Joan Of Snark: 30 Rock Parodies Jezebel

Tonight on 30 Rock Liz was shocked when Jenna was featured on a blog called JoanOfSnark.com — as were we when Liz showed a very familiar-looking homepage and explained, “It’s this really cool feminist website where women talk about how far we’ve come and which celebrities have the worst beach bodies.”

After reading another post called “Why Does TGS Hate Women?” Liz decides to make the show more woman-friendly by hiring standup comedian Abby Flynn.

Here’s what JoanOfSnark.com says about Flynn (if you hit the pause button on your DVR and squint a lot:

The Freshest Female Voice In Comedy

If you haven’t heard about comedian Abby Flynn yet, it’s just a matter of time. Miss Flynn has been gaining quite a reputation in the comedy clubs around town. Just voted “Most Hilarious Woman Most Likely to Perform With A Hickey On Her Neck” by Hottie X Press Magazine, Abby Flynn’s pictorial is now a fixture in men’s gym locker rooms around the country. “It’s an honor to be recognized for being funny,” Flynn cooed as she was photographed by the hungry paparazzi on the red carpet at the Hot New Comics of New York Awards.

The mainstream press is usually reserved when celebrating female comedy talent, however the opposite has been true since Abby hit the scen. “The comedy community has come to me thanks to Abby’s arrival,” Hugh Hefner observed. Even harsh comedy critics like Kenneth Dodd are fawning over Miss Flynn. “I heard that she did comedy or acting or something like that. She’s hot!”

At first as feminists here at JoanOfSnark.com, we were ready to dismiss Abby as a pathetic sex obsessed fame whore, but then after much debate and deliberation at our weekly [Female Voices luncheon?] in the basement of the…

Basically, Abby is Olivia Munn with a twist of Sarah Silverman. Liz’s hopes of starting a TGS “fem-o-loution” that will prove the blogosphere wrong are are dashed when Abby comes bounding into the writer’s room wearing a skimpy outfit and commenting on how hard her nipples are.

Liz tries lay some feminist wisdom on Abby by telling her she can drop the sexy baby act, but she calls Liz out, saying, “Really? By judging my appearance and the way I talk? What’s the difference between me using my sexuality and you using those glasses to look smart?”

Finally, Liz discovers a video of Abby performing stand up with her real, non-sexualized persona. She posts the clip on JoanOfSnark.com (tagline: “Perhaps correct. Definitely exhausting.”), and plays it at the writer’s meeting.

As it turns out, Abby wasn’t trying to get attention, she was hiding from her abusive ex-husband. Abby exits while screaming, “Liz Lemon is a Judas to all womankind!”

It seems the episode was inspired by two recent controversies: The backlash against Tina Fey for portraying another sandwich-loving, pathetic single girl and Jezebel’s criticism of The Daily Show‘s “woman problem.” As Sady Doyle pointed out, it didn’t take a clear stance on feminists. First Liz was angry at JoanOfSnark’s writers for attacking her show, then she tried to push her own idea of how ladies should use their sexuality, and ultimately she wound up ruining another woman’s life.

We love that Tina Fey presented a multi-faceted view of feminism in a prime-time comedy show, and we’re thrilled and honored to parodied by 30 Rock. As for what exactly Fey was saying about female comedians, lady blogging, and feminism, let’s get really meta and analyze it in the comments.