Letters to the Editor
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Huh?!
Just read that "Baby Mama" was written and directed by a guy and produced by two other guys.
Why didn't Fey and Pohler write, possibly direct and maybe even produce their own film?
Ouch. So much for having come a long way, baby.
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Poehler and Fey as feminists
Means that feminism has either won, failed, or a little of both but given in to the girlie side.
As I male growing up in the seventies, I was mostly influenced by the boring, angry old paleofeminists, you know, the equal rights, equal-pay-for-equal work crowd. Guess I'm out of touch.
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Huh? Poehler and Fey are as Lame as SNL
Saturday Night Live (Saturday Night Lame?) is so bad that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler should consider themselves lucky to be associated with it.
SNL has sucked for 20 years, they suck too. Please give me Chris Farley back -- he at least had talent!
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Of course women are funny
R. Traister comes perilously close to the usual sin about writing about the sociocultural implications of comedy - making it tiresomely solemn. If an act is funny - and Fey and Poehler ARE funny - it's funny. Traister had it exactly right at one point: You cannot convince the hostile by piling on more hostility ala Andrea Dworkin et al. You convert with humor. Every 2nd rate used car salesman knows that. As for Hitchens, I was not aware of his Vanity Fair article, but it doesn't surprise me. The man is a pompous pseudointellectual who is annoying whether he comes from the left or right - and he's so all over the map politically that his C+ scholarship wears thin quyickly. As for funny women, do Lucille Ball, Gracie Allen, Carol Burnett, JudyHolliday and Judy Canova ring a bell? Not to mention the great breakthrough of pre-Gracie female nonstraightman comics on vaudeville during feminism's First Wave? A woman with a sense of humor is a necessity, not a luxury, and always has been. The politics is gravy, not vice-versa, and anybody ( like Bill Maher lately ) who doesn't get that doesn't deserve to be on a stage.
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Girl Power
Why is it that women in the media always have to praise other women in media with such purple prose? The girliness of it robs their accomplishments of impact....And another thing, Traister, there were nearly 30 years of sedition on SNL before Fey got there. But I'm totally down with Amy's pro-lady garden postion. The Full Barbasol makes me think I need a wedge of lemon.
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Tina Fey, As Head Writer, Presided Over Seven or Eight of the Worst Years in SNL's History
Why ANYONE thinks that woman is funny is beyond me. Only now - ironically with the help of her pal Poehler - is SNL starting to awaken from the coma it has been in for so long. The presence of Andy Samberg hasn't hurt, either. Reading that O'Teri, Gasteyer and Shannon "ripped it up" on SNL nearly made me vomit. I mean, really, compared to whom? Curtin, Radner and Newman? Or perhaps Dunn, Hooks and Sweeney from the show's second hey-day from '86-'93?? Anyone making such a comparison is out of their fucking mind.
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Feminism was the old funny, too
And then, as now, we're laughing at you, not with you.
Your chosen example of a feminist humor movie stank in spades. Your taste is as bad as your political savvy, Traister. Find something else to suck at.
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CeliaInSF
Great post! By focusing on the last line: "The way to do it," said Poehler, "is to do what men do, which is you just assume power. You're not grateful for it."
It got me thinking about the "Working Girl" soundtrack. My mother was a huge fan of "Let The River Run" back in the day, but she was quick to point out, that they lyrics were flawed. "It isn't 'asking for the taking' btrader," she said, "it should be taking for the asking."
There's a lesson here.....I think.
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Ask Amy why she is near anoxeric
Amy as a feminist hero? LMAO...jeezo pezzo...SNL has gotten rid of all the women who are aren't a size 4 or less and become incredibly unfunny unless they have a decent host. This reads like a hip Entertainment Tonite piece.
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@ smoothyo oh that nostalgia
I am not immune to it myself, but SNL with Farhley etc were just as funny as the old people. Granted there has been nobody that good in 5 years.
What is it with their stupid bar skits?
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Funny females
What about I Love Lucy? That's old and the lady is sure funny.
Before the war, I remember all the cave man cartoons showing him dragging his female by her hair.
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Thanks btrader!
I'm so bored, tired and fed up with identity politics and victimhood! What the hell good does it do anyway?
I'm not familiar with the song - but I'll definitely check it out!
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Funny Women is not new
I am confused by the whole issue. The idea that we have liberated ourselves in the realm of humor overlooks and forgets the rich history of female comedians. Mom's Mabley,then Gracie Allen, Mary Livingstone, Mary Driscoll Jordan from the radio era, Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Ruth Buzzi, Lily Tomlin, Marcia Wallace,Penny Marshall, Gilda Radner and the long list of SNL greats- and the many others people have touched on here. This isn't a new frontier just a different phase- women have always been funny and revising history to make a point does a diservice to the long and rich history of funny women.
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@Sphere
You said "Hillary Clinton is willing to tear the Democratic party apart to
get what she wants"
I get it: she must submit to Obama and quit so as not to tear the party
apart. Very clever you Obama folks.
From Day One in his political career Obama has tried to get any
opponent out of his way so he wouldn't have to run against any
opposition. The sucker can't take it if anyone is not completely
charmed by him. "Why can't I just eat my waffles? Why can't I
just be President?"
Maybe you can understand this: You are not going to break Hillary's
spirit, no matter how hard you try.
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Back at you CeliaInSF
Amen on the identity politics front.
As for the song, I don't really have a unified view of Carly Simon, and I must admit that I frequently confuse her with Belinda Carlisle (sp?). I can say, however, that on the rare occasion that "Let The River Run" drops in my vicinity, I'm transported to a simpler time....riding shotgun with my mom in her car, trying to make sense of this increasingly complicated world I found myself in.