Tina Fey says she's 'opting out' of apologizing for jokes
In a new interview, Tina Fey said she's done defending her work and has realized the secret to longevity is never going online.
"Steer clear of the internet and you'll live forever," the actress and comedian told Net-a-Porter. Why her sudden disdain for the web? Fey said that an episode of her Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was deemed "racist" by some people online, and her new goal is "not to explain jokes. I feel like we put so much effort into writing and crafting everything, they need to speak for themselves."
As Vulture explains, Fey and Kimmy Schmidt co-creator Robert Carlock had Jane Krakowski play a Native American woman passing as white, and the episode included several jokes about her connection to Native culture. While on a Television Critics Association panel, Carlock told the audience there are Native American writers on staff, and "we felt like we had a little room to go in that direction." Fey made it clear that she is going to stand by what she writes. "There's a real culture of demanding apologies," she said, "and I'm opting out of that."
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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