Tina Fey: "Quality" Comedy and the Body of the Female Comedy Author

This book chapter examines the television authorship of comedy producer-performer Tina Fey. It takes Fey’s comedy as case study for the examination of the ways in which American “quality” TV comedy of the early 21 st century accommodates thematisations of gender politics and popular feminist discourses. Fey’s work is particularly relevant for this investigation, since her celebrity and comedy mobilise popular discourses around female authorship, liberal feminism, performance, and body politics in the context of American prestige comedy. In the chapter I unpack media controversies around her star text and comedy – particularly as presented in her series "30 Rock" (2006-2013) – which originated in her mobilisation of a “feminist” comic persona and in this persona’s reflection on the gendered dualism of comedy performance and authorship. As I argue, a discursive dichotomy of “writer” versus “performer” of female-centred comedy, much influenced by the postfeminist cultural paradigm, shapes and dominates Fey’s public image, helping to negotiate her presence in the higher echelons of American comedy.