“Opting out of that”: White feminism’s policing and disavowal of anti-racist critique inThe Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Review Essay: Feminist Television Studies of Complex and Disruptive Women

“…For instance, Havas draws from an interview with Tina Fey to suggest that 30 Rock aimed to "champion intersectionality" (p. 62). This quote is remarkable given critiques of racially offensive material in Fey's later work on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Oh 2019). To the author's credit, Havas acknowledges that quality feminist television has emerged out of television's emphasis on middle class white women as figures of feminist and postfeminist agency.…”

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“…Indeed, it is worth noting the show’s emphasis on whiteness, as both it and its showrunner, Tina Fey, have been rightly criticised for their portrayals of race and cultural appropriation (Oh, 2020). Fey co-created Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt with producer Robert Carlock.…”

“…As has been argued eloquently by David Chison Oh, Fey belongs to ‘a cohort of White comic women actors and show producers who are known for their feminist “brand” […whose] commitments are primarily to a postfeminist politics of individual empowerment, sexual liberation, and market power rather than intersectional feminism’ (2020: 59). Often under the cover of the character, Titus Andromedon (Titus Burgess), a Black gay man whom Kimmy befriends early in the series (and one of the few characters to offer an extended, if somewhat gentle, critique of white supremacy), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt draws on a ‘progressive’, white feminist, post-racialism to satirise ‘politically correct’ critics of the show’s troubling portrayals of Asian Americans and Indigenous peoples (Oh, 2020).…”

“…In a seeming response to the critique of this storyline, seasons two and three of the show double-down, with Krakowski’s character Jacqueline White fully embracing her Indigenous roots, starting a charity for Native Americans, as well as leading the fight against the racist appropriation of Native mascots and names for sports teams. The apparent lampooning of the racist treatment of Indigenous peoples in America thus allows Fey and the show to position themselves as ‘well-intentioned’ white progressives (Coplean and Tully, 2019; Oh, 2020), despite the simultaneous erasure of Indigeneity (casting a white woman) and the reproduction of, and comedic reliance upon, well-worn, stereotypical representations of ‘Native Americanness’.…”

“…The show’s issues with race extend beyond the Indigenous community. Not only does Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt use ‘yellowface’ and scapegoat the Asian community in ‘answering’ to Fey’s critics in season two (Oh, 2020), but it also noticeably and problematically side-lined the only ethnic minority woman to survive the bunker experience with Kimmy. Of her three fellow captives, Kimmy’s closest friend Cyndee receives the most post-release screen time, with an early season one episode detailing her visit to Kimmy in New York City with her fiancée, and a return for significant episodes in seasons two and three.…”