Tina Fey, former host of ‘Weekend Update‘ on ‘Saturday Night Live‘, and woman beloved by other white ladies for her sometimes-problematic shows like ‘30 Rock‘ and ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘, returned to ‘SNL‘ on Thursday night to educate a captive audience on the benefits of “sheetcaking”.
Fey graduated in 1992 from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, a campus which has become inextricable from both the white nationalist violence of the weekend, and the candlelit vigils which followed, held as a symbol against the hate that led to the murder of activist Heather Heyer.
She joined current ‘Weekend Update‘ hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost to talk about what happened in the place about which she has “nothing but fond memories“: “I graduated a virgin and I still liked it. That’s how good the architecture is down there.
“So it broke my heart to see these evil forces descend on Charlottesville,” she says, before bringing up Trump’s infamous “violence on many sides” comment that was seen to equivocate Neo-Nazis with people protesting Neo-Nazis.
With more alt-right rallies scheduled for the weekend, Fey says she doesn’t want to see any more good people get hurt: “I would urge people this Saturday instead of participating in the screaming matches and the potential violence, find a local business you support – maybe a Jewish-run bakery, or an African-American-run bakery – order a cake with the American flag on it, like this one, and just eat it, Colin.”
And then she hoes into that cake, shouting her frustrations about the current state of America through mouthfuls of patriotic deliciousness in a practice she calls “sheetcaking“.
“In conclusion, I really want to encourage all good, sane Americans to treat these rallies this weekend like the opening of a thoughtful movie with two female leads: don’t show up. Let these morons scream into the empty air.”
The segment was met with admiration from Fey fans.
Bless Her https://t.co/oe7VmT7tqW
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 18, 2017
https://twitter.com/matwhi/status/898399120146046977
https://twitter.com/Mr_McDonaldDOM/status/898355536042831874
But it also received its fair share of deserved backlash from people who thought that Fey was effectively endorsing both slacktivism and the acceptance of racism.
Eating cake at home is after all much easier to do than taking to the streets in actual protest, with the added bonus being that it achieves absolutely nothing.
https://twitter.com/_analittle/status/898427054382764032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.indiewire.com%2F2017%2F08%2Ftina-fey-weekend-update-cake-alt-right-protest-white-supremacy-1201867645%2F
https://twitter.com/jackdwagner/status/898399925729337348
https://twitter.com/1CreightonLeigh/status/898368545373003776
Still, Fey makes some fair points about the hypocrisy of Neo-Nazis through mouthfuls of cake, which is admittedly entertaining and informative.
