I love Tina Fey. Until my creative non fiction class this quarter I never would have picked up the book because "non fiction isn't my thing." Well it wasn't, but it is now!
So while in Meijer grocery shopping with the family, my husband decides he must go through the toy aisles. Every time. I busy myself in the book department or the cosmetic department. This day I was in the books, checking out the non fiction selection.
I had seen Bossypants before, but this day is the day I bought it. $11.99 well spent.
I read the book pretty fast, it's very funny and charming. It actually made me want to watch 30 Rock when I have never seen a single episode. So I started it today when I finished the book. So far it's pretty funny. Unfortunately my children woke up from their naps and I had to put it on pause. I love Netflix.
The chapter, or essay I guess I could call it (the book has several very short chapters which could be an essay if she'd published it outside of this book) entitled "Amazing, Gorgeous, Not Like That" had me thinking about my first CNF essay that didn't get the best grade of my academic career.
In the chapter Fey discusses what it's like to pose and go through a photo shoot. She outlines the process and proceeds to write about what she looks like "in real life" vs. what photoshop makes her look like. I love this chapter!
"They always get it wrong under the eyes. In an effort to remove dark circles they take out any depth, and your face looks like it was drawn on a paper plate." (Fey 157)
and "...but how do you feel when they erase part of you that is perfectly good? We have now entered the debate over America's most serious and pressing issue: Photoshop." (157)
"Do I think Photoshop is being used excessively? Yes. I saw Madonna's Louis Vuitton ad and honestly, at first glance, I thought it was Gwen Stefani's baby." (157)
"Retouching is here to stay. Technology doesn't move backward. No society has ever de-industrialized. Which is why we'll never turn back from Photoshop - and why the economic collapse of China is going to be the death of us all. Never mind that. Let's keep being up in arms about this Photoshop business!" (161)
"I don't see a future in which we're all anorexic and suicidal. I do see a future in which we all retouch the bejeezus out of our own pictures at home. Family Christmas cards will just be eyes and nostrils in a snowman border.
At least with Photoshop you don't really have to alter your body. It's better than all these disgusting injectibles and implants...I have thus far refused to get any Botox or plastic surgery. (Although I do wear a clear elastic chin strap that I hook around my ears and pin under my day wig.)" (161)
My first essay began as an essay about fitting in, and peer pressure and what lengths we all go to just to be liked. It ended up kind of a mess, so I guess I don't really begrudge my professor for grading it like the crap it was. But this chapter (and the ones in which Fey talks about being skinny and fat for a period of time) had me thinking about that essay.
I am going to revise it, frankly I want to get an "A" in the class. I don't know if a revision will help but the low score I got is nagging me. I'm thinking it's going to go in one of two ways. One, it will go in this direction about body image and fitting in and what my kids will be faced with in school. Two, it will turn into a piece about my worries about fucking up my kids and what society says I should be doing as a mother - including the mother's group I joined a year ago.
Well that's all the time I am allowed. Amelia is down the hall beating up Mason and Claire is climbing on the dining room table. Oh - and there's a zombie movie on television that I haven't switched off yet.
If you want a laugh - read Bossypants.
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