At a rally in late August in Ohio, Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin spoke of Hillary Clinton leaving 18 million cracks in the “highest, hardest glass ceiling in America” and suggested that voters could help her break through it yet. But for all the talk of the glass ceiling in this U.S. presidential season, it is perhaps comedian Tina Fey who has best broken through.
Ms. Fey's imitations of Ms. Palin are so popular that the ratings of the first three weeks of Saturday Night Live – to which she has returned for guest appearances – are as much as 40 per cent higher than last year. Formerly SNL's first female lead writer, she won an Emmy last month for her work as a writer of the comedy series 30 Rock, a second for producing the show, and a third as lead actress in a comedy series. And that hat-trick was capped by this month's $6-million deal with Little, Brown & Co. to write a humour book.
Although the challenges are different from the political life, Ms. Fey has achieved extraordinary success in another industry in which women struggle to make it to positions of leadership. The top 250 domestic grossing films in the United States in 2007 employed fewer women than in 1998; they comprised only 15 per cent of directors, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors. Comedy in particular remains male-dominated, much like politics. But whatever barriers exist, Ms. Fey has had little difficulty breaking through them.
