Depressing, and not just because it’s so lazy and predictable. There’s a history on SNL of prominent pols getting along reasonably well with the cast members who satirize them. Dana Carvey’s told stories about Bush 41 getting a kick out of his impression when they met, and I remember Norm MacDonald urging viewers to vote for Bob Dole at the end of a “Weekend Update” segment just before the ’96 election after impersonating him for months. (Ferrell impersonating Bush is a notable exception.) Fey’s political sympathies are no secret, but she seemed to be on that same track with Palin. She’s spoken cordially about her and her family, and as recently as last month she declined a chance to take a shot at Bristol for her performance on “Dancing With the Stars.” Now this. As I say, depressing.
Some famous friends from both coasts swooped into Washington to hand Fey the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the annual award for a lifetime of creating comedy — or in Fey’s case, as more than one presenter noted, half a lifetime…
In her acceptance speech, Fey touched on her best-known bit — her Palin imitation –and offered some mock hands-across-the-political-divide commentary. The rise of conservative women in politics, she said pointedly, is good for all women, “unless you don’t want to pay for your own rape kit . . . unless you’re a lesbian who wants to get married to your partner of 20 years . . . [or] unless you believe in evolution.”
The lines played first to nervous laughter and then to not much laughter at all.
I can’t find video of that part, but the fact that even a presumably liberal audience wasn’t laughing speaks volumes about how off-key this political harangue must have seemed under the circumstances. (The bit about rape kits is also a smear, natch.) For further reading see Treacher’s post, which doesn’t quite share my more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger vibe but does wonder why Fey would piss away goodwill for such a lame, gratuitous attack. Hope it was worth it, Tina.
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