Tina Fey's cake rage on Weekend Update met with mixed reactions

Tina Fey’s headline-grabbing cake segment on Weekend Update: Summer Edition cooked up a mixed batch of reactions.

During the episode Thursday night, Fey began by denouncing the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last week and President Donald Trump’s response. She continued the comedic bit by suggesting protestors refrain from “participating in screaming matches” at the alt-right rallies and instead stress eat cake so these “morons” can “scream into the empty air.”

While some on social media, like J.K. Rowling and Lady Gaga, praised Fey for her comedy, others thought the suggestion was “naive” and spoke to her sense of “privilege.”

“Tina Fey represents some of the worst impulses of liberal white women who can’t see beyond themselves,” one user tweeted. Other responses stated “eating a cake is not enough to end racism” and staying at home to “yell into cake” is a post-alt-right reward for dismantling white supremacy.

“The stark difference of opinion on Tina Fey from white people and PoC right now speaks volumes about perspective and experience,” another user remarked.

Rowling called Fey’s bit “the sanest response to #Charlottesville of all,” while Elizabeth Banks joked “cake yelling is going to be my whole weekend.”

See responses below.

One place that didn’t tweet about Fey but has weighed in on how to handle neo-Nazis and hate groups is the Southern Poverty Law Center. “The best response is not to show up at all,” Lecia Brooks, the SPLC’s outreach director, told The Chronicle of Higher Education. “It is the better strategy.”