Warm. Melancholy. Tender. Empathetic. These are not words generally associated with Tina Fey, whose humor has the reputation of being brutal. But they all apply to The four seasonsA new series of Netflix dramatics co-created by and with Fey who follows three middle-aged couples apparently installed for a year of upheavals. Absent are the absurd characters, fast shooting jokes and dry pessimistic comments with which Fey was named Saturday Night Liveand who have defined his career, Wicked girls has 30 rock. In their place there is a moving representation of marriage and friendship between empty nest workers of generation X.
A partial explanation of the change of tone is that The four seasons was not entirely designed by Fey and his collaborators, Lang Fisher (I never have) and Tracey Wigfield (Good news). It is based on the film of the same name of the writer-director-director Alan Alda in 1981-a hit at the urban box office which has since been overshadowed by novels from the 80s like the 80s like the 80s like the 80s like the 80s When Harry met Sally. As in the version of Alda, the title refers to four seasonal group vacation (two episodes of half an hour each in the series), each set at the appropriate concerto Vivaldi. In addition to a distribution stacked with comrades from A Steve Carell and Colman Domingo, Fey plays Kate, a responsible and very destroyed pragmatist married to a passive philosophical man, Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (Jack (JackSnl Alum will be strong); Carol Burnett and Alda created the roles.
Fey is well aware that all this represents a left turn for her. In a recent appearance on his old friend and sometimes the Podcast of the partner of comedy Amy Poehler, Good hangShe described it as “a very, very soft program” which she is curious to observe. It is therefore compassionate her approach, in fact, that she throws the nearly three decades of work preceded in a new light. Under the veneer of misanthropy and the din of controversy, its perspective has often encouraged a more generous sensitivity which was always present but which only arises.
“Authenticity is dangerous and dear, ”advised Fey Bowen Yang in an interview in 2024 for Las Culturistasthe podcast that the current Snl Star co-hosts. Yang had become too famous, she said, to continue disseminating free opinions on the people with whom he could one day have to work. “Do you have a problem with Salinburn? “Asked Fey. Because you are still doing Emerald Fennell calls you about his next project, where you play the colleague of Carey Mulligan in the nuptial section of Harrods, then act 3 takes a sexually violent turn and you must pretend to be surprised by this Tour?”
The substance of Fey's playful excoriation – that when you are a celebrity, everything you say can be used against you – and the fact that it has become viral is revealing. For most of his career, and certainly since his representation of the head writer of Sketch show inhaled and little glamorous Liz Lemon 30 rock Coincided with the rise of pop feminism in late purposes, each intrigue and stated have been largely examined. Tina Fey's superfans may be legion, but it has also absorbed more than its share of misogyny as well as criticism for its approach to identity policy.
Many of this last decline was not only justified, but necessary. Before the Black Lives Matter movement forced a calculation in Hollywood, Fey made the wrong decision to show white artists in black 30 rock. While the joke was still at the expense of an ignorant white character or a racist entertainment industry, the context could not prevail over the injuring impact of images. In 2020, she excuse And these episodes were removed from streaming services.
However, the sensitivities of hair trigger from the public predisposed to judge Fey also fueled ridiculous backlash. After the 2017 White Epremacist rally in Charlottesville, the UVA alum caught the flak for a Snl Bit of “Update of the weekend” in which she urged the viewers joking to drown their rage in the cake instead of embarking on the fights with the Nazis. No one looking at good faith could have confused it to excuse the walkers. (She even got into unusually progressive opinions for television broadcast: “It is not our country. We stole it from the Amerindians. And when they have a peaceful manifestation, at Standing Rock, we shoot them with rubber balls. But we do not let you find it difficult to see an exaggerated version of naive of its itself. However, it was sufficiently self-critical to judge Segment as a failure. My next guest does not need an introduction“I would finish the room by saying … 'fight [the Nazis] In any case except the way they want. »»
When Fey is trouble, whether for legitimate or specious reasons, it is generally because his darkest humor is built at the top of a layer of cynicism about society – and Hollywood as a mirror – it is not always easy to find. Viewers have obtained that his acclaimed Snl The representation of an aerial sarah Palin reflected the candidate of the candidate of the time to a demographic group who wanted women in politics to be “Caribou Barbie”. But they sometimes lacked the stars of 30 rockThe show of the show, Jenna Maroney and Tracy Jordan, embody certain horrible stereotypes on white women and black men not because Fey said that they really represented these groups, but because the showbiz rewards the artists who reflect the prejudices of the public.
It is not difficult to imagine why – at this moment of his prolific career, but also at this toxic moment for cultural conversation – Fey might want a break in satire. (She has been a long time According to rumors be a better candidate to execute Snl If her mentor Lorne Michaels retired, but her distinction to continue to fight against the zeitgeist gives a doubt that she wants work.) Indeed, she seems to make an effort to avoid stress in her professional life. His current comedy tour with Poehler would have found the duo that jokes in pajamas. She spoke about Good hang On time, after years of overwork, “being just a person in this world and perhaps, like watching a program”. In the same episode, Fey explained his approach to do The four seasons. “I worked hard to build it to be a really healthy and really, like human hours,” she said. “I was also extremely determined to bring people together that I thought I was good people who would cause no problem for me.”
Disproportionate part The criticism that Fey attracts is, in a way, a testimony to the efficiency that she has been caricatured over the years – as Killjoy, a Mousie, a Mousie range, a white feminist elongated – for an audience subject to confuse comedy with reality. She is cut for being a “caustic“Judge of her peers in adolescence, but the characters she usually lives, on the screen and as a public figure, is, to borrow words, Fey is used frequently”square” And “obedient. “A recent point of discussion was his type of enneagram personality test: the director.
The character of Fey in The four seasons is a more anchored and friendly version of this tense woman. Kate can micry her group of friends and marriage, but when she is wrong with the Agenceness, it is because it is her way of taking care of people. “You always have to be the right guy,” she complains to Jack. “And that leaves only another part.” The series is also generous with other characters. The revelation that Nick de Carell plans to leave his wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) after a gathering for their 25th anniversary led the intrigue, throwing the other two couples and the group's overall dynamics. But Nick presents himself as less a fool than in the film of Alda and more a man struggling with his mortality. While Anne fades in the background of the film after the split, Fey goes very well, sometimes a little clumsy to honor the prospect of the Jilée woman.
Where did she hide this humanism, after years of death of characters in their vain, stupid and unconscious of the worst? In sight, in fact. There is no better indicator of the world vision of a writer than the way in which they finish their stories. In this regard, Fey has always been sneaky optimistic. Wicked girls is often compared to the satire of the black high school Moorsbut Moors concludes, after several murders, with the suicide of his villain, while Wicked girls Leaves us with a reformed queen and a utopian adolescent social order. While SeinfeldAnother sitcom NBC without dead end on self-absorbed New Yorkers, notoriously condemned his characters in prison, 30 rock Finally leave everything: the career, the baby, the hot husband. The next big project of Fey, the Netflix comedy Unbreakable Kimmy SchmidtHumor attached to adventures of victim of victims of victims abused and traumatized in a cruel city plagued by economic inequalities. But – and here the index is right there in the title – the tenacity of Kimmy won.
The four seasons is probably not intended to become a classic as 30 rock And Wicked girlS; He does not offer the many stuffed ups or the occasional deaf stockings of the best work of Fey. However, it is a very pleasant watch, which reflects the wisdom and patience of age rather than the ruthless genius of youth. Better still, it reveals a hidden and humanizing dimension of the most fascinating character that Tina Fey has ever created: Tina Fey.
