Tina Fey: The Perfect 21st Century Woman

It’s 5:30 in the morning, well, technically, 5:40ish, and I’m on the treadmill as I usually am at that hour during the week.  I am tired and sweating, ear candy loaded to the brim with the sounds of Britney/Beyonce/Rihanna/Jennifer Lopez/name-the-pop-songstress-of-the-minute and I’m listening to it because that’s what gets me going this time of day.  Magazines of all variety are my eye candy.  This particular morning it happens to be the recent issue of Elle (the February edition with Reese Witherspoon on the cover).  What I like about Elle is that it makes me smarter, not in the in-your-face preachy/feminist kind of way, but in that sophisticated, metropolitan, fashion-y, womanly sort of way.  The kind of smarter I want to be. 

So, there I am reading about a 30-year-old lawyer giving up her baby for adoption after realizing her husband had been cheating on her, about sugar and its effect on aging, and then about new books/music/movies, and yes, resort bikinis and tropical vacations that I have no time or money for, and I’m finally beginning to wake up a little because I’ve been walking now for 30-some-odd minutes and my favorite song happens to be on (“Party” from Beyonce’s 4). 

My eyes light up when I turn to an interview with Tina Fey in Elle Intelligence: Televisionaries.  Yes, I know we all love Tina Fey, right?  And anyone who doesn’t is, well, let’s just put it nicely – they clearly haven’t had the opportunity to appreciate her humble genius, because she is damned amazing.   Her subtle, almost innocently sarcastic responses to the questions prove what an awesome human being she is,  making me feel lucky to also be considered a human being too.  (God, that sounds pathetic in writing, but it's kind of how I feel.)   Perhaps the most interesting is her response to “Why do you think people relate so strongly to Liz Lemon?”:                     

I did a book tour last spring, and so many of the women who came looked exactly like me: glasses, brown hair, horizontal-striped shirts.  A lot of them saying, ‘People in my office call me Liz Lemon.’ She certainly looks normal, and her life is not romanticized too much.  I really like Sex and The City, but I view it as a different genre of fantasy fulfillment, like, What if I was awesome and I wore heels and went out at night?!’

This response needs no analysis, because the quote says it all:  we all identify a little bit with Liz Lemon, right?  It only sums up how Tina Fey contains just the right elements of the perfect and imperfect, kind of like the just-right smudged bedroom eyes resulting from 24-hour-old, slept-in eye makeup.  She is neither GIRL POWER nor Girrrrl Power, but simply girl power in a subtle, smart, and sarcastic kind of way.  In that kind of way that requires no shouting from the rooftops because “I rock as not just a ‘strong, independent woman,’ but as a person making it in 2012.”  I’m always in awe of a woman (nay, a person) walking the walk instead of just talking the talk.

Oh, and she’s also a fan of Bravo’s Real Housewives and celebrity gossip.  Really.  Could she be any more awesome? Girl, you've got a Fan 4 Life.

Photo Credit: Elle Magazine