Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have been friends for over 30 years. Not many people can lay claim to that particular life experience, especially not the famous ones. The friend I've had the longest, I've called a friend since mid-2002. Proximity brought us together, but distance somehow didn't set our faux sisterhood adrift. We still laugh about co-surviving middle school, but share mutual happiness in how mundane our lives have since become. Neither of us is famous, and we don't want to be, but if we had been, I know for a fact we'd have started some sort of fake rivalry that accidentally went on for two decades because neither ever remembered to pick up the phone to remind the other it was all pretend.
Not Fey and Poehler, though. Not after both not only broke into the business and rose to stardom, but also figured out how to stay there. Neither is perfect, but what human is? Perhaps the foundation of their friendship found roots exactly in the undeniable truth that they are flawed and know it.
I'm by no means here to speculate about these women's private lives, because that brand of journalism bores me. But if two very famous and successful women can stay friends through both the ups and downs of life as well as the ins and outs of working in the film and TV industry for that long, there has to be something people without recognizable names can extract from the phenomenon.
It isn't that there aren't other long-lasting friendships among the likes of these, but these two are on yet another tour together. They're not sick of each other yet. You could argue that white women especially like seeing two friends do cool things together over and over and that's why they keep co-hosting award shows, but let's say, for the sake of this article, that it's all real and they're besties even when the cameras are off and there's no money involved. Humor me, at least for a few more hundred words.
To watch someone else chase and catch their dreams alongside you can go one of two ways: It can bring you close or birth a jealousy-filled, decades-long standoff. These two met in Chicago's comedy scene in the 1990s. Fey started writing for Saturday Night Live in 1997; Poehler joined the cast in 2001. They hosted "Weekend Update" once, and the rest ... it's an ongoing hilarious history. Instead of competing for the same career, they instead chose to share the stage (sometimes literally).
Women who lift each other up as they rise are far more successful in the long run than those who don't. In this industry, it's hard enough to survive the egos of men, let alone win despite them. Much easier to do when you have a cheerleader. Even better if that cheerleader writes you into her movies, hypes up your shows, and says yes to touring with you, hosting award shows -- need I go on?
What a tired script it would have been, all of us still talking 30 years later about how Fey and Poehler did comedy together as nobodies and fought viciously all the way up to A-List status. Neither seems very interested in that kind of drama. In life, you're lucky if you can find a best friend who also hates staying out late and is, in certain situations, maybe a little bit shy around strangers.
Ultimately, shared experience is what keeps two people who met in the same city friends for decades. If we were speculating, perhaps we'd start down other possible avenues to explain why two white women in America have never found good reasons to disagree to the point of estrangement, but you'll have to rely on another writer -- or catch me on a different day -- for that conversation.