SALON

Friday, Oct 19, 2012 1:48 PM UTC

“30 Rock”: Tina Fey ends the “are women funny?” debate

In a final season filled with comedy in-jokes, last night's episode might have settled the silliest argument ever

By

Topics: Television, TV, 30 Rock, Tina Fey,

“30 Rock” feels like it’s dashing pell-mell toward its series finale. Three episodes into the series’ 13-episode final season, the sitcom that has deployed meta-humor more consistently and deliriously than any other comedy ever, has been serving the meta up every episode.

In the season’s first episode, Jack Donaghy introduced his plan to “tank” NBC, just the latest gag about the incompetence of “30 Rock’s” real corporate overlord. (Though, for the first time since “30 Rock” started, NBC’s fortunes are actually looking up, a turnaround the “30 Rock” writers couldn’t have predicted.) Last week, in an absurdly bold episode that aired just before the vice-presidential debate, Fey “30 Rock”-ed her crazy experience imitating Sarah Palin. In the episode Paul Ryan dropped out of the debate, and was replaced by a doddering, sexist, gaffe- and vomit-prone politician who looked identical to Tracy Jordan. This week, Fey and company took on another doozie: The women aren’t funny debate.

“30 Rock” has directly taken on women-in-comedy issues before. There was the early, hilarious episode guest-starring Carrie Fisher as a brilliant, deranged, lonely older female writer. More recently, there was the infamous “Joan of Snark” episode, in which “30 Rock” lampooned Jezebel while trying to solve its “woman problem,” i.e., a lack of women in the writers room. Last night, Tracy tweeted “women are not funny, never have been, never will be” sending Liz into a “nerd rage.” After angrily confronting Tracy (“Maybe things that men like are boring to women.” “No, everybody likes our things”), Liz decided to show Tracy a thing or two by performing one of her and Jenna’s old sketches, set at a doctor’s office. Following “30 Rock’s” implicit rule, we didn’t see much of the sketch. It looked horrible, but the crowd laughed. Afterward, Tracy apologized to Liz, admitting women could be funny, but it soon became clear he had been laughing for all the “wrong” reasons — the idea a woman could be a doctor at all. Everyone interprets comedy differently! Liz decided to take it as a victory anyway.

When tackling thorny issues, from Tracy Morgan’s real-life homophobic rant to gender balance, “30 Rock” rarely comes down on one side of an issue. Usually it sends up everyone for being ridiculous, pointing out the absurdities in each position, but not quite preferring one to the other. Last night’s episode did, and did not, go this route. Liz didn’t pull off some resounding victory, proving for all of eternity that women are funny. By the end of the episode she was even reduced to listing the funny women who had come before her. And yet, if you laughed at any part of that story line — at Tracy insisting pet monkeys were funnier than women — or at any point during the episode — like, maybe when Ryan Lochte was introduced as a sex idiot, or Liz Lemon playing Carrie Bradshaw — that was the real definitive proof. If “30 Rock” is funny, women are funny.

But I wish the show hadn’t been quite so toothless about it. “30 Rock’s” even-handedness about these sorts of conversations — its insistence that all of its characters, Liz especially, always be a little bit wrong about something— can be frustrating. (“Joan of Snark” was hilarious, but inconclusive; “Idiots Are People Two,” the episode that addressed Morgan’s comments, went too easy on him.) The women aren’t funny debate is tremendously stupid. Fey must find it to be tremendously stupid. If “30 Rock” was going to bother to take it on at all, it could have used a more vicious send-up than “different people find different things funny.” If there’s any debate that Liz Lemon should probably just flat-out win, this is it. Otherwise “30 Rock” itself, without ever addressing the issue directly, is a better refutation of this particular dopey talking point.

Willa Paskin

Willa Paskin is Salon's staff TV writer. More Willa Paskin.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 5 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations