sexual behavior (as well as her entire character) as gross and pathetic. makes sense, because she's narcissistic neediness incarnate. same could be said of tracy, though, and the show isn't anywhere near as outright repulsed by him.
― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 05:56 (eleven years ago) link
^ contains errors, fuggit
― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 05:57 (eleven years ago) link
Her sexual behaviour (as well as her entire character) are often gross and pathetic! But not because they're 'deviant'!
Tracy is more just childish and self-indulgent, not a sociopathic narcissist.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 06:12 (eleven years ago) link
That seems kinda harsh to me: I don't watch 30 Rock enough to be able to speak authoritatively about it, but I feel the show is less about making Jenna the butt of a bunch of 'old w****' jokes and more about using her as a vehicle of satire against the unrepentant shallowness of showbiz
But, I mean, I barely watch the show, so...
― cinco de extra mayo (loves laboured breathing), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 06:20 (eleven years ago) link
using her as a vehicle of satire against the unrepentant shallowness of showbiz
Well, yeah, maybe I didn't emphasize that aspect enough.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 06:21 (eleven years ago) link
Its probably goes-without-saying obvious for those who tune in regularly...
― cinco de extra mayo (loves laboured breathing), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 06:24 (eleven years ago) link
Jenna and paul have the only healthy relationship on the show, except for maybe liz's new thing depending on how that goes
― Bandersnatch Cumberbund (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 13:34 (eleven years ago) link
Okay, you don't have to spell it out if it's really that offensive, but what the hell does 'old w****' mean?
― pplains, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 14:40 (eleven years ago) link
Guessing that's 'old whore'
So...30 rock isn't racist, unless maybe there's some deep analysis that gets to the heart of some subtle but ingrained thread of racism, idk, but nobody's really made any kind of coherant thesis along these lines.
― He's sick of the Swiss. He don't like em. (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 14:43 (eleven years ago) link
I guess at bottom, I'm willing to give 30 Rock of all shows a pass on any minor racism because all of the characters are original and complex enough to transcend it. The AA humor is what bothered me the most, because the implicit message seemed like "wink wink, you know there wouldn't be black people here otherwise."
OTOH I can think of some relatively progressive stuff the show has done with gender and sexual orientation, e.g. having a powerful, dominant gay male character (Will Arnett) and having a straight female impersonator. Even though they're played for comic effect, it's almost unheard of for network television to acknowledge the existence of such people.
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 14:46 (eleven years ago) link
Pretty much any time I see five asterisks together these days, I assume it either means "igger" or "ucker".
― pplains, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 14:47 (eleven years ago) link
how do you figger?
― goole, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 14:57 (eleven years ago) link
i'm just a sucker.
― pplains, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:01 (eleven years ago) link
Even though they're played for comic effect, it's almost unheard of for network television to acknowledge the existence of such people.
This kind of thing is surprising until you realize that we do live in a country where Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is considered racially progressive.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:03 (eleven years ago) link
that's a really good movie
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:06 (eleven years ago) link
i don't know about "racially progressive" but it's definitely smart about race
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:07 (eleven years ago) link
I don't think I've seen that movie since it first came out but yeah I don't think I can hate that movie
― dayo, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:14 (eleven years ago) link
I think it's progressive in the fact that it's A) not a kung-fu movie and B) stars an actor of Asian descent anyway, in a lead role.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:16 (eleven years ago) link
you mean two actors, right?
― dayo, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:18 (eleven years ago) link
i'm not sure comic movies can really be progressive in a positive sense but harold and kumar is good, like 30 rock is often good, at limning white racism. and also good at analyzing the differences between how antiblack racism is expressed and institutionalized versus sort of nativist anti-Asian American racism.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:19 (eleven years ago) link
Well really just starring one such actor is kind of unusual. In general American movies don't star actors who aren't white or black unless they're in roles that couldn't be replaced by a white guy. In some cases they're even willing to forgo major plot points in order to fit white guys in (see the blackjack movie 21). Obviously guys like John Cho and Kal Penn will always be able to find work in minor roles but to actually like, be on the poster, is really something
― frogbs, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:27 (eleven years ago) link
thanks for explaining
― max, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:29 (eleven years ago) link
so what did you think of the movie, frogs?
― dayo, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:31 (eleven years ago) link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Ebony_Shoe
― caek, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:31 (eleven years ago) link
The Belgian Ebony Shoe. Really.
http://www.rsca.be/photodbase/articles/lukaku20110509.jpg http://www.rsca.be/photodbase/articles/boussoufa20090511.jpg
― pplains, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:35 (eleven years ago) link
i was reading this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Kompany and i saw the link and i was like "oh please oh please oh please"
― caek, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:36 (eleven years ago) link
Even with the 30 Rock talk, I'm so glad this thread is finally back on track.
Soccer, possible racist patronizing…. if that shoe turns out to be edible, I think we're going to be in business.
― pplains, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:38 (eleven years ago) link
Werner Herzog and his crazy series of bets with Romelu Lukaku
― cissémanwhore (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:53 (eleven years ago) link
Do you think the ebony shoe thing is more bad because it's an "ebony shoe" or because it's patronizing to have a separate award for best african footballer?
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 16:15 (eleven years ago) link
Little bit from column a, little bit from column b.
― pplains, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 16:48 (eleven years ago) link