Amy Poehler Makes Fun of Talk Shows While Praising Awesome Young Women

The Amy Poehler hosted web series, Smart Girls at the Party, continues its second season of interviews with “extraordinary individuals who are changing the world by being themselves.” These people happen to be young girls that have hobbies and interests like most people and excel at something other to some extent. It’s as pointless as most talk shows, if we’re being honest, but some people expected a bit more from the Parks and Rec star:

“…Smart Girls at the Party feels less like an expression of Poehler’s spiky humor than one of Leslie Knope’s more-earnest and less-successful projects.”

For everyone that is looking to draw life lessons from little kids on youtube, there are people that see the intention behind the show and applaud its efforts. Truth be told, people are inspired by some weird shit and if Amy Poehler making fun of the talk show format while praising young women does it for you, congratulations, you’re probably a decent human being. I’m just sorry for people like Alyssa Rosenberg that are missing the joke.

Rosenberg calls Poehler’s questions boring and softball. I don’t really know what kind of hard hitting questions she would rather be asked of a twelve-year-old, but okay. The only thing more boring than interview questions are the answers, which I think is what Amy Poehler is trying to prove. What makes these girls any less worthy of being 60 Minutes-style interviewed than any celebrity? They’re both going to be boring as shit.

Smart Girls at the Party is an earnest effort but as is sometimes the case with comedians, it’s hard to do almost anything without making fun of it at the same time. That’s the entire premise behind Chelsea Peretti’s twitter account. It’s the entire premise behind my life. So do I know why this show exists? No. But I don’t understand why most things exist and wish a vast majority of them didn’t. Regardless, it’s here and if you like things that are conceptually funny rather than practically funny, you should watch it. Or if you want to find hope in a store of miniature Leslie Knopes, have at it. But expecting Amy Poehler to ask the tough questions of a pre-teen aspiring writer will not make you a smart girl at any party. Poehler’s message is to “change the world by being yourself.” I’m on board with that even after coming to terms with that fact that being myself means pretty boring and rarely enthused.

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Brittani

Brittani Nichols is a Los Angeles based comedy person. When she's not tweeting about white people or watching television, she's probably eating pizza. Actually, she's probably doing all three of those things concurrently and when she's not doing THAT, she's sleeping. Brittani also went to Yale and feels weird about mentioning it but wants you to know.

Brittani has written 328 articles for us.

12 Comments

  1. The only thing more boring than interview questions are the answers, which I think is what Amy Poehler is trying to prove. What makes these girls any less worthy of being 60 Minutes-style interviewed than any celebrity? They’re both going to be boring as shit.

    yes, this. all of this.

  2. But what other talk shows have dance parties with the cast of Parks & Rec at the end of the episode?

  3. I’m sorry, but it is impossible for me to dislike anything that has Ron Swanson dancing.

  4. I think the issue with the show isn’t so much the show itself, but simply that we (adult viewers) are not the target demographic and to a large extent won’t “get it”. This looks to be aimed at inspiring and amusing the tween girl crowd, 8-14 year olds that want to watch their aspirational peers interact with a celebrity they like and respect. That being said, I do think the humor and pacing need a bit more work.

  5. Brittani, you’re not boring.

    I find you’re writing to be very witty, funny and well-written. If you were boring I would’ve stopped reading the article the first sentence in.

    All you’re stuff up here is interesting and entertaining. That’s just my opinion though. :)

  6. Once I heard there was dancing I just watched the end seconds of the video and pretended the rest didn’t exist

  7. When was the last time someone tried to encourage girls to strive to be intelligent rather than physically attractive in the media? Instead of hearing “blonde girls have more fun” maybe it’s time to hear “smart girls have more fun!”

Comments are closed.