This coming week, I’m off to the Flow Conference in Austin, TX. I’m on a panel about women in comedy, and my primary interest lay in discussing women in animation. But I’ve been wanting to talk about Tina Fey and her excellent Palin impression instead. And so I thought I’d write on that topic latter here.
Let’s start by making something clear. I am not a fan of Saturday Night Live. Most of its humor is tepid and puerile. They might have a funny nugget, but it’s five seconds worth of a five minute skit. SNL has had some funny people, yes, but they’re nearly always considerably funnier off the show. Also, while I’m sure its defenders will point out some of its fantastic skits over the years, and while I too think they’ve had some brilliant moments, their failure to success ratio is huge.
More specifically, I have a beef with SNL‘s fans who misuse the word “satire,” by suggesting that many of the show’s rather lame impressions are in any way satirical. Dana Carvey did a good George H. W. Bush, but there was no satire. Fred Armisen’s Obama isn’t even good, let alone satirical. Satire scholar George Test notes that satire must have play, aggression, laughter, and judgment, and too often SNL lacks all but play. I could put on a dress and say I’m Laura Bush, but that wouldn’t make it satire. Perhaps the best test of an impressionist’s satiric skill is whether the person being impersonated would be offended or uncomfortable watching it; if yes, bravo.
But Tina Fey’s recent impression of Palin is a refreshing change of pace for SNL. As a result, she’s become what a good satirical impression should be: a nasty, unshakeable paratext hanging around the candidate’s official appearances, and standing between the citizen-viewer and the candidate. I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that Tina Fey is, right now, the most socially relevant and important comedian on television because of her impression.
More after the fold…
From a paratextual and intertextual standpoint, I’ve been fascinated to see how successful her impressions have been. Blogs and op-ed pieces everywhere are quoting Fey when commenting on Palin, sometimes with no seeming awareness of the slip. Thus, for instance, the “can see Russia from my window/backyard” comment crops up all over the place, many times without direct invocation of Fey. Ironically too, as eerily on-the-money as Fey’s impression is, many people’s impressions of Palin are in fact impressions of Fey’s impression. Thus, Fey’s impression has definitely become a dominant frame through which many people are viewing, talking about, and thinking about Sarah Palin.
Obviously, Fey has the physical likeness working for her. Freud notes that tendentious humor is aggressive, releasing anxiety, hence our proclivity to laugh at people. Since Fey looks so much like Palin, it allows one to engage in a censorious laughter at Palin while watching Fey, in a way that we can’t laugh at Bush so easily when Ferrell does him or at Obama when Armisen does him. She also has the voice down, or, rather, she offers a lovely mix that’s close enough to Palin yet pulling it slightly closer to Fargo, and hence to further silliness.
It’s also a well-timed impression. By the time Carvey did Bush, Sr., we all knew who he was. Chase hardly introduced us to Ford. But Palin is still such an unknown to much of the world outside Wasilla. In my book, I distinguish between entryway paratexts and in medias res paratexts, the first grabbing us before we’ve seen or heard a text, the latter in the middle. Entryway paratexts can create the text before we’ve got there, and set early frames, while in medias res can shift and toggle, especially if there’s more of them than there is of the show itself. Fey’s impression is likely darn close to entryway for most citizen-viewers. In part due to the McCain campaign’s sexist strategy of acting like Palin needs protecting from the media, we haven’t seen all that much of Palin. One big speech. A few soundbites from her train wreck interviews. And now the debate. Using the analogy of the paratext, it’s almost as though we’ve seen a sneak preview for a television show, watched an ad or three, and read the reviews, but the show hasn’t quite started, or has only just started. At such a point in a text’s birth, paratexts have all the more power. So whereas it would be a lot harder to reframe Obama or McCain, the text of what Palin is and what she represents can be toggled with considerable ease. It’s all the harder for Palin to lay claim to being a serious candidate when Fey’s impression keeps coming back each Saturday night and on Hulu quickly thereafter.
For those who watch 30 Rock, or even for those who have seen Mean Girls, the impression is all the more stark for how un-Fey-like it is. Fey is a smart woman, and her characters are usually smart. But her Palin is abjectly stupid. Fey’s Liz Lemon can be neurotic and unsure of herself, but she is full of depth. Her Palin is sure of herself but shouldn’t be. Lemon is a little uncomfortable with adulthood at times, but Fey’s Palin thinks she’s all grown up, really just Ralph Wiggum. Fey has worked her way up to where she is. Her Palin has been thrust into an undeserved limelight. Thus the intertextual weight that is Tina Fey is important in tempering the impression. After all, the right wing’s key attack against anyone who has dared to suggest that Palin may be unqualified has been that this is sexist and demeaning to women. But ghosted behind Fey’s impression is a legitimately strong, smart, qualified woman, and thus her impression carries with it the haunting reminder of what Palin is not. In the character’s first appearance, SNL placed her alongside Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton for contrast, but Poehler isn’t needed for those who know Fey’s work: Fey provides contrast enough.
I’m also intrigued by the economics of the impression (and by a certain irony in it). Fey is a star, both more talented and more acclaimed than many of SNL‘s cast. Her impression has become hugely popular. And with SNL trying to make the move to Thursday night, where 30 Rock and The Office have conditioned viewers to expect smarter humor than SNL usually offers, the show really needs its big guns right now. So there is a lot invested in her impression for them. Traditionally, SNL has been so unsatiric because, as a network show, they don’t want to offend anyone. Hence their ultimately unoffensive impressions. Now, though, they have good reason to keep coming back with more.
Meanwhile, the real Palin (if such a being exists. At times I wonder if she is, like Paris Hilton or a boy band, just an amalgam of marketing ideas!) really only has one strategy open to try and explode the impression. Complaining about satire only makes one look stupid, and while complaining that Katie Couric was too tough on you is already laughable, if Palin and McCain wanted to complain of victimization from SNL, that hardly gels with their gun-toting, “we don’t blink” image. Instead, if she wants people to see her and not Fey’s impression, Palin must hold some press conferences. If the paratext is becoming the text, if she and the McCain campaign still want to reassert their right to author her as text, they need to do so, not just in rallies in small towns, but on the big stage. Right now, as suggested above, the text of Palin risks being swallowed by the paratext of the impression. Kudos to Tina Fey for finding the satiric punch to do that.