Tina Fey's Interesting Take on Sexuality
"Lemon, if you were any other woman on earth, I'd be turned on."
I was not surprised to hear second hand about Tina Fey's interview with Howard Stern where she talks about losing her virginity at 24 to her current husband. It makes sense, particularly in the context of her work...
In watching 30 Rock (and thinking a bit back upon Mean Girls) Fey has a tendency to portray sexuality as either gross or mindnumbingly stupid. In 30 Rock, the blonde TV star uses her sexuality in a rather repulsive manner and Lemon's intern is the dumb blonde who is able to turn men into primative ape-like dummies by showcasing her butt and boobs.
One of the funniest moments of the show is when Lemon dresses up and feels hot, walks through the office in a glam shot and is met by jeers from her fellow writers, "Ewww, you're making me gay."
There's something about Fey's point of view I find rather refreshing and original, instead of putting sexuality - particularly female sexuality - on this pedastal and relishing in it's seductive power (see Sharon Stone or Salma Hayak), Fey treats it as simply gross and rather stupid. And the fanatistic thing is that she doesn't replace it with an plain jane, dirty hippy, I don't care how I look thing, nor try to disguise her femininity with buff, mannish behavior, but has a cute, self deprecating humor about it all. I rather like it.
And the irony, of course, is that she's totally hot.
5 comments:
I haven't seen 30 Rock, but it sounds like she's looking at women the way women look at women--which she did in Mean Girls with a lot of accuracy--and then having an opinion about it. It's pretty interesting when people of either sex who give out the right cues (for women, dressing sexually and being flirty) get much more attention then any other aspect of their personality should merit. Being around a woman who needs a lot of sexual attention from pretty much everyone in the room is exhausting for me, and probably for most other people too. It's gratifying when the men around don't buy into it either. Also, funny. Ergo, Fey.
Yeah. Robyn's hit this on the nose. There's nothing revolutionary about Fey's viewpoint. The only thing new here is that this is the first time there's been a female showrunner on a half-hour show. Ever. On one hours shows, you don't deal with these kinds of issues with the same tone. It wouldn't play.
I'm always personally suspicious of claims that an entire group sees or approaches issues in a single, uniformed way. In this case, I'm suspicious of the claim that Fey's viewpoint represents "how women view women" because there is simply no single way women view women. and likewise, no single way men view women.
i don't know the statistics on female half an hour showrunners, but there's certainly women voices out there in entertainment whose POV differ sharply from Fey. Sophia Copolla's moody, indifferent, female characters are a lot different from Amy Heckerling's cute, smarter-than-she-looks herione. and they both differ from fey.
i don't think anyone is making the claim that fey's outlook is revolutionary, as in, she's changing the way EVERYONE thinks - but i do think her voice is original and i'd be happy to be pointed in the direction of other authors, filmmakers, poets - men or women - who treat female sexuality subject in a similar manner.
Certainly all women do not regard their own gender in a single, uniform way. But you have to admit, finding an oversexed female tiresome instead of titillating is a different perspective that we don't always get to see. A perspective probably more commonly aligned with the experience of females as opposed to males, which may (see comment #2) be the reason we don't see it very much and it's refreshing and funny (because it's true, those people are tiresome, male or female).
For further reading: Jane Austen (especially Mansfield Park), Helen Fielding (especially Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), Margaret Atwood (esp. The Robber Bride), George Saunders (especially the short story Sea Oak). Todd Solondz gets on that train a bit (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Palindromes). Well, maybe same track, different train. Ditto the new John Cameron Mitchell movie, which instead of treating sexuality as a sacred/profane pedestal/pit-dweller, looks at it as fun and often goofy and a way to connect with people and feel comfort. It is pretty fun when people take on sexuality as more than just a trope to motivate behaviour or justify a want. So often sex/love is just that and no more in movies especially.
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