An ode to Tina Fey, the funniest among women.

There is a goddess amongst female comedy writers, and her name is Tina. I speak with some authority on the matter, as I have worked in comedy as a writer who carries estrogen as a predominant hormone. Being a female comedy writer can mean that you find yourself in interesting scenarios – scenarios in which you are completely, unwittingly leading with your breasts, which you thought were stashed safely under poncho.

This could mean that you are on what you think is a professional pitch meeting with an executive famed for his children’s programming, only to be invited to continue the discussion at the Playboy mansion over drinks.

Or it might mean that your agent will be told that the reason you didn’t get a job was because “you’re too pretty for the room” and would be a distraction to the “process.”

It definitely might mean that you’re typing away at the darkest hours of night, determined to “make it in this town if it kills you,” which it might, considering the two-buck Chuck your body can now process as handily as plasma.

But there is a beacon of hope on the horizon of hilarity. The 2000s saw the rise of a Greek goddess among men, a funny woman stashing Emmys under her cardigan as a recycler might pluck soda cans from the street. Tina Fey is a comedy master, advancing the art of feminine self-deprecation further than any uterus-carrying comedian before her. Here we see her as her alter-ego, Liz Lemon, on NBC’s 30 Rock.

Fey has been a game-changer for woman comedy writers. Sure, there’s always been the wit of Dorothy Parker, the perkiness of Mary Tyler Moore, the pratfalls of Carol Burnett, all worthy foremothers of comedy.

But Fey has realized the dream of many an awkward teen who had to grow into her mouth. She’s taken her sense of humor and parlayed it into a celebrated career spanning the earliest Baby Boomer to the fledgling Millennial. With her great success as the creator of 30 Rock to her best-selling memoir, Bossypants, she reminds us all that it’s okay to be funny based on a shared love of twee-desserts. Or a painful childhood spent sobbing in an appropriately-sized colonial lady outfit.

But what does Fey think about a world in comedy where invitations to soft-porn mansions are peddled about as easily as studio drive-ons? She has made an art of not leading with her looks, but is quick to avoid criticism of women who are perceived to do such that.

As she told NPR, “It’s just such a tangled-up issue, the way women present themselves – whether or not they choose to put their thumbs in their panties on the cover of Maxim and judge each other back and forth on it. It’s a complicated issue, and we didn’t go much further on saying anything other than to say, ‘Yeah, it’s a complicated issue and we’re all kind of figuring it out as we go.’”

She went on to speak about Olivia Munn, actress and “Daily Show” correspondent, who is criticized for exactly being “too pretty for the room.” As Fey spoke of Munn, “because she’s very beautiful, people are like, ‘You’re using that.’ It’s a mess. We can’t figure it out.’”

While Fey professes to lack any real answers to solve the comedy conundrum for female writers, she still leads by example. By making herself the butt of the joke, unafraid of being perceived as ugly, fat, or anything-but-comfortable in a food-stained cardigan, she’s taking comedy beyond the beauty borders for women. She’s brought first-world female foibles into the spotlight and reminded us that it’s okay to laugh at ourselves.

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Tina Fey’s memoir is funny and sage.

Tina Fey’s memoir, Bossypants, grabbed me from the minute she entered kindergarten and had her first encounter with a little boy she just met. She held up her carefully finished drawing for him to admire, and he promptly grabbed it and ripped it in half. She was speechless as a little girl, but as an adult, she clarified her thoughts at the time as, “Oh, it’s like that, motherfucker? Got it.”

That reaction says a lot. It sets the stage for her future interactions with both men and women in the workplace, which is a compelling element of the book. As she worked her way up in a very tough business, she saw other people, and herself, through an unvarnished lens. She doesn’t sugarcoat anything to make herself look better, so you feel that her narratives and assessments of other people are just as honest.

Fey has been lauded as a role model for aspiring writers, comedians, and mothers balancing careers and families, and she is clearly that, but she is also a strong leader. “Ever since I became an executive producer of 30 Rock, people have asked me, ‘Is is hard for you being the boss?’…You know, in that same way they say, ‘Gosh Mr. Trump, is it awkward for you to be the boss of all these people?’ I can’t answer for Mr. Trump, but in my case, it is not.”

Fey’s story also reveals how improvisation helped her to learn how to work with people. Comedy can teach a person a lot about finding success.

For example, the first rule of improvisation is to agree. “Always agree and SAY YES.” When working with a partner and that person says something, you need to agree with their premise and move it forward to advance the scene. Disagreement grinds everything to a halt.

“Now obviously in real life you’re not always going to agree with everything everyone says. But the Rule of Agreement reminds you to ‘respect what your partner has created’ and to at least start from an open-minded place. Start with a YES and see where that takes you. As an improviser, I always find it jarring when I meet someone in real life whose first answer is no.”

The second rule is not only to say yes, but YES, AND… Agree, and add something of your own. “To me, YES, AND means don’t be afraid to contribute. It’s your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you’re adding something to the discussion. Your initiations are worthwhile.”

Make statements. “Whatever the problem, be a part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles. We’ve all worked with that person. That person is a drag.”

Lately there has been a trend where women and men both accuse women and girls of speaking in apologetic questions and Fey points it out as well. “No one wants to go to a doctor who says, ‘I’m going to be your surgeon? I’m here to talk to you about your procedure?…Make statements with your actions and your voice.”

The last rule? “THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, only opportunities. If I start a scene as what I think is very clearly a cop riding a bicycle, but you think I am a hamster in a hamster wheel, guess what? Now I’m a hamster in a hamster wheel. I’m not going to stop everything to explain that it was really supposed to be a bike…In improv there are no mistakes, only beautiful, happy accidents.”

As she was rising to the top of a then-man’s world of comedy, she saw the balance shift from male-dominated companies at Second City to gender-equal scenes. She wrote about how one director justified cutting a scene by saying, “The audience doesn’t want to see a scene between two women.” At the suggestion that the companies be gender-equal, there was initial panic that there would not be enough parts for the extra women.

“This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury. We weren’t doing Death of a Salesman. We were making up the show ourselves. How could there not be enough parts? Where was the ‘Yes, and’? If everyone had something to contribute, there would be enough. The insulting implication, of course, was that the women wouldn’t have any ideas.”

Fey saw many changes at Second City and, later, Saturday Night Live. Women contributed and Fey became one of the head writers. One of the most memorable skits during the 2008 election was between Fey and Amy Poehler, playing Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.

“This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. ‘You’re up for a promotion. If they go with a woman, it’ll be between you and Barbara.’ Don’t be fooled. You’re not in competition with other women. You’re in competition with everyone. Also, I encourage them to always wear a bra. Even if you don’t think you’ll need it, just…you know what? You’re never going to regret it.”

Image: Gage Skidmore

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What are the odds of winning a green house courtesy of HGTV? And we love us some green programming, but has NBC’s big brother-ish eco-placement gone too far? We’ll answer these burning questions in this week’s installment of I Want My Green TV.

To Dream the Impossible Green Home Dream

HGTV’s Green Home Giveaway premiered Sunday night. For the next 45 days you can enter to win a brand new eco-friendly house, a GMC Terrain and $100,000 (a smart move by HGTV to help pay all the taxes!)

There’s no way to predict how many viewers will enter, but if you hope to be victorious, you might as well play the lottery while holding a lightning rod and waiting for the strike. The odds are about the same.

Still if you dare to dream, here’s what you need to know. The cozy cottage is in historic Plymouth, Massachusetts. It’s built with wood produced from sustainable forests, landscaped with native plants, and decorated with recycled furniture and local art. Plus, the rooftop solar panels feed excess power back to the grid.

Of course, the fact that the cottage is just 2,100 square feet, also plays into its low carbon foot print. The Energy Star rating of the home shows that it uses 41 percent less energy and 50 percent less water than a typical home of its size.

But if you aren’t the winner, don’t despair. There are a few Green Home features you can incorporate into your own house:

• A Serta mattress made from recycled steel and soy-infused foam that reduces CO2 emissions, but more importantly makes for a dreamy night sleep
• An induction cook top that heats only when the pan is physically on the burner
• A solar tube for your master suite’s closet that redirects sunlight to reduce the need for artificial lighting

NBC Goes Green with “Behavior Placement”

We’re all for positive reinforcement of eco-friendly issues on TV shows, but frankly, we’re still creeped out by the fact that NBC has been slipping environmental messages into its shows, and hoping viewers will follow suit. Last week when EcoSalon’s Christopher Correa discussed this subliminal advertising technique we couldn’t help but think about the upside to all of this. NBC is making sure that their shows push environmental issues, with the hope that big businesses will attach themselves to environmentally savvy series. No complaining here.

Remember Al Gore on 30 Rock last year? Yup, that was “behavior placement” in action. The movement kicked off again this week, as it does each April and November.

Tune in next time to see what’s cropping up on green TV.

Image: HGTV

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From the Hill”¦

It’s almost Earth Day – do you know where your congressman is? Chances are, he or she is greening the office. Maryland Representative “Dutch” Ruppersberger announced plans to increase energy efficiency, save resources and cut costs in his Washington, DC., office. He’s participating in the “My Green Office” program, which was initiated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a year ago this month.

Congressman Ruppersberger and his staff are implementing new practices and technology to reduce energy consumption and operational costs, including:

• Installing new smart power strips that automatically turn off when computers are not in use
• Replacing traditional light bulbs with energy-efficient ones
• Eliminating the use of bottled water with a new water filtration system
• Switching to reusable coffee mugs and glasses
• Ordering solar shades and composting bins

“These changes may seem simple and insignificant, but if every House Office participates, we can save nearly $1 million and keep up to 3,000 pounds of garbage from filling up landfills every year,” said Congressman Ruppersberger.

He purports that participation in the program over the course of a year will reduce electricity consumption at the House of Representatives by more then 7,500 kWH, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 16,000 pounds and result in savings of more than $1,300 from reduced electricity and procurement costs.

Thus far the program has trained roughly 3,000 House staffers in ways to eliminate material, electric and pollutant waste in their respective offices, and expects to reach all 7,000 DC Metro area House employees by the end of this year.

Since Pelosi launched the My Green Office program on Earth Day 2009, her office reports that the House has saved 1 million sheets of paper each month and 175,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, diverted 75,000 pounds of waste from landfills and cut nearly 400,000 pounds of carbon emissions.

For those of us keeping score, Congress has yet to significantly improve environmental policies by passing comprehensive legislation beyond that of the first of its kind in 1970 (the year Earth Day was founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson). Radical Republican Howard Baker perhaps drafted the most passionate provision in the Clean Air Act, the “technology forcing” section that required all new cars to have catalytic converters, even though no such device was yet commercially available.

In recent years, the green movement (in politics) has sought to find softer language and more nonpartisan positions that would help raise support in diverse communities, including those with little or no interest in environmental values. Meanwhile, each draft of the climate bill becomes less aggressive than its predecessor. Those energy-efficient office light bulbs and reusable coffee mugs will come in useful when drafting yet another bland iteration.

From the Street”¦

Is NBC giving the word programming a bad name? That’s the sentiment bandying about the blogs this week. It appears that television shows on the peacock network have been trying out a new subliminal messaging stratagem: behavioral placement. Product placement is so American Idol after all. But the results have been mixed. People have proven to be surprisingly offended by it. (Like this network needed another kerfuffle after Conangate.)

Instead of shilling for brand-name beverages and designer doughnuts, NBC executives have been running demonstrations of eco-savvy living during popular sitcoms and dramas.

All programming this month is themed around – or directly influenced by – the aforementioned Earth Day. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal exposed the Green Initiative (aka General Electric’s insidious mind tricks), which the network didn’t deny: If “Tina Fey is tossing a plastic bottle into the recycling bin,” the theory goes, audience members will be conditioned to do the same.

Christopher Rosen in Movieline calls the practice “creepy” and “dumb,” and states that “the pressure to be eco-conscious has reached a new high”¦NBC implies that people are too “˜patently stupid’ to make healthy decisions on their own”¦do viewers really need NBC “telling them how to run their life?”

To Rosen and his fellow critics, I query: This is what’s gotten you riled up? Television execs have always treated tube viewers like boobs. Witness laugh tracks, ad campaigns labeled “Must See TV” and shows like Friends that depict characters obsessed with items from Pottery Barn and Tiffany & Co. to compel viewers to obsess over them as well. Now that’s pushy.

But having Tina Fey’s character Liz Lemon toss empty plastic bottles into the recycling bin? Casting Al Gore to send-up his own gung-ho environmentalist image (while at the same time encouraging viewers to embrace his latter-day eco-awareness)? Fine by me. The earth is a nobler beneficiary than junk food brands and soft drink makers. And an episode of The Office featuring a cast member dressed as a made-up superhero named Recyclops didn’t tarnish the show’s quality in the least. The Office has seen a sharp drop in quality, all right, but that has nothing to do with socially conscious tinkering.

Does NBC’s Green Initiative seem intrusive, even Orwellian? This progressive stereotyping segments “viewers”¦into categories based on their favorite shows and their level of concern about the environment,” says Rosen. Sounds like Nielsen ratings and social responsibility gone right to me.

Television provides a service. If it aims to provide some useful eco tips while it works to entertain, it’s on par with going to the supermarket and being offered a cash incentive if you bring your own grocery bag. Unless there really is a greedy marketplace for designer compost heaps in need of a celebrity push from the cast of 30 Rock.

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Images: Speaker Pelosi and image courtesy of NBC.com

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