Keep calm, and eat cake.

[Guy Profumo]

Ok.

What am I missing here?


Or is it really true Americans don't understand irony (let alone satire)

[Hot Pepsi]

Are you talking about the Tina Fey thing? It's an instant classic. She's a national treasure and a genius.

The joke is about how we are so stressed that we are "eating our feelings." As somebody who struggles with that exact thing, I can relate.

[Guy Profumo]

What else?

Because apparently her response IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!!

(And now JK Rowling has come out and supported her that just proves she's wrong, doesn't it…)

[ursus arctos]

Guy, it isn't worth your time.

[Hot Pepsi]

What else?

Because apparently her response IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!!

(And now JK Rowling has come out and supported her that just proves she's wrong, doesn't it…)

If anyone actually saw the clip, they'd know she wasn't actually advocating that people just give up and eat cake. FFS

[Thierry Ennui]

When I heard about this, I thought it sounded like a searing satire of Trump being out of touch with the poor black people involved, possibly making reference to "let them eat cake", or perhaps even how you "can't have your cake and eat it" because Trump wants to be soft with his rhetoric against white supremacists but hard with everyone else.

But no. It's Tina Fey tossing out a few token observations about the situation whilst eating an entire cake, in that cringeworthy random/quirky way that lots of current American comedians do, desperately hoping that .gifs of it will appear all over Twitter afterwards.

[Incandenza]

Hey white people! Just sit inside, eat some cake, and hope the bad stuff is over soon!

[Hot Pepsi]

Hey white people! Just sit inside, eat some cake, and hope the bad stuff is over soon!

That wasn't the point. It was self-effacing, like "I don't know what to do so I'm just going to eat my feelings." I'm with her on that. I don't see how anyone could watch that and think she's literally suggesting that dipping a grilled cheese in cake is the solution. It's comedy.

Now, she did suggest that instead of engaging with the right-wing rallies, that we just treat them like movies with two well-developed female leads and don't show up. The "just don't look" approach. She might actually believe that and I see her point, but I think the time for that has come and gone, mostly.

On the one hand, fighting with the Nazis is giving them what they want and helps push their narrative that they're persecuted. And the only reason a lot of so-called right-wing pundits have any airtime whatsoever is because they can claim to "annoy liberals" or "aren't politically correct." It would be nice to deprive them of that oxygen. So perhaps if Ann Coulter or Charles Murray comes to your town, the best move is for everyone to just ignore them.

But when there are dudes marching in the street with guns deliberately trying to intimidate people, well, this aggression just won't stand, man. That has to be countered somehow, if for no other reason than to maybe make minorities, immigrants, LGBT folks, etc, feel a bit less alone.