Tina Fey
How she became Sarah Palin’s best friend and altered a national election.
“Because of that one episode, that one episode, that would turn an issue into what it has become over the last two years. I think that’s ridiculous.”-Sarah Palin 1
In 2008, Saturday Night Live comedian Tina Fey portrayed GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in a skit that people would never forget. Her spot-on accent, her mockery, and most importantly her uncanny resemblance to her subject developed into a comedic phenomenon. In fact, her first appearance as Sarah Palin was the second most watched episode of Saturday Night Live in history. 2 That’s a lot of people tuning in to watch the hopeless downfall of a powerful political woman.
People with little to absolutely no political history could look at this side by side and recognize the similarities in these two characters. A comedian standing next to a powerful woman, but look one in the same. Sarah Palin was quick to admit that she “watched with the volume all the way down and thought it was hilarious… [she] didn’t hear a word [Tina Fey] said, but the visual was spot on.” 3
Tina Fey often twisted Sarah Palin’s words just slightly enough for her audience to buy in. In one skit, Tina Fey mocked Sarah Palin by saying she could “see Russia from [her] house.” In fact, what Sarah Palin actually said was “you can actually see Russia, from land, here in Alaska” implying that she was able to work closely with the people of Russia and was able to engage in foreign policy. Her original statement was perhaps more sophisticated than what Tina Fey made it out to be. (Fact check: you can indeed see Russia from one part of land in Alaska). 4 A Zogby Poll released in 2008 revealed that 87 percent of people believed that Sarah Palin was the one who said she “could see Russia from [her] house.” 5 Clearly, Tina Fey played a huge role in confusing the public during the election. Comedy turned into news, making news a comedy.
Sure, Tina Fey added comedic relief to the elections, but what she also did was blur the line between fact and fiction. By making fun of Sarah Palin, she manipulated the public into believing things about the election that were not true. She made a powerful woman look like an idiot by exaggerating her political image by revealing all of her ticks and faults. With a little make up and a new hair style Tina Fey turned herself into a beautifully painted portrait of Sarah Palin.
Tina Fey transformed herself into the character of Sarah Palin so well that at times it became a game of who’s/who? The scary part is even “reliable” new sources such as Fox news couldn’t tell them apart! Above shows a clip from a Fox News report where they were attempting to comment on Sarah Palin but showed an image of Tina Fey.7 Tina Fey comments that “the glasses [were] ninety-seven percent” of her impersonation, and I’m sure Fox News would love to blame it on the glasses throwing them off.8 The irony is that not even the most notable, republican activist news source could separate the truth from reality. So who could make these distinguishes? We can give credit to Tina Fey for proving to us all that what you see is what you get. They say the best performers are performers that can get into character, but what about Tina Fey who now rightfully owns the character?
The first question that comes to mind is how does she do it? How is Tina Fey able to trick millions of people into believing she is someone that she’s not? It can’t just be her similar appearance that confuses people; it is much more than that. In an interview with David Letterman, Tina Fey says that her impression comes from Sarah Palin’s “really crazy voice” and that her “Alaskan wing song accent” differentiates from anything she has ever done before. She goes on to say how she requested Seth Meyers to add a lot of hard R’s to her skits because Sarah Palin “digs into those R’s” in fact Sarah Palin might even think “there are oil in those R’s.”9 In her skits she uses words like agree, terrorist, and addressing over and over. 10 By constantly reiterating the same noise she was able to generate a large response with the emphasis of one tiny detail.
Before you process a joke’s content, you pick up on the way it is presented to you. You are looking at a reflection of Sarah Palin and now you are hearing her words speak to you. Tina Fey uses the words to her advantage by pointing out and exaggerating Sarah Palin’s highly criticized speech ticks. Viewers can easily recognize the hard R’s and the emphasis on words making them naturally sound funnier. You hear a funny word and then laugh even harder at the anticipated punchline. The accent fills in the empty space and allows thoughts to be formed between jokes. By the end of the segment, the viewers have completely fallen into the Sarah Palin shaped trap. They refuse the reality of the situation and whole heartedly believe that what they are seeing is what they are getting. The accent and the way Tina Fey abuses it plays a key role in her success of the mockery of Sarah Palin.
Naturally, Tina Fey went back for more but this time she had no mercy. After much response on her first impersonation an even louder roar occurred from critics after Sarah Palin’s painful interview with Katie Couric on CBS. Once again, the opportunity to attack was presented to Tina Fey on a platter and she couldn’t say no. But how could she potentially top her last performance?
About 70% of her second skit came straight from her interview with Katie Couric, so what made it funny wasn’t based on content this time. 9 In her last skit, she gave Sarah Palin a stereotype and fudged what she said to make her sound unintelligent and incompetent building a familiar character to the audience. But at the second go around, she took Sarah Palin’s words verbatim and played around with her body language and articulation of speech. In a way, her first skit established the character and her second skit took complete control over it. It is in this skit where the viewer could no longer distinguish the joke from reality.
She uses her hands while she is talking to mock the confusion and possibly nervousness of Sarah Palin. We recognize and relate hand movement and fidgeting to someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about. She moves her index fingers close to her face moving them in a circular direction implying maybe that Sarah Palin might be a little bit crazy. These subtle cues distract the viewer from the content and refocuses them on the overall appearance of Sarah Palin.
Another strategy she uses in this skit is the exaggerated pauses and quick changes of subject. Although she is using Sarah Palin’s quoted words, she drops thoughts at mid sentence, and picks up thoughts on new sentences, adding to the overall feeling that Sarah Palin has no idea what she is talking about. She pauses, uses a head nod, widens her eyes, switches the subject and repeats. Her mockery in this skit isn’t as forward and obvious as her first skit. It cuts really close to the truth. So close that people were able to put their videos together on Youtube and let the identical clips play side by side.
So what makes this skit so funny? If you were to just look at the written transcript of this skit, you would think you are reading a bad political interview that doesn’t make much sense. But what creates the laughs or the Ah-Ha moments is the character being portrayed. Tina Fey took a public figure and owned her to the core. She transformed a recognizable public figure into one of the most popular Saturday Night Live skits of all time.
It was the ability for people to turn on Fox News, see an interview with Sarah Palin, and pick up on her quirky character immediately. Viewers were able to identify with the jokes because they were highlighted on the episode of Saturday Night Live that they watched the night before. The sense of familiarity gave people the excuse to laugh. All of the reactions such as “wow, she does have a weird accent” or “wow she doesn’t know what she is talking about” help lead to the Ah-ha moments. Tina Fey was able to initially change their opinion on Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin just kept proving Tina Fey right.
In a way what Tina Fey did was create a two part punchline. She set up this figure of Sarah Palin based on what little background the public had and ran with it. She exhibited a character that could make people laugh even if at first they didn’t know what they were laughing about. She made Sarah Palin a joke and everything Sarah Palin did after that would forever be funny. Unfortunately, Sarah Palin couldn’t change her accent or change that she needed glasses and Tina Fey took advantage of that. By familiarizing our voters with her odd characteristics she was able to make a joke that will last as long as Sarah Palin lives.
The only problem is she also confused the public of the truth. No longer will people be able to mention Sarah Palin without thinking of the skits from Saturday Night Live. As the years go on it becomes harder to remember who Sarah Palin really was and America will forever remember Sarah Palin as being an unequipped, spacey vice-presidential candidate who would never stand a chance at running our country. Tina Fey blurred the lines of what really happened in 2008 and what just made you laugh in 2008. And in this case, comedy turned into news, making news a comedy.
Works Cited
1.Kurtzman, Daniel. “Palinisms — Dumb Sarah Palin Quotes Gaffes and Lies.” Accessed February 9, 2015. http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/sarahpalin/a/palinisms.htm.
2.”Saturday Night Live (season 34).” Wikipedia. Accessed February 9, 2015.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live_(season_34).
3.”Saturday Night Live Parodies of Sarah Palin.” Wikipedia. Accessed February 9, 2015.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live_parodies_of_Sarah_Palin.
4.Rastogi, Nina. “Can You Really See Russia from Alaska?” Accessed February 9, 2015.http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/09/can_you_really_see_russia_from_alaska.html.
5.”I Can See Stupid from My House | Commonplace.” I Can See Stupid from My House | Commonplace. Accessed February 9, 2015.http://www.mhlearningsolutions.com/commonplace/index.php?q=node/5589.
6.”’SNL’ Political Secrets Revealed: Hillary’s “Entitlement,” the Sketch Obama Killed and the Show’s “Karl Rove”” The Hollywood Reporter. Accessed February 9, 2015.http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/snl-political-secrets-revealed-hillarys-726324.
7.Hayden, Erik. “Fox News Can’t Tell Tina Fey and Sarah Palin Apart.” Accessed February 9, 2015.http://www.thewire.com/business/2011/06/fox-news-tina-fey-sarah-palin/38523/.
8.”Tina Fey: The Secrets of Her ‘Sarah Palin’ Success.” ABC News. September 11, 2012. Accessed February 9, 2015.http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2012/09/tina-fey-the-secrets-of-her-sarah-palin-success/.
9.”Tina Fey On Sarah Palin Impression!” YouTube. Accessed February 9, 2015.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBAqGSbPwkQ.
10.”SNL Transcripts: Michael Phelps: 09/13/08: A Non-Partisan Message From Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton.” SNL Transcripts: Michael Phelps: 09/13/08: A Non-Partisan Message From Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton. Accessed February 9, 2015.http://snltranscripts.jt.org/08/08apalin.phtml.
11.”Watch Couric / Palin Open from Saturday Night Live on NBC.com.” NBC. Accessed February 9, 2015. http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/couric--palin-open/n12311.
