"A little dash of high school bitchy," self-described Tina Fey in Thursday's "Saturday Night Live" and goodness if everyone wasn't trying to make like the hawk-nosed Fey last week. It resulted in very disturbing viewing experiences.
But let's start with the good. NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. The year could have come and gone without us ever having said a kind or positive word for this program so their decision to air a report by NBC's Ron Allen Monday on independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader was, without a doubt, the strongest moment last week. It was news, it was informative and it showed a stronger belief in both journalism and democracy than most news consumers have seen all year. Applause for Ron Allen and, yes, for Brian Williams who has editorial control of his broadcast. We honestly though NOW on PBS would be the first to air an interview with Nader and, hearing about the results of those random surveys CBS News does -- the ones that keep coming back in large numbers with "more coverage of third party candidates" -- we figured if anyone beat NOW on PBS, it would be The CBS Evening News. Instead, Williams and company left them both in the dust.
From the good to the bad and the list is oh-so long. Sticking with news programs we turn to The NewsHour (PBS) and, as with most news broadcasts we catch, a friend told us we had to make a point to tune in. We doubt they'll recommend anything to us in the near future. Or maybe we hope that.
It was Tuesday and the segment we were "going to love!!!!" was Gasbag Gwen Ifill chewing the fat with three guests on the topic of racism. It was so awful it made Gwen's usual gig as our modern day Virginia Graham on Washington Week seem serviceable. Her guest gasbags were "Michael Fauntroy, professor of public policy at George Mason University and author of the book 'Republicans and the Black Vote'; Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press; and Eddie Glaude, Jr., a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton." Kohut is White while Fauntroy and Glaude are African-American which is certainly in keeping with PBS' strong desire these days to reduce race down solely to Black and White. Take that, Reading Rainbow!
And if, from the credits, you immediately picked Glaude as the loser, you were not mistaken. African-American studies really doesn't automatically lend itself to political science. Nor does Women's Studies. That's not a slam on either discipline, it's just noting that a lot of people these days are unqualified to discuss the topic they are supposed to be experts on. Glaude flaunted his ignorance early on:
We have a younger voting population, the so-called millennial generation and Generation Y, that group between 18 and 29, who have a different kind of experience. These are folk who have come of age post the cultural wars, come of age post the kinds of issues that defined the '60s and '70s.
Uh, Glaude, you use buzz terms, you just appear not to grasp them. Generation X, for example, came "of age post the kinds of issues that defined the '60s and '70s." We'd assume Glaude would know that were he a professor of poli sci, sociology or public policy/administration. He's not and we weren't surprised by his ignorance.
What Glaude lacked factually he somewhat made up for with enthusiasm. He was not the worst of the three. The worst is the man who puts the P-E-W in PEW, Andrew Kohut. Kohut wanted to gasbag about whatever crossed his mind and since Gwen so rarely listens to anyone's response (she merely counts to herself while waiting for the chance to ask her next question), she didn't notice what went down.
In the midst of responding to one of Gwen's free association statements that never quite resemble an actual question, Kohut declared, "I'll give you an example of this. In 1987, for the first time, I asked a question about, 'How do you feel about interracial dating?' Fifty-five percent of the white people that we questioned said they disapproved. That number has slowly come down every year. It's only at 14 percent."
Gwen identified Barack as "African-American" throughout and no one ever brought up the terms "mixed race" or "biracial" (which, for the record, Barack is). So what was the point of that offering from Kohut? What does a 1987 attitude towards interracial dating have to do with voting for an "African-American" candidate? Again, were the gasbags honest about Barack, the studies might have some bearing but not as presented and, as presented, it seemed to imply a belief that African-American opinion does not matter. Kohut never told us the number of African-Americans who supported interracial dating then or now and Gwen and the other two guests never thought to ask.
For the record, in 1987, 74% of African-Americans told PEW they found interracial dating "acceptable." In 2007 (the most recent study released by PEW on this issue), the number rose to 97%. For Whites -- as defined by PEW which apparently only asked this question of those they could label either "Black" or "White" -- the numbers went from 44% said it was "acceptable in 1987 to 81% said it was in 2007.
As the segment frequently fell apart, we found ourselves wishing Michael Fauntroy had been paired up with better guests and another moderator or at least Gwen with her C-game. We also found ourselves realizing that Rachel Maddow's temporary TV success (she has Ashleigh Banfield On Location written all over her) was actually a blessing for Gwen -- Maddow makes Gwen appear highly intelligent. That was driven home most recently when Maddow decided to gasbag over Governor Sarah Palin repeating that "Joe the Plumber" stated Barack's "spread the wealth around" program sounded like "Socialism." In Maddow Land, it became Palin made the judgment call, not Joe the Plumber; however, Maddow wasn't done yet. She went on to equate Socialism and Communism as the same thing and demonstrate just how ignorant she was of the two political ideologies. It was almost as if Maddow was making like Angela Lansbury to serenade Gwen. Nothing's going to harm you, not while I'm around . . .
Amy Poehler wasn't around Saturday night, she was in labor. (A baby boy, named Archie.) So she missed out on the SNL broadcast, lucky, lucky her. The talented Maya Rudolph was brought on for two skits and they both added up to so little that we really hope Maya's done with Saturday Night Live.
The first skit, which we were told (lied to) yet again was going to be hilarious and that finally created an inner-life for Barack, was Maya and Fred doing Michelle and Barack. That sounds interesting . . . unless you watched. There was no inner life. There wasn't even a character for Maya, let alone new lines. It was Maya doing the Peaches & Herb/Ashford & Simpson sketch yet again. This time they took Nick and Val's "Solid" and turned it into a pro-Barack song: "SOLID . . . as Barack . . ." It was so nothing, such complete nothing. Barack in the White House should be scaring the hell out of Lorne because his gang of writers still can't create interactions for Barack.
Maya's second skit also involved her singing. On Weekend Update. "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." Yes, Maya's mother was the incredibly talented Minnie Riperton. No, Maya herself is not a singer. She is a very talented actress but no one could tell that from last night's broadcast. If they were paying attention, they might have grasped the point we've made since SNL debuted this fall: Too few women. Maya has to be brought on to have a Michelle character (who does nothing). And with Amy in labor, women really didn't do a great deal. In fact, Maya singing at the end of Weekend Update was the only time a woman was present despite the multiple number of male cast members who sat next to Seth playing various characters (including a telephone).
Seth showed just how awful he and Barack's real supporters are. They're centrists, they're not leftists. That's Barack's core support. Seth proved it with his little 'joke' about the economy which included him editorializing on where the blame went for the financial crisis. If you missed it, try to guess who was blamed first by Neo-Lib Seth? The banks? No. The home owners taking out loans -- loans, Seth explained, they couldn't afford.
Seth spewed a lot of hate at McCain and a lot of love at Barack so it was your typical night of the week for Seth -- alone and jerking off. Sadly, SNL decided to broadcast it. But not content to rip apart McCain for Barack, Weekend Update also included a skit about Ralph Nader.
We're going to be extremely kind and not name the actor who 'played' Nader. He didn't speak like Nader and he certainly didn't look like Nader (that ugly wig did make him look like Bob Barker; however). When a skit features "Ralph" but the actor makes no effort to sound or look like him, you might hope they'd at least build the laughs around actual facts and events.
That's too much hope. Seth lives to pick at his crack (the last skit was an inside SNL joke -- ha, ha) and he lives to destroy anyone who is not Barack. So it didn't matter, for example, that Ralph Nader has raised more money in his 2008 run than in any previous run. It doesn't matter that, outside of self-funders like H. Ross Perot, Nader's probably going to end 2008 with the strongest fundraising for any candidate not belonging to the two-party duopoly. "You know how much I raised?" asked fictional SNL Ralph. "Nothing."
And it only got worse. Seth asked "Ralph," "Who is your running mate?" Ralph responded, "Manuel." We didn't find that funny, we found it racist and that was before Manuel was 'brought out' as a sock puppet. (Nader's running mate is Latino Matt Gonzalez. Considering SNL's shit-poor record in casting Latinos or in allowing them to host, the program really can't afford to do anything that could come off as anti-Latino.)
As usual, the highpoints came from Andy and Kristin. On Kristin, we missed a character she did early last year (several times). She's one half of the A-Holes and when a friend with SNL (not Kristin, we don't know her, we've never spoken to her) mailed a disc with a series of skits last week including the A-Holes (Nativity Scene, Eye Witnesses to a Crime, Shop for a Christmas Tree), we should have known there was a point. The A-Holes are actually funny. Sadly, they're not really A-Holes, more like self-obsessed, shallow people. But they are funny. We'll join the group crying for more A-Holes -- the funny characters, not Seth and Tina.
Were we like Tina, "a little dash of high school bitchy" (a little? don't be so modest, Tina), we'd share the wonderful tales from 30 Rock about the problems Fey's thickening waist has created for wardrobe and how ticked off (at others) Fey's become as a result. We'd even repeat a hilarious story a name guest star from this season told us. Instead, we'll just note that if, like many watching SNL Thursday night, you felt Tina's heart really wasn't in it, you are correct. She wrongly thought her Sarah Palin impersonation was making her a star. The SNL episode Palin guest starred on brought in more viewers than any episode since Madonna hosted all those years ago when the world actually cared about her. The ratings had Tina despondent and wondering who cared about her?
Was it all just the popularity of Palin and did none of it have to do with Tina? That's the question she's been hinting around at and, bad news, it's a question NBC suits are wondering (try fearing) as well. They'll be watching the ratings very closely and a little bump might have been good news for 30 Rock in its second season but this year's being heavily promoted on guest-star power. The real sign of how dire things are came from one of Tina's co-workers who called us with the tale of Tina stating last week, "Well at least I'm funny." (We also heard it from another co-worker as, "Well at least I'm still funny.") It was all so very sad and, as soon as we finally stopped laughing, we explained why. As Susan Sontag once wrote ("The Wisdom Project"), "To describe oneself as young is to face that one is no longer young." We'd argue the same goes for "funny."
We'd further argue that she proved Sontag's point in the skit with Will Ferrell -- the only skit she did on Thursday's broadcast -- where she couldn't maintain her Palin 'accent' for the full sketch, couldn't maintain the energy level, often seemed to focus on the camera and forget a live audience was present (such as when she twice completely stepped out of character during wide shots) and her timing never seemed quite right. Though it didn't make for good entertainment, it was probably right behind Nightly News' Nader report for most informative TV moment last week.
