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Tina Fey Filmography
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Tina Fey: Saturday Night Live
With then head writer Adam McKay's help, Fey became a writer for NBC's
Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1997. In 1999, Fey became SNL's first female head writer, a milestone she downplays, pointing out how few head writers the show has had. Now co-head writer, she won a 2001 Writers' Guild of America Award for the show's 25th anniversary special; she and the rest of the writing staff won an Emmy in 2002 for their work on the show.
Some recurring sketches written by Fey include:* Parodies of Live with Regis and Kelly
and The View* Parodies of the Sharon Osbourne Show, cowritten by Amy Poehler* The Girl with No Gaydar, cowritten by Rachel Dratch* Boston Teens, cowritten by Rachel DratchShe is also credited with:* Colonel Angus, portrayed by
Christopher Walken in a sketch filled with word play on the colonel's name* Mom Jeans commercial* "Talkin 'Bout 'Ginas" (Parody of The Vagina Monologues)
In 2000 Fey and
Jimmy Fallon became co-anchors of SNL's Weekend Update, a pairing that ended in May 2004 when Fallon made his last appearance as a cast member. She now helms the satirical newscast with Amy Poehler.
Fey's primary role on
Weekend Update is as performer, since most of the writing for the segment is done by three or four writers dedicated to the task.
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Table of Content
Latest Film News
Latest news on Tina Fey
IssuesOn PBS, Cokie Roberts falsely suggested Biden's reference to "Bosniaks" was a gaffe
During coverage of
the October 2 vice-presidential
debate on PBS' Charlie Rose, Rose asked,
"Did either of them make any mistakes that you noticed?" National Public Radio
senior news analyst Cokie Roberts responded that Sen. Joe Biden "talked about
the Bosniaks." Roberts later said: "[I]f [Gov. Sarah Palin] had said 'Bosniak,' everybody would be making a big deal of it, you know." In fact,
Biden correctly referred to certain residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Bosniaks.
According to the U.S. State
Department, as of 2002, the
population of Bosnia and Herzegovina consisted
of the following ethnic groups: "Bosniak 48.3%, Serb
34.0%, Croat 15.4%, others 2.3%."
The CIA World Factbook states:
"Bosniak has replaced Muslim as an ethnic term in part to avoid confusion with
the religious term Muslim --
an adherent of Islam."
In a May 11 speech, U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and
Herzegovina Charles English repeatedly referenced "Bosniaks" and said: "Bosniak
political leaders must examine their own their political conduct within
governing institutions, particularly where they are the majority, and ask
themselves, is this conduct assuaging concerns among other ethnic groups about
domination or contributing to it?"
Biden said
during the debate:
Look what we did in Bosnia.
We took Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, being told by everyone, I was told by
everyone that this would mean that they had been killing each other for a
thousand years, it would never work. There's a relatively stable government
there now as in Kosovo.
From October 2 broadcast of PBS' Charlie Rose:
ROSE: Did either of them make any
mistakes that you noticed?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN (presidential historian): I didn't really see any
gaffes, nor were there many Tina Fey moments, or what might come on Saturday Night Live. The only one might be
when she asked what might trigger a nuclear war, and she went into, "A nuclear
war, that's the be-all and the end-all. That's bad. A lot of people, gone." I
can see them using that as a moment, but other than that, no, they both handled
everything pretty well.
ROBERTS: He talked about the
Bosniaks.
ROSE: The Bosniaks, yes.
ROBERTS: The Bosniaks. If she had
said --
GOODWIN: Oh, and there was McKiernan
versus McClellan, the name of the general in Afghanistan.
ROBERTS: If she had said "Bosniak,"
everybody would be making a big deal of it, you know.
GOODWIN: Correct.
ROSE: Yeah, and some people took
note of the fact that Senator Biden didn't correct at that point as a suggestion
of his restraint during the entire debate.
Published: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:10:37 GMT - Source: Mediamatters.Org - Read the articleIssuesMedia have repeatedly asserted Palin faces "low" or "lowered" expectations in debate, despite praise of her debate skills
Several members of the media, including MSNBC anchors and guests and an NPR reporter, have
asserted that Gov. Sarah Palin faces "low" or "lowered"
expectations in the upcoming vice-presidential debate and that she therefore
faces a lower bar for victory than Sen. Joe Biden. They have made these
assertions -- that she will win if she simply beats (lowered) expectations
-- despite criticism by at least one member of the media over the media's
setting of a lower
bar for Palin, despite praise of her performance in the Alaska gubernatorial
debate by others in the media, and despite McCain campaign surrogate Mitt
Romney's touting of her debate skills. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts,
stated on the September 29 broadcast
of NBC's Today: "I think if you looked at her
debate performance as the governor of Alaska, you're gonna see a
person who can hold her own. She's a very competent, well-spoken,
thoughtful individual,
and I think she's gonna do real well." Nonetheless, Romney also remarked on the
benefit to her of the "creat[ion of] low expectations."
Examples of media figures
asserting or suggesting that Palin stands to benefit from low expectations:
During a discussion of Palin on the September 28
edition of Fox News Sunday, NPR
national political correspondent Mara Liasson asserted: "But for this debate, no one is going to benefit more from low expectations
than Sarah Palin. She has got about the lowest
expectations. People think she's going to come on and babble incoherently, and
I think she's going to do just fine."
During the 8 a.m. ET hour of the September 28
edition of MSNBC Live, anchor Alex Witt asked,
"How about this: Are expectations so low for Palin that she can't help
but do better than what people expect?" Reuters Washington correspondent
Jon Decker replied, "[E]xpectations are extremely low for her going into
the Thursday night's debate. You like expectations
low going into a debate, that's for sure.
And if she can beat those expectations, it will be a good night for Sarah
Palin."
During the 9 a.m. ET hour of the September 28
edition of MSNBC Live, Witt asserted of Palin:
"Lowered expectation because of some
critical reviews of her network interviews. Do you think that lowered
expectations will actually help her and might the campaign folks be
micromanaging her now and not letting her personality come out?" Roll Call reporter Emily Heil replied:
"[C]ertainly,
those lowered expectations, if she does kind of well, I think most people will
call it a success."
During the noon ET
hour of the September 28 edition of MSNBC Live, Witt asked: "[W]hen you talk about the expectations
being lowered for Sarah Palin, and that certainly seems to be the consensus
that we've been hearing throughout this day here on MSNBC Sunday, does
that mean that she just has to go out there and be herself, as many have
suggested, showing her personality?"
During the 11 a.m. ET hour of the September 29
edition of MSNBC Live, after anchor Tamron Hall asked
if "low expectations actually help" Palin and "on the flip
side, is it fair that Joe Biden might be held to a higher standard," Newsweek correspondent Suzanne Smalley
replied, "Well, I think that you're right to mention low
expectations. That is something Sarah Palin has going for her."
During 3 p.m.
ET hour of the September 30 edition of MSNBC
Live, NBC News correspondent Savannah Guthrie said of the McCain campaign's expectations regarding
Palin's performance, "If she just survives on Thursday, I
think they'll be pleased." She
also reported that the "party line I'm hearing today,
which is to keep those
expectations low, to say, 'Let Palin be Palin. She's not running to be head of the debate
club, and that's not what Americans want.'"
As Media Matters
for America documented, CNN senior political
analyst Gloria Borger asserted that "the bar is, first of all, on the
floor for Sarah Palin" for the debate, to which senior legal analyst
Jeffrey Toobin responded that "it's not our job" to "sort of
create these expectations."
Notwithstanding claims
by these media figures that
expectations are "lower" for Palin, some in the media have praised Palin's
debating abilities based on her performance in the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial debate. National Review White House correspondent
Byron York wrote in a September
8 post to the
National Review Online blog
The Corner: "[A]ll I have to say is that
Palin was good
-- really good. It wasn't a debate in which
the candidates were in each other's faces or throwing out zingers, but Palin
clearly outshone her rivals --
especially [former Alaska Gov. Frank]
Murkowski, the longtime senator who played the role of the
experienced statesman." Similarly, in a post to the Time.com blog Swampland, national political correspondent Karen
Tumulty described Palin's gubernatorial debate performance as
"impressive," adding that Palin "is also very good on her
feet." Tumulty went on to write:
"That's why Joe Biden should be wary, especially since she will have
expectations very much in her favor."
In addition, MSNBC Live's Hall asked Newsweek national correspondent Suzanne
Smalley if the vice-presidential debate, which Hall said will have "more
structure" than the campaign trail,
will "help
Governor Palin."
Smalley replied, in part:
I think that the structure may be
harder. It's easy when you're talking off the cuff to take a moment
and think, but when you're under the glaring lights of a national TV
audience and millions of people watching and having to speak for an hour and a
half nonstop against somebody like Joe Biden, who's been doing this for
so long, it's a really tough position for anybody who's fairly new
on the national political scene. So it's gonna be a challenge for
her.
In asserting the purported benefit to Biden
of the "structure," Smalley did not note that the McCain campaign reportedly
"fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning
at the vice-presidential debate." According to a September 20 New York Times article:
At the insistence of the McCain
campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president,
Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will
have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential
nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for
free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.
From the September 28 edition of Fox News Sunday:
JUAN WILLIAMS (Fox News political contributor and NPR news analyst):
But with regard to Palin, let me just say, they wouldn't
even put Palin in the spin room after the debates. Joe Biden was out there in the
spin room.
BRIT HUME (Fox News Washington
managing editor): Right.
WILLIAMS: And I think that, you
know, when Bill [Kristol] says that they're mismanaging her -- the idea they
put her out there with the world leaders of the U.N. -- she looked bumbly. She
wouldn't even talk to reporters then. She goes on with [Fox News host] Sean Hannity, our friend. And
what happens? She can't even talk about the bailout effectively. And with [CBS
Evening News anchor] Katie Couric, it was an implosion.
LIASSON: But for this debate, no one is going to benefit more from low expectations
than Sarah Palin. She has got about the lowest
expectations. People think she's going to come on and babble incoherently, and
I think she's going to do just fine.
CHRIS WALLACE (host): Brit, you get the final word about
Sarah Palin.
HUME: My guess is she'll do fine,
but I think Bill's right. They've got to let her be herself, and she'll do
fine.
From the 8 a.m. ET hour of the September 28 edition of MSNBC Live:
WITT: How about real quickly, the VP
debate is Thursday. Lots of talk in this
media -- in the media, rather, this week -- about Sarah Palin following her
latest major interview. How about this: Are expectations so low for Palin that
she can't help but do better than what people expect?
DECKER: You know, I know, Alex --
I'm gonna miss it -- but I know you're going to play a lot of Saturday Night Live from last night. The
clips from Saturday Night Live
last night, this morning. And, you know, there's this image that's been
presented of her, pretty much through SNL,
but through other venues as well, as a person who is not up to it -- not up to
being the person who's a heartbeat away from the presidency. And as a
result, expectations are extremely low for her going into the Thursday night's debate. You like expectations low going into a debate, that's for sure. And if she can beat those
expectations, it will be a good night for Sarah Palin.
WITT: OK. Always a good morning with
you being here. Thank you so much, John Decker.
DECKER: Thank you, Alex.
From the 9 a.m. ET
hour of the September 28 edition of MSNBC
Live:
WITT: Emily, a lot of attention has
been focused on Sarah Palin. Lowered expectation
because of some critical reviews of her network interviews. Do you think that
lowered expectations will actually help her and might the campaign folks be
micromanaging her now and not letting her personality come out?
HEIL: Well, there is certainly a lot
of pressure on Sarah Palin for this debate performance. You know, she's going
up against Joe Biden, who's, you know, considered a very, you know, good
speaker. He's gaffe-prone, for sure, but he's a old hand at this, and
she's not. And I think that's causing a lot of concern for her handlers. And I
think there was some thought that maybe it was over-handling that had caused
this bad performance. We're going to have to see.
But you know what? The debate format
is actually, I think, going to work in her favor to a certain extent. The
questions are doing to be shorter, and also the topics are going to be very
wide-ranging. She's much more well-versed on economic issues, on domestic
issues, as opposed to foreign policy issues. So to the extent that it's
wide-ranging and to the extent that she can focus in on what she knows, I think
that's where she might do better. But certainly, those lowered
expectations, if she does kind of well, I think most people will call it a
success.
From the noon ET hour of the September 28 edition of MSNBC Live:
WITT: But Molly [Hooper, CQ political reporter], you know, when you
talk about the expectations being lowered for Sarah Palin, and that certainly
seems to be the consensus that we've been hearing throughout this day
here on MSNBC Sunday, does that mean that she just has to go out there and be
herself, as many have suggested, showing her personality? That is what a lot of the American public
has, you know, clamored onto. Or the fact that she is debating Joe Biden,
who's been in the Senate for so long, that he -- you know, there on
Capitol Hill. He's going to have some nuts and bolts to offer.
HOOPER: We'll see. And
that's the thing about Senator Biden: He does have the nuts and bolts,
but he doesn't do the talking points. And he's so, like I said,
intelligent and knows what he's talking about, that he'll start to
get into these arguments that are very temporal and almost beyond people. I
mean, I went to Berkeley,
I was a history major, I love listening to Biden, but sometimes it goes over my
head. And, you know, if Palin gets out there and she's herself -- when I
say that, she just is plainspoken, keeps the answers short, sweet, and to the
point, you know, a little, kind of Tina Fey. We laugh and
everything, but, you know, people want to hear that.
WITT: Yeah.
HOOPER: They want to be reassured.
They want those flat-out statements. They want that assurance. And Biden, like I
said, he likes to talk.
WITT: Yeah, he does. And Molly, to
what extent does he have to worry, though, about coming right up to what is
probably a pretty fine line over being mean or condescending or anything,
should Sarah Palin throw something that he vehemently disagrees with?
HOOPER: Well, here's the thing
about Senator Biden, and this is one of the reasons I love watching him on the
Senate floor -- this is why I love my job, because I can go out and see him
speak, sitting on the Senate floor. And, you know, he has this way about him.
He can sound sort of condescending, but it's not con-- he can be kind of
condescending, but it's not condescending. And that -- it's almost
sort of a Palin-esque kind of quality he has, but in a very 20 dollar kind of
word way.
WITT: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know
what? I'm going to say, from my experience with him, interviewing him,
he's just a really nice guy.
HOOPER: I know.
WITT: I'm just going to say
that. You know, he absolutely is.
From the 11 a.m. ET hour of the September 29 edition of MSNBC Live:
HALL: But could low expectations
actually help Sarah Palin heading into this VP debate? And on the flip side, is
it fair that Joe Biden might be held to a higher standard? Suzanne Smalley is a
national correspondent for Newsweek.
And so Suzanne, who has the edge going into the debate here?
SMALLEY: Well, I think that
you're right to mention low expectations. That is something Sarah Palin
has going for her. Nonetheless, Joe Biden has been in Congress for decades and
is a very skilled debater, and no matter how low the expectations are, that
matchup is gonna be tough for her. And it's going to be -- the stakes are
very high for this campaign, especially after Saturday
Night Live.
I think you can argue that the [ABC World
News anchor] Charlie Gibson interview, the Katie
Couric interview, all of that inside the Beltway has a big impact, but once it
hits Saturday Night Live and you
get a roasting like that from a show that many low-information voters are
watching, that's a portrait that's gonna start to stick of Governor
Palin, and she really needs to do well in this debate.
HALL: It's interesting. On
ABC's This Week, John
McCain was asked about Sarah Palin's answer to a question that the U.S. military should cross the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan. We know they've
been talking about this, they talked about it in a debate. And that was
essentially agreeing with Senator [Barack]
Obama. So here's how Senator McCain responded to it.
McCAIN [video clip]: This business
of, in all due respect, people going around and sticking a microphone while
conversations are being held and then all of a sudden that's a
person's position -- it's a free country, but I don't think
most Americans think that that's a definitive policy statement made by
Governor Palin.
HALL: So to backtrack a little bit
so our audience knows what's happened, someone kind of approached her
with a mic, and they ask her and that was her off-the-cuff, if you will,
explanation. In the debate, more structure -- will that help Governor Palin in
that -- it's a lot of information, but to whom much is given, much is
expected.
SMALLEY: Right. And, you know, I
think that, first of all, the "off the cuff" defense from Senator McCain
is really -- I mean, they have to have some kind of defense, but his
campaign's gone after Joe Biden for off-the-cuff remarks. I mean,
it's the nature of the game, and it is striking that she did disagree
with her running mate's position on this issue.
Beyond that, you know, I think that
the structure may be harder. It's easy when you're talking off the
cuff to take a moment --
HALL: Right.
SMALLEY: -- and think, but when
you're under the glaring lights of a national TV audience and millions of
people watching and having to speak for an hour and a half nonstop against
somebody like Joe Biden, who's been doing this for so long, it's a
really tough position for anybody who's fairly new on the national
political scene. So it's gonna be a challenge for her.
From the 3 p.m.
ET hour of the September 30 edition of MSNBC
Live:
NORAH O'DONNELL (anchor): Savannah, John McCain just said they don't
expect her -- they don' t -- "their
appreciation for her is not because she's got
a Ph.D. from Harvard. She
doesn't." It
sounded like a backhanded compliment, but nevertheless, are there Republicans that
are concerned about her
performance and what this means for John McCain's candidacy? And,
I mean, doesn't it say something, the fact that all of his top advisers are
with her there now? They've left John McCain by himself, and they're with Palin to get her
ready.
GUTHRIE: Well, that's true. I
mean, to that point, we
just heard [NBC News correspondent]
Ron [Allen] that David
Axelrod [chief political strategist
for Obama] and others are with Biden now. So
these debates are important, and so
you do put the full-court
press.
There's no question that Republicans -- many of them will tell
you privately they're very concerned about Sarah Palin. And now, some of them
are peeling off and even saying so publicly. I mean, we've seen some prominent writers come out and say, "Palin isn't ready for prime time."
But what you heard John McCain tell
Kelly O'Donnell this morning is very much the party line I'm
hearing today, which is to keep those
expectations low, to say, "Let Palin be Palin. She's not running to be head of the debate
club, and that's not what Americans want." And also to point out,
"Hey, Joe
Biden's been doing this for 30 years. Of
course Sarah Palin -- she's
going to do the best she can, but let's not overstate the case." If
she just survives on Thursday, I think they'll be pleased.
Published: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:49:52 GMT - Source: Mediamatters.Org - Read the articleSoftwareTweet About Obama, McCain, Biden and Palin on Twitter! Everyone Else Is
Twitter has created an Election 2008 page, where users can tweet on all things Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Yes, there are obligatory links to Tina Fey's Palin impersonation on Saturday Night Live. Hurry and take a look before Twitter crashes amid a sea of furious, rapid phrase-typing, instant-messaging political aficionados. - Acknowledging that people are primed to pop off on politics, Twitter has
created a special Election
2008 group, here.
Twitterers old and new can sign in and comment about presidential and vice
presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
And they are. I've ...
Published: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:08:09 GMT - Source: Eweek.Com - Read the article
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