No doubt all of you have heard a variation on the famous line by Lord Acton, even if you didn't know specifically that it was from him:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
As is the predilection with a few of self's SNLC's on occasion, here's a quote from a famous figure, and you're invited to guess the source of said quote. It's a variation on the above, though perhaps unintentionally:
"Well, power is good as long as it's artistic power as opposed to military," he says, laughing. "I quite like being a powerful comedian because I'm not going to invade anywhere. So, when power means artistic freedom, I can't get enough of it. I want 100 per cent power."
So who's the source of the second quote? (No, not the obvious person you might be thinking of, of whom more anon.) The answer is....
....Ricky Gervais, from this article from The Independent. (Yup, there 3CM goes again, reaching electronically across the pond for an article as inspiration.) It's odd for 3CM, of all people, to use this as a launch pad, if for no other reason than self has never seen The Office or Extras. In fact, the only time I've ever seen anything on TV of Ricky Gervais is his one guest voice appearance on The Simpsons.
Yet reading that line of his about power, as a comedian, took me back to the questions that I posted a few weeks back in SNLC 125, namely, whether pop culture could have influence in the world beyond its own realm of entertainment. Going back to this side of the pond, the answer would seem to be a definite maybe with the obvious example that some of you may have been thinking of initially above the flip, namely Tina Fey. And speaking again of The Independent, they had this article on TF. Interestingly, at least one part of the article would seem to undermine self's thesis from the other SNLC (he hopes):
"Clad in thick spectacles and pastel-coloured jackets, and helped by their uncanny physical similarities, Fey and her merciless send-ups of the former beauty queen from Wasilla have done more to undermine Palin's campaign for the vice-presidency than the efforts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the entire Democratic Party attack machine combined......
The Tina Fey phenomenon isn't just constrained to the political arena, though. In addition to her uncanny ability to satirise a politician who has a propensity to spout gobbledegook, she is currently helping to pioneer an important comic movement. To her fans, Fey is in the vanguard of a generation of sassy female performers who are now setting the agenda in US comedy."
But again, self has to ask: is Tina Fey turning voters who might have been on the fence against the half-baked Alaskan barbie, or just preaching to the converted? Sure, it's easy enough to search in the echo chamber that is DK, but out in the real world, where people who don't read Daily Kos, not to mention Republicans, exist.....well, I don't know for sure. It is, however, good to know that Tina Fey is doing her thing on network TV, i.e. not cable TV that one has to pay for, but at least nominally "free access" TV.
For what it's worth, Tina Fey is wise enough to know that continuing to have the opportunity to portray the half-baked Alaskan barbie for another 4 years would not be a good thing, and it's not what she wants down the line:
"Although it's a job that NBC would be happy to have her doing for some time, Fey – one of the many Hollywood liberals hoping for a Barack Obama victory – has selflessly claimed that she hopes to put an end to the potentially lucrative role. 'I want to be done playing this lady by 5 November,' she said backstage at the Nokia Theatre after the Emmy Awards. 'So if anybody can help me be done playing this lady, that would be good for me.'"
You can help Tina Fey make her wish come true with a donation here, not to mention showing up at the polls on Nov. 4, of course, among other things.
Oh, and just to give Ricky Gervais the last word, sort of, since this SNLC started with him, even though Tina Fey took over the middle portion, here's his attitude towards society and taxes:
"I like paying tax," he says, "because the welfare state meant that a working-class kid like me could get to university. So I believe in fairness."
OK, 'tis Saturday night, and you know the usual SNLC drill.....