the daily fey

Is a Tina Fey Backlash Inevitable?

Sloane Tanen’s Feathers (2008).

As should be completely obvious to anyone, Tina Fey is having a pretty terrific month. First she won like 400 Emmys for her brilliant work on the second season of 30 Rock. Then she propelled Saturday Night Live to unforeseen levels of relevance with her spot-on impersonation of beloved Alaskan politician Sarah Palin. Next, as has now become legend, she fixed the global financial crisis, captured Osama bin Laden, and rescued newborn kittens from a fire. And now she’s signed a book deal! Fey will write a “book of humorous essays in the style of Nora Ephron,” for Little, Brown & Co., for which she’ll likely be paid an advance large enough to bail out the next five failed banks. So can anything be done to prevent the certainly imminent Tina Fey backlash?

Man, we hope so! Honestly, is there another contemporary superstar whose success is better deserved? (No!) Has another TV writer-showrunner-star been responsible for more wonderfulness over the past few years? (Not that we’re aware of!) Isn’t it awesome to see a New York geek hero embraced by the Regis-loving mainstream? (Yes.) But doesn’t it also feel like this maybe can’t last forever? Sure, 30 Rock is back at the end of this month, and, yes, it will be awesome and probably better-watched than ever before (if a little product-placement-y). But sometime, in the far-off distant future, possibly after the election is over and America happily goes back to ignoring SNL (and very likely television altogether), isn’t a Fey backlash basically inevitable? Is there anything we can do to stop it? Because we totally will.

Little, Brown Will Publish Tina Fey Book [NYO]

Related: Tina Fey, ‘W.,’ and the Ten Funniest Political Impressions of All Time

Is a Tina Fey Backlash Inevitable?