Where have you gone, Tina Fey

This is off topic, but it is my fucking blog.  I would like to share my hope that Tina Fey got on the elevator at 30 Rock this morning and went to Amy Poehler's office, and broke off some smelling salts under her nose. Poehler's impression of Nancy Grace commenting on the recent developments in the Duke lacrosse case was reprehensible. Technically, the impression was solid, based on my limited contact with Nancy Grace. However, the premise of the skit, that Nancy Grace is fighting for the rights of those who falsely report sexual assault plumbed new depths in a story that I did not think could get any sadder or sordider. We may never know what happened in that house that night, but it seems clear that even in the absence of felony convictions, there is plenty for Duke lacrosse to be ashamed of.

You would figure that Tina Fey's ex sidekick would know better than to make light of falsely reporting rape. In the Fey era, we had ads for the Woomba, Old Skool Kotex, and Mom Jeans -- inasmuch as there was a feminist discourse on broadcast TV, it was happening in SNL fake ads.   

Not so much these days. As a national problem, false allegations of rape are right up there with toddlers attacking pitbulls -- it happens but not as much as the other way around. If the women involved are in fact making false allegations, they do women, especially college women, no favors. But Amy Poehler should know better than to ridicule these women on national television. In the context of the majority of rapes that do happen that do not get reported, five minutes making light of false rape allegations is not responsible. Humor, and even SNL, is supposed to be "edgy," and all that, and there is plenty of offensive humor that I think is funny, but I suspect that this performance will have the material effect of discouraging real rape victims from reporting real rapes. Thus, more rapists will be walking the streets, thanks to this skit. I recognize that Amy Poehler is the performer, and not necessarily the writer, but she had to choose to speak these words. I bet it would have gone down differently on Tina Fey's watch.

Comments

[alizinha]

Amen to that, brother.

[augieland]

I only saw this thing because you posted on it but that seems like good satire of how pathetic our news sources have become.

[Fesser]

I have no problem at all with making fun of Nancy Grace, though she seems to do a good job of it herself. I feel that the collateral damage this satire does by suggesting that alleging rape is like crying wolf is what makes this sketch toxic. Nancy Grace is the target of the satire, but these women from NC A&T are the medium, and that seems unfair. In a world where one thinks that the recent DNA finding completely exonerates the lacrosse team, and puts all the onus for the incident on these women, then I suppose they deserve whatever they get, but I see the issue as more complicated than that.