Tina Fey, an actress, comedian, and former Not Ready for Prime Time Player touched off a social media firestorm recently when she laid into “white, college educated women” for voting for Donald Trump at a recent celebrity fundraiser for the American Civil Liberties Union. The Boston Herald reports that she said, “A lot of this election was turned by white, college educated women who now would maybe like to forget about this election and go back to watching HGTV. I would want to urge them to like, you can’t look away. It doesn’t affect you this minute but it’s going to affect you eventually.”
Some of those self-same white, college educated women, such as conservative commentators Tammy Bruce and Mary Katherine Ham, took to Twitter to denounce Fey, noting that the words that came out of her mouth would be even more outrageous if they had been uttered by a man.
The fact that Fey stereotyped female Trump supporters suggests that a bigger problem exists among the Hollywood left where it concerns women who don’t toe the liberal line. Samantha Bee and lena dunham have also denounced conservative, female Trump voters, exhibiting the same tendency to stereotype and a lack of empathy and discernment for people who hold opinions contrary than their own.
For one thing, no one votes for an American president with the view that the selection is not going to affect them. The whole point of having an election was that a new president would change people’s lives for the better, at least by stopping some of the bad things being perpetrated by his or her predecessor.
People like Fey supported Hillary Clinton for different reasons. They wanted to feel good about themselves about electing the first female president. Lena Dunham’s famous meltdown on election night and her subsequent eating disorder was motivated by disappointment over having a man in the Oval Office instead. Whatever Hillary Clinton might have done would not affect people like Tina Fey or Lena Dunham because they believe themselves to be too wealthy and well connected for that to matter.
Trump voters, though, do not have that luxury and sincerely hope he will change things for the better, not matter what the Hollywood left thinks.
The ACLU speech was not the first foray by Tina Fey into misogyny. During the 2008 presidential election she lampooned then vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, depicting her as a brainless bimbo on Saturday Night Live. The portrayal cemented attacks against the female politician from that point forward.
