Tina Fey: Am I Gonna Be Alright?
I have been binge watching everything produced by Tina Fey and her friends during coronavirus lock down.
I reckon it’s because I’m a little lonely. Tiny Fey is cool and funny, and she has loyal and solid friends. I am alone watching Netflix with my Choco Leibniz (Tina, that’s a brand of yummy biscuits from Europe).
There are a few recurring faces in all her work, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, etc. They brainstorm, inspire and create comfortably together, they complement each other’s strengths and supplement each others’ weaknesses. Imagine being in their film set, it must be like a exploding creative playground, rather than a dull work place.
Over the years, their work grows with their wisdom and experience, beautiful lines are written by them, acting out by their friends and memorised by ordinary women like me. I swear even the Harry Potter cast who grew up making movies together doesn’t bond as strongly as these women have.
I want Tina Fey’s circle of solid female friendships.
When I was young I always saw female friendships as something alien, not for me. I blame Mean Girls (again, Tina Fey), Legally Blonde or even Sex and the City. It looks like when girls hang out, they only talk about three things: looks, boys and gossip. I am interested in none of these things.
I always imagine my friendship circle will be a bit like Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group — wild and alcohol-loving group of writers, intellectuals and artists, who occupy a cheap pub in the run-down part of London, debating about life, politics and religion.
I ended up working and living in the fancy City of London, hanging out with capitalists who throw dinner parties to show off their expensive set of Le Creuset cookware and collection of vintage wines. We talk about stock, Michelin and how we can’t fly economy anymore (I still fly economy FYI).
Where do we find heart-to-heart female friends in a big city like London?
I want to mention I have some true friends, and in particular one great female friend who listens and cares about me, and I care about her deeply.
As someone once told me when he was drunk, friendships in big cities are transient. People come and go, groups that seem tight now suddenly break in the next moment. You even lose friends when moving jobs, or when someone got a spouse, a baby, an apartment in zone 6 because house prices are ridiculous now — even Miranda moved to Brooklyn.
This is why Tina Fey’s group of ladies are so spectacular. They are in the God-damn show business! And yet, they are seriously friends. They can easily be cruel competitors and strike to cancel each other (like the beauty Youtubers nowadays), but they didn’t. They support each other.
Dear Tina, I am thirty now, will I be able to build female friendships that is stable, mutual and honest?
After all the dramas and madness in our 20s, is 30s a better age to settle and build friendships?
Can we all spend sometime to appreciate the beauty of female friendships in upholding women in a difficult world which is still unfortunately, too male-centric?
Ladies who share my voice, and feel lonely during coronavirus, I am calling you to be my circle of friends.
Love,
Priscilla at Wild Openings
