This week,
Advocate.com is going to highlight our remaining "People
of the Year", who range from activists to entertainers,
politicians to students. Today, we take a look at
comedian Tina Fey, Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham,
and Obama strategist Steve Hildebrand.
Tina Fey made us
laugh as co-anchor of Weekend Update on Saturday Night
Live, but made for plenty of watercooler fodder
with her eerily spot-on skewering of Republican Vice
Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Steve Hildebrand
was one of the masterminds behind President-elect Barack
Obama's campaign, garnering millions of email
contacts, $650 million in donations, and eventually
356 electoral votes to clench the presidency.
With a perfect
dive and an adorably giddy celebration, 20-year-old
Australian Matthew Mitcham clenched Olympic gold in Beijing,
breaking a streak in Chinese dominance in the sport.
Tina Fey
If you asked Tina
Fey if her depiction of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night
Live helped sway the November's presidential race,
she'd give you an unequivocal "No." In fact, if you
tried to credit her with just about anything she'd be
quick to disagree. Even after a year that included an
Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for her work
on 30 Rock, the release of her female buddy comedy
Baby Mama, and a spot-on impersonation of
McCain's running mate on SNL, Fey still seems
hesitant to call herself an actress.
"Lorne [Michaels,
SNL's creator] called and said, 'Think
about if you want to do this'," says the 38-year-old
of his request that she become Palin. Fey initially declined
the role with the rationale that she doesn't do
impressions. But people around her kept urging -- "I
felt like there was this angry mob at the door
insisting I suit up" --and she acquiesced. By the time she
had done three of the sketches, she started having
fun.
"I don't think I
would have had the confidence to attempt this five or
six years ago," she says. "I think some of it is 30
Rock and some of it is just getting older -- you kind of
don't care anymore." Self-deprecation aside, Fey is
one of the funniest actresses in film and television
and her portrayal of Palin was profound political
commentary. When male comedians like Bill Maher and news
pundits such as Jack Cafferty were calling Palin a "moron"
and chastising McCain for choosing an inept candidate,
they were called sexist. But when Fey -- hair twisted
into an up-do, glasses on -- said, "I can see Russia
from my house," she was able to mock Palin's
simplicity and escaped unscathed.
As a woman, and
safely in the realm of comedy, Fey could have Palin say,
"I tolerate gays. I tolerate them with all my heart." It was
a line written by Seth Meyers, SNL's head
writer, but it was Fey's delivery of Palin's homespun
patronization of gay people that had the whole world
laughing at her obvious intolerance.
Watching the vice
presidential debate in October, Fey says she was struck
by Democrat Joe Biden's initial comments about gay rights.
"I thought, 'Wow, I've never heard anyone say this
with such commitment in a format like this.' And then
he immediately qualified it." It's a
frustration gay people can identify with. But it took Fey's
cutesy, wink-laden delivery of, "Look, I think
marriage is a union of two unwilling teenagers," to
bring humor into the disappointment while
simultaneously calling into question the Alaskan
Republican's authority on the subject. (Palin's
pregnant 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is engaged to
her high-school boyfriend.)
"The whole thing
makes my head hurt," says Fey of gay marriage. "Why
are we deciding this? It has always confused me that people
evoke marriage being a sacred institution. It's a
license you get from the state. It's inherently
a civil union."
Given her
humility, it's no surprise that Fey didn't think her
Palin performances would resonate with gay people
specifically. "I don't think I really asked any
gay people about it," she says. "But the guys in
wardrobe at SNL, they loved it."
Matthew Mitcham
We at The
Advocate had the highest of hopes for Australian
Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham when we chose to feature him
on the magazine's cover in August. But our
expectations seemed for naught when the attractive
20-year-old hit the pool's metaphorical bottom with
his 16th place finish in the three-meter springboard
competition. A week later, when he took to the
10-meter platform, we were barely paying attention.
China had pocketed all the diving gold medals up to that
point and its divers were expected to sweep this
event. NBC was so convinced of China's prowess
that, even after Mitcham completed several stellar dives,
the network's coverage skipped his fifth-round plunge
altogether.
But the
Australian wasn't deterred -- and he ended up surprising the
world, killing the competition, and winning the competition.
It's still impossible, five months later, to
not get chills watching his last dive (a back 2 1/2
sommersault with 2 1/2 twists), to not tear up watching
him realize he's won the gold, and to not spam your
friends after watching footage of the medalist
introducing his boyfriend during a press conference
after his win (see the video above). We're far from sports
experts here at the magazine, but these days, we're proud to
say, "We knew Matthew Mitcham when..."
Steve Hildebrand
Steve Hildebrand,
out deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama, made an
impassioned appeal to LGBT delegates at the Democratic
National Convention in August. "What we need is for
all of you to be our voices in our communities and to
work tirelessly to give every single day, as much time
as you can give," he told the crowd of some 300.
"Don't play games, don't let anyone play games. We know what
it's been like in the last eight years, and we knew
what it was like in eight great years of the Clinton
administration, where we advanced the agenda for our
community in a big way. That's when I came out,
that's when I felt comfortable, that's when I
felt proud."
Hildebrand, who
signed on to the Obama campaign in October 2006, helped
devise the strategy of using the candidate's star
power to generate an unprecedented e-mail list of
millions of supporters that became a fund-raising
juggernaut. The millions who went to see an Obama speech got
a free ticket simply by providing the campaign with their
name, e-mail address, and phone number. Viola! Nearly
$650 million dollars later, we have a new president.
Hildebrand is now
looking forward to the inauguration. "That moment when
Barack Obama will raise his right hand and swear on the
Bible on the Capitol steps will lift people up all
over the country and all over the world--people
who need to be lifted up, people who need help, people who
need to know if they work hard, they can do anything," he
says. "It may have a greater effect on more people in
this country and this world than any piece of
legislation ever is going to."
