The XX Factor: What women really think.

Ponyo, Disney's Latest Princess

Deep in the hottest, doggiest days of summer, Disney is bringing audiences a refreshing treat: Ponyo, the latest film from legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.

Ponyo is the story of a spunky little goldfish who falls in love with a human boy and, after getting her fins on some of her father's magic elixir, turns herself into a little girl. Little does she know, that act is about to throw the entire natural world out of whack ... (Read more in Double X.)

Liz Lemon: "You Have Sexually Transmitted Crazy Mouth. Deal Breaker!"

Tina Fey Can't Take a Compliment

I'm firmly in the "Tina Fey can do no wrong" camp, and while her acceptance speech was one of the only bright spots in an otherwise snoozy and self-congratulatory Golden Globes, it always strikes me how uncomfortable she is when embracing accolades. When she accepted her Emmy last year, Fey said, "I thank my parents for somehow raising me to have confidence that is disproportionate with my looks and abilities." Then last night upon receiving her second Golden Globe for best actress, she said, "If you ever start to feel too good about yourself they have this thing called the Internet and you can find a lot of people there who don’t like you.”

I'm well aware that self-deprecation is pivotal to Tina Fey's humor, and that's what makes her so relatable to so many women. Though I may be making too much of this, I wonder if a man in her position would always publicly downplay his own talent. Last night, Tina allowed Tracy Morgan to make a speech when 30 Rock won for best comedy for the second year in a row. Again, that was one of the funniest and best parts of an otherwise mind-numbing three hours, but if "Lorney Mikes" had been the executive producer, writer, and director of the show, would he have let Tracy make that speech? Is it more just Tina Fey's personality to shy away from the overwhelming press attention she's been receiving in the past few months? Is she savvy enough to know that America may be experiencing Tina Feytigue and so she's backing off so we don't get sick of her? Or does it have to do with her gender? 

Lemon Syndrome

Noreen, I haven't read the Vanity Fair profile of my girl crush Tina Fey yet—maybe it makes me a new-media traitor, but I like my Vanity Fair, New Yorker, and other long-form journalism best when I can read it on paper instead of my computer screen. With that caveat, I do think that Tina Fey herself is acutely aware of and conflicted about her babification. 30 Rock regularly addresses how women try to look right for their jobs, whether it's in politics or TV. In one episode, Alec Baldwin's character tells his congresswoman girlfriend, who confessed that reconstructive surgery after a bizarre accident left her "much better-looking," that he "thought she made love like an ugly girl. So present, so grateful." One story line in Season 2 addresses how a lead actress' weight gain will affect her career, with Baldwin's corporate exec character advising, "She needs to lose 30 pounds or gain 60. Nothing else has a place in television." (He gets all the best "so-wrong-but-so-funny" lines ... I hope you'll add me to your quote-swapping list, Noreen!)

Even more fascinating in 30 Rock is how Fey portrays herself. Her character, Liz Lemon, is mocked by her superiors and subordinates for her clothes (her shoes are called "bi-curious," her favorite necklace is a broken rape whistle, her date-night dress makes her friend think she's headed to a funeral), her poor social skills, and her body. ("Are you finally going on a diet?" someone asks her in one episode.) It seems that Fey might have become a hottie, but she still writes like she's the awkward girl in the ugly dress. I'm not sure I entirely agree with Jezebel's Jessica, who has argued that "Tina Fey's self-deprecation is good for women," but I do like to see the two sides of Fey battling on-screen—her relatively new good looks and the lingering sharp wit and bitterness cultivated not necessarily by being ugly, which I don't think she was, but by being a bit different, a big awkward, a bit uncomfortable.

Dowdy Tina Fey

This Vanity Fair profile of Tina Fey, written by Maureen Dowd, has been making a big splash in the blogosphere the past couple of days, mostly because the thesis, boiled way down, seems to be that Fey's only made it big since she lost weight and prettied up her look while keeping her decidedly non-diva personality. For the most part, as a huge Fey fan, I lapped up the profile uncritically. What struck me, though, were the accompanying photos (to echo Nina's point about the power of a magazine's art department). Annie Leibovitz styles Fey as Wonder Woman-ish on the cover and Sasha Fierce-era Beyonce in the music video shots—obvious Glamazon girl power images. Then there are the shots of Fey in a low-cut white button-down and killer red pumps, which are supposed to be Fey as her own sexy librarian self, right? But I couldn't get rid of the feeling it was another reference to, perhaps, another tart social critic who's gotten a lot of buzz for using her feminine wiles to her advantage—the outfit and pose look an awful lot like a Maureen Dowd pastiche. So what's Vanity Fair trying to say—is it just a clever reference to their smartly assigned byline? Or are they explicitly setting up Fey as the new, updated version of Dowd, the smart, pretty woman all the dorky girls want to become? (For the new millennium: now younger, more neurotic, on TV instead of in those dying newspapers.) I trade 30 Rock lines with friends the way I e-mailed them Dowd's columns a few years ago. Fey certainly was the woman with the most incisive political satire this election season, and that's not even her day job. But did she only get to supplant Dowd in that role because she became more Dowd-y than dowdy, someone for whom the attendant sexy self-possession of a Beyonce reference isn't so crazy?

The piece closes with these lines:

Everybody wants to be Tina Fey, I tell her. Who do you want to be?

"I don't want to be somebody else," she says.

And why would she?

I'm not sure Vanity Fair entirely agrees.

Poor Alec Baldwin

Only that last one would explain how much Palin was enjoying grooving on TV while Amy Poehler did the "Sarah Palin rap,'' to lyrics like "I'm Jeremiah Wright cuz tonight I'm the preacha, I got a bookish look and you all hot for teacha.'' For me, this shined a whole new (softer, but also dimmer) light on all her mugging and smiling while whipping crowds up with hateful distortions about Barack Obama. Because there she was, mugging and smiling while Poehler stopped just short of grabbing her crotch, Eminem style, and rapped that McCain's "smile be creepy.'' So...maybe girlfriend just likes the camera? Like you, Emily, I was squirming through the whole first skit, too -- only I was thinking oh, how demeaning for Alec Baldwin.

Remember when Al and Tipper Gore did that hot tub skit on SNL - and how clear that made it that he really wasn't going to run in ‘04? I had that same feeling watching Palin - that no one who thought they had a serious shot would be so comfy so far over the line.

Saturday Night Live Strikes Again

This sketch just might make up for the blahness of Fey and Poehler's Baby Mama.

Women in Black

"Bitch Is the New Black"