I began to fall in love with Tina Fey when her character in 30 Rock ordered a meatball sub with extra bread. Now that I have listened to the audiobook version of Bossypants, Fey’s thoroughly brilliant memoir, I am completely head-over-heels. Bossypants proves that Fey is not just a weirdly funny comedian and a geeky actress with an unabashed love for cheese. She is also a markedly astute writer, able to capture the world around her with an honesty that is both eviscerating and hilarious.
Much of Fey’s acerbic wit manifests itself the form of self-deprecating humour as she describes her childhood and the early years of her career in all their awkward glory. Ultimately, however, it is the “dumb-dumb” mindset of an absurdly superficial society — and of the entertainment industry in particular — that bears the brunt of Fey’s jokes. “I have a suspicion that the definition of ‘crazy’ in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore,” Fey quips at one point during the audiobook, and throughout the narrative of Bossypants, she explores the many challenges that women face as they struggle to prove their worth in a male-dominated workforce.
Amidst all her wisecracks about popular culture and Kim Kardashian’s backside, Fey offers some genuinely thoughtful advice to career-minded women, and she provides interesting insight into the age-old question: “How do we teach our daughters and our gay sons that they are good enough the way they are?”
