Embraces the irreverent even as wisdom seeps through
Do yourself a favor and do not read Bossypants. Why read it when you can listen to it? If you don’t listen to the audiobook version of Tina Fey’s autobiographical essay collection, you won’t be able to hear the beloved 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live star do impressions of her no-nonsense dad, or her fellow counselors at a Delaware County theater camp, or Monica Lewinsky, or (yay!) Amy Poehler, or, last but certainly not least, her Red State doppelganger and intellectual polar opposite, Sarah Palin. Bossypants contains everything fans have come to love about Fey: a healthy dose of self-deprecation (“I wouldn’t even trade the acne scar on my right cheek, because that recurring zit spent more time with me in college than any boy ever did” ), a deep appreciation for the absurd and the embarrassing, and an unapologetic, take-no-prisoners attitude where it matters most — in describing her triumphs and struggles as a harried working mother who’s become one of the most successful women (or people, for that matter) in show business today.
There’s a moment in the book when Fey describes a famous SNL sketch in which she and Amy Poehler first impersonated Palin and Hillary Clinton: “You all watched a sketch about feminism and you didn’t even realize it because of all the jokes. It’s like when Jessica Seinfeld puts spinach in kids’ brownies. Suckers!” And this is exactly what she does in Bossypants — sneaking us our daily recommended allowances of empowerment and self-acceptance, all through the alluring guise of comedy. Whether she’s doling out career advice (“I encourage [young women] to always wear a bra. Even if you don’t think you need it, just… you know what? You’re never going to regret it”) or saying a wonderfully perverse prayer for her young daughter (“May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers”), Fey embraces the irreverent even as the wisdom of her words seeps through.