Desire Fire: Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman: the new queens of comedy

While men may still be capable of being funny - and, indeed, continue to be quite good at it -
the ground rules of comedy are in flux.
And one of the biggest ground rules has just been abolished entirely.
For this year it became possible, for the first time in history, to make the following statement:
currently, the two funniest people in the world are women.

Both are, inevitably, American.

Tina Fey

Tina Fey has been head and shoulders above all other satirists during the US presidential campaign -
helped by her startling resemblance to Sarah Palin.
Over the past few weeks on Saturday Night Live, Fey has been turning in an escalating series
of Palin parodies - perhaps peaking with last Saturday's evisceration of the disastrous
Palin/Katie Couric television interview.
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video Tina Fey

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USA Today has said that Palin's biggest challenge now, in the run-up to the election,
is to make Americans forget the “Tina Fey factor”.
As the latest twist in a career in which Fey has become the first female chief writer on Saturday Night Live;
written, produced and starred in the multi-Emmy-award-winning sitcom 30 Rock
and written the $129million-grossing movie Mean Girls, which gave Lindsay Lohan her break-out role,
it is unexpected but, in almost every respect, amusing.

Sarah Silverman

Sarah Silverman, meanwhile, is the nearest the comedy world gets to a rock star.
Currently on a world tour to promote her DVD Jesus is Magic, and appearing in London
on October 19, Silverman is perhaps best known for her satirical song -
the deathless, crude and very, very funny I'm F***ing Matt Damon -
which made headlines around the world this summer.
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video Jesus is Magic

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Silverman's main vehicle is the inventive, anarchic and very funny The Sarah Silverman Program,
which she writes, directs and stars in.
It is the highest-rating show on Comedy Central.