Keep working, keep laughing message in new biography

By Nate Thurman

America should be worried about Tina Fey. She’s not in any kind of trouble, but she really does seem to be working too hard. In addition to writing, acting and producing the television show "30 Rock," she has now written a biography. She makes it clear in her book that she is aware of this, but doesn’t care too much about it. She loves her work too much to care.

"Bossypants" is an autobiography of sorts. It’s made up of stories from Tina’s life that span her growth from a girl who is a bit scared of her dad to a woman who was once scared of her boss. The chapters vary from a tribute and meditation on her father and her lack of understanding of him as a child, her disastrous honeymoon, all the way to her thoughts about having a second child.

"Bossypants" is in some ways a feminist look at the life of a woman trying to make it as an actor and writer, the challenges built by society and the things she did (or didn’t) do to deal with them. The feminist aspect isn’t anything preachy. It’s not the focus of the book, but Fey’s sharp mind allows for her to comment on gender issues and sexism in a very intelligent, sarcastic and sometimes hilarious way. Her voice is funny but maintains a level of serious frustration about inequality regardless of the humor, which adds a truly thought provoking side to this very funny book.

Did I mention these chapters have great jokes in them? Some of them are horribly rough (that is to say harsh), many are off-color and most of them are just side splitting. I found myself laughing aloud in the book store I was reading in. A sample “You could put a blonde wig on an old radiator, and somewhere a guy will [have sex with] it.” This comes in the middle of Fey’s idea that we should start calling blonde hair yellow, because that’s really what it is.

Her humor is natural and her subject matter too, it’s usually about routines, stress in day to day life. As a male fan of Fey I can fairly say that this book is not 100 percent written for me (biggest no Duh ever, why should it be?). Ninety percent of this book is for everyone. Its generally funny anecdotes about life that human beings should be able to relate to in one way or another, but there are parts of this book that some male readers aren’t going to make it though.

She has a chapter of simple beauty tips, which is worth reading for the skin pointers but mostly is over my head as I know very little about the process of beauty and make up and what not. I feel bad even mentioning this, because how many times has a women HAD to read a book about a troubled male youth/youths. I’m looking at you "Catcher in the Rye," and "Lord of the Flies," and "Hamlet" and just about every book ever. So really I should be quiet about this. Sorry, Tina.

If Fey comes off as the East Coast Liberal Elite she often jokes about being, I would be surprised. Because of the honesty and candidness of her recollections, we are reminded in so many ways that we are all the same, or at least very similar. She came from a similar same high school we went to in a community that’s equally American. We have funny, crappy jobs sometimes. We stress out about work and family. Our vacations don’t always go as planned. What Fey’s message seems to be is to keep your head down and working, and remember to laugh.

Bossypants

By Lauren Ellison

Tina Fey’s book "Bossypants" is a treasure trove of sarcastic wit, shameless honesty and even the occasional (and surprising) vulnerable revelation. Fey carefully tailors each phrase in the most hilarious style, ensuring countless laugh-out-loud reactions to even the most banal accounts. Fey’s strengths lie in her uncanny ability to recount her teenage loserdom and current insecurities in a hysterically self-deprecating, yet not self-pitying, way. She begins the book with a wild rant about the ridiculous acclaim “yellow” hair receives. Incensed and disturbed that her young daughter already prefers her yellow-haired Sleeping Beauty doll to the brown-haired Snow White doll, Fey finally concedes to the yellow-hairs. “Let’s admit it,” she writes, “Yellow hair does have magic powers. You could put a blond wig on a hot-water heater and some dude would try to fuck it.” Fey’s book is a wonderful mash-up of valuable lessons learned and inconsequential personal reflections that would even garner a chuckle from Sarah Palin, Fey’s most loyal hater.

The book’s most entertaining chapter, appropriately titled “Dear Internet,” features crude blog posts that Fey has chosen to personally address. The fact that Fey is capable of wittily, but not bitchily, replying to a blogger who calls her “an ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll,” puts her in a comedic league of her own: “To say I’m an overrated troll when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.” While she laughs off her haters and imperfections, Fey is also unafraid to admit her weaknesses. She unabashedly admits to the difficulties of being a bossypants, a wife and a mother, confessing that she enjoys a “triannual torrential sobbing.” She’s only human, after all.

The book starts from the beginning, chronicling her summers among the gays at theater camp. She relives the heartbreaking realization that though she loved her gays for entertainment value, she was a little disgusted when she really thought about what went on behind closed doors. Fey gives us a laugh here, but at the same time reveals a character flaw she’s truly ashamed of. It’s raw, honest and something she doesn’t need to share with us, but she does anyway. The book is rifled with obscure over shares and embarrassing questions that usually go unspoken, which make the book stand out for me. I take moderate comfort in the fact that Fey ponders the same off-kilter, often politically incorrect, thoughts that I entertain from time to time. Maybe I’m not so screwed up after all. Or maybe we’re just two freaks.

There’s a delightful chapter where Fey discusses the pros and cons of Photoshop. With all of the emaciated celebrities declaring war on Photoshop (clearly because they are all a Size Negative Five and don’t need it anyway,) Fey is the first to say, “What’s the big deal?” When Fey makes a point, her diction is fearless. “I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion,” she writes. “It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society … unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool.”

Her stories make trite moments such as a painfully awkward run-in with a high school ex seem equally life altering as the first time she hit the "Saturday Night Live" stage as Palin. Fey entertainingly recounts her journey from an undesirable partially-permed college female to the best days of her life at the improv company, The Second City. Fey proves that a woman can be funny without playing the pretty girl and reveals that you don’t have to be a mannish ballbuster to be a successful boss and entrepreneur. "Bossypants" truly has something for everyone, with chapters touching on everything from breastfeeding to job searching to a laundry list of her bodily flaws. She considers no story too ordinary to share with us, and though some accounts are more laughable than others, the book in its entirety is absolutely worth reading. Her life encounters are reminiscent of an uncomfortably amusing "30 Rock" episode, each page packed with smart, perfectly constructed gems.

"Bossypants" puts Fey as a frontrunner for one of the greatest comedians of our time. “Do your thing and don’t care if they like it,” Fey writes. I think I’ve found my new motto.