The Fey Way

I had no plans to read Tina Fey's Bossypants but I saw it in the library so I checked it out.  It's pretty much what you've heard--a funny, breezy tour of her life. I can certainly see why it became a bestseller.

I don't have too much to say about it other than I suppose what makes it interesting--beyond the jokes (which I'm not discounting---without them there is no book)--is that while Fey is writing about being a powerful women, she's doing it from a post-feminist stance.  Not that she isn't a feminist, but rather she came up in an era where it wasn't shocking for women to want to have a career and be a boss.  Sure, there was plenty of old thinking around, often from older people, but her attitude was and is mostly to ignore it and work around it if possible.  She also recognizes that while women can do just about anything a man can, there are still differences between the sexes--in fact, her show, 30 Rock, often plays off certain gender stereotypes (though the show is so much about getting laughs that it's hard to pinpoint a specific point of view).

She writes about her days in Second City and SNL, where comedy troupes had twice as many men as women. The reason given was if you had too many females, there wouldn't be enough for them to do--it protects the women who have made it from competition.  But, as Fey points out, we're the ones writing the material.  There are as many parts for women as we decide.  It's just tradition that deems most characters to be guys, while the gals are often in supporting or stereotypical roles (wife, girlfriend, secretary, nurse, hooker, etc.) Shouldn't casts be based on talent, not sex?  It brought me back to the days I ran a troupe in college.  We had the same ratio--generally, about six men and three women.  Even back then I wondered if that made sense, though it was true most of the sketches we did (including those by me) had more male roles than female.  I seem to recall coming to the conclusion it was okay to have more men than women simply because more tried out.  Ironically, when you look at the regulars on 30 Rock, I count five men and two women.  I guess you have to pick your battles.  And Tina is making more than anyone else on the show--that's a real battle worth winning.