“In the Rita sketch, you were a little hard to understand. Can you just enunciate a little more?” Stallone was unfazed. “Youcannunnastanme? Youneeme nanaunciate maw? Okay.” He couldn’t have been more easygoing about it. My guess is that this was not the first time in his career he had been given that note. I went back inside and manually released my butt cheeks.
– Tina Fey in Bossypants on having to tell SNL host Sylvester Stallone to speak more clearly.
After reading this paragraph in the middle of Bossypants, Tina Fey’s, hilarious book containing insights on her life and career thus far, I spewed out my water and choked. It reminds me of the line in Date Night, where she says to her husband at dinner, mocking a couple at a table over, “That’s amazing, Jeremy, but I’m gonna go home now and fart into a shoe box.”
Fey’s humor is quick-paced, self-deprecating, yet confident, honest while not giving away personal details, and damn enjoyable. A few photos pop up throughout the book, some of her middle school-age-self, wonky hair and lopsided smile, to recent photo shoots with sultry eyes and big hair. She prefers the former.
It’s interesting to learn about her life and how she went from a young, traveling improv artist to working as a writer at SNL. She injects spiky one-liners and laugh aloud jokes throughout while really providing introspection on her family, her appearance, her best friends like Amy Poehler and the cast of 30 Rock, and especially the treatment of women in show business and comedy. She breaks down the truths of a photo shoot and even dedicates one chapter to the mean comments stewing on the internet. In “Dear Internet,” she spunkily guts all the naysayers. It’s gold.
Even the quotes to entice readers, on the back jacket, are ridiculous.
Praise for Tina Fey include:
“You’d be really pretty if you lost weight.” – College boyfriend, 1990
“Tina Fey is an ugly, pear-shaped, overrated troll.” – The Internet
“Mommy, where are my pretzels?” – Tracy Morgan
And Praise for Bossypants include:
“I hope that’s not really the cover. That’s really going to hurt sales.” – Don Fey
“Absolutely delicious.” – A guy who eats books
“Totally worth it.” – Trees
I learned a lot about how she sees the world and how the world sees her. She is smart, funny, confident, and tough—you have to be to “make it” in a man’s world of comedy.
She covers her early days as a child living with her awesome parents. She dotes on the masculine, tough-as-nails persona of her dad, whom she invariably refers to as “Don Fey.” She hails from Upper Darby, PA and also lived and worked in Chicago. In high school she was friends with a tight group of gays and other theatre kids and did not have the best of luck with boyfriends in college. She says,
“What 19-year-old Virginia boy doesn’t want a wide-hipped, sarcastic Greek girl with short hair that’s permed on top?”
Fey tells you what she wants to, without going too far into her personal life. She details her sketch comedy days and consequently illustrates the farce adventure of her honeymoon. She does not explain how she met her husband, but rather tells us how the cruise ship caught fire and everyone had to evacuate.
In the beginning chapter, she makes the one and only mention of the scar across her chin—a stranger in an alleyway sliced her face when she was young—and proceeds to dissect the types of people that ask her how she got the scar: There are the “sweet dumdums,” who naively ask her if the scar came from a mean cat. Those that don’t muster up the courage to ask at all. Those that say, “Did they catch the black guy that did that to you?” Or those that consider themselves brave and sensitive and ask with “feigned empathy.”
Fey also explains with directness the dilemma of being a mom and a working woman. She wants another child yet wants to maintain 30 Rock, and not just for her own sake. She genuinely understands the implications, because many people have a job because of the show.
Overall, Bossypants is totally worth it. It will make you laugh. It will make you reflect on your own life. It will better acquaint you with a great American talent. And it will make you re-watch her Sarah Palin impressions on youtube.
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December Book of the Month: Room
