This week Tina Fey said "No Way" to hosting the Oscars and taking the torch from Seth Macfarlane - a man committed to failing upwards in life. It's an announcement that disappointed many who had asked, "Why can't Tina Fey and Amy Poehler just host everything?"
I too wish Tina would realise that the only successor to a Family Guy is a Mean Girl. Consider this...
Tina Saw Your Boobs. Your Skanky Slutty Boobs.
If you're craving another musical number like Macfarlane's ode to the celebrity breasts, seen in rape scenes and stolen photographs, fear not. Fey gave us enough material the last time she spoke about the Oscars and the idea that winning an Academy Award incurs an unfaithful husband:
"It's not an Oscar problem, it's a lady problem. The problem is there are girls like Bombshell McGee out there. For every Sandra Bullock there's a woman who got a tattoo on her forehead because she ran out of room on her labia. For every Elin Nordegren there's a Hooters waitress who spells Jamee with two Es and a star. You could be the woman who cures cancer and you would still be up against some skank, rocking giant veiny fake boobs where the nipples point in different directions like an old Buick. Seth, the world has always been full of whores." -Tina Fey Saturday Night Live. Season 35: Episode 18. 2010.
Damn, that's got a beat. Bring on the choir of oncologists (who all mate for life) to sing behind Tina who...works in television.
Baby Mama (2008)
Hope you like 'hermaphrodite' jokes.
Tina Fey On Hugh Hefner's Girlfriends
[points to fourth girlfriend ] [in Chinese accent] "She a numba one girlfriend! [...] these women aren't doing it for the money. They're doing it because they were molested by a family friend." -Tina Fey Saturday Night Live. Season 26: Episode 16. 2001
Then Kid Rock makes a joke that you can play ball with the 14 year old Olsen twins, "If there's grass on the field." Remind me if MacFarlane said that was the Clooney cut off point...
Those Dirty Abused Whores
Family Guy shows there's a big dollar out there for bashing marginalised groups and 30 Rock is stuffed with 'dead hooker' jokes. From Tracey Morgan speaking with a stripper, "I know you've been molested. That's how we all got here." To Jack Donaghy saying, "The balcony below is probably still littered with stripper bones." Lines spoken by fictional characters, yet this (well documented) fixation with sex workers is underwritten by Fey's conviction that the sex industry "needs to die".
Perhaps it's misplaced concern. I can relate because I would like to start a Kickstarter with some strippers to rescue thespians. Some of these women are starving themselves and shaving their heads for money and golden trinkets. Donate today.
Back To Fey In Her Own Words
"I imagine it's like being at a bachelor party only to find that the stripper has overdosed in the bathroom."
"How can I describe it? -if you boiled ten thousand eggs in a prostitute's bathwater." - Tina Fey, Bossypants
But, Sarah -you say- Feminism is about equality and that includes equal opportunity mocking. If I can't belittle these diseased skanks, then the terrorists win. Right?
Being a woman doesn't mean you cannot criticise other ladies, but being a comedian means that you are required to show a little discipline in your craft. Otherwise the only thing marking out your performance from a rant down the phone, about that girl in school, is the wooden stage under your feet.
Fey herself has admitted to a past disdain for classmates who "drank, cut school, overdressed, or slept around." Perhaps every dead hooker joke satisfies an adolescent urge to castigate the beautiful when 'good behaviour' garners less attention.
If feminism wants us to accept that Rihanna is a role model perhaps we should also ask what Tina Fey is teaching our teenagers. I was an adolescent when Dirrty was released but it took me longer to see through the hypocrisy of glamorous columnists and raunch culture critics, than it did to see through Aguilera's assless trousers. Looking back though, I wish my misadventures in fashion outnumbered the hours I spent laughing at feminist approved misogyny.
Therefore, the only logical candidate for hosting the Oscars next year is....Rihanna. She can reveal that Chris Brown is in fact a CIA plot, sponsored by the Academy, to distract us from how much of an Oscar seating plan also enjoys abuse. There's Sean 'tied Madonna to a chair' Penn wearing Tom Ford and next to him is Mark Wahlberg, clutching his invitation in the hand that blinded a Vietnamese guy he was racially abusing.
And since Seth MacFarlane is allowed to relate Django to the time Chris Brown assaulted his girlfriend, I propose that Rihanna catch Seth's eye, crack a Bucket List joke, and make a witty quip about his mum dying of cancer.
Or maybe, as Tina says in yet another misinformed opinion on the sex industry "We can all do a little better than that."
Thanks to Dr Brooke Magnanti for choosing this fine picture.
Thanks to the writers at Tits and Sass asking Tina Fey "Why are you so obsessed with us?"
A longer examination at The New Inquiry of the problematic writings of Tina Fey, by Anna Breslaw
To read more from Sarah Woolley visit xoJane.