Bossypants

Fey describes photo shoots—the chic locations, the ill-fitting clothing, the free coffee bar, the various personalities of photographers, and the humiliating experience of dealing with the young woman whose “job is to stuff a middle-aged woman’s bare ass crack into a Prada dress and zip it up” (133). While you have your hair and makeup done, you receive a manicure and pedicure, and the experience is “so cozy that you could almost believe that this is your actual life” (135).

Fey lists three skills one must master for a photo shoot. First, a flattering pose involves leaning against a wall, lifting your arms slightly, and sucking in your stomach, while still “[being] yourself” (138). Second, don’t “wilt with embarrassment” (139) at the “compulsively effusive” (138) praise thrown at you by the photographers. Finally, despite knowing “you look ridiculous in a half-open dress and giant shoes” (139), try to enjoy the experience by convincing yourself you look good and by taking advantage of the elegant free lunch. After the shoot, “[y]ou may sink into a slight depression” when “your loved ones don’t call out, ‘Amazing, gorgeous, right to me!’” (140) as you resume your daily routine.

When the magazine is released, you may not, Fey warns, recognize your own face. She discusses the use of Photoshop and how many women despise it; she herself agrees that “overly retouched photos” can give women “unrealistic expectations and body image issues” but also believes Photoshop, when done well, “is just like makeup” (142). She argues that “[i]f you’re going to expend energy being mad about Photoshop, you’ll also have to be mad about earrings” because “[n]o one’s ears are that sparkly!” (142). She points to her 2004 Bust cover as an example of well-done Photoshopping, for they didn’t change her size, shape, or skin color. The best Photoshop jobs are done by people who “understand that it’s okay to make a photo look as if you were caught on your best day in the best light” (144). Fey believes Photoshop is “better than all these disgusting injectibles and implants” and that there’s no point in fighting against it, for “[t]echnology doesn’t move backward” (145).

In order to ensure she is “well-mannered,” Fey answers some of the “wonderful correspondence” (146) she receives online.

To a woman in Texas who asks when she is “going to do something about that hideous scar across her cheek??” (146), Fey responds that they should compare schedules so that the writer can solve the problem. Stating that the writer must be a doctor “because you seem really knowledgeable about how the human body works,” she asks what kind of bag she should wear on her head and tells the writer that the “use of double question marks […] makes you seem young” (147).

To a writer who calls Fey “an ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll,” Fey responds that the accusation is unfair, as the writer has “never even seen me guard a bridge” (147). She writes: “I prefer the terms ‘offbeat, business class-assed, and exhausted,’ but I’ll take what I can get” because “[t]here’s no such thing as bad press” (148).

To a writer who says he would “stick it in her tail pipe,” Fey writes that “[w]hether you meant it in a sexual way or merely as an act of aggression, I am grateful” (149).

Finally, to a writer who claims that Fey “has had 100% plastic surgery” (149) and that “[s]he was ugly then and she is ugly now” (150), Fey responds with a fictional list of absurd procedures she’s had done to “change a hundred percent of my facial features” (150) while remaining ugly to escape notice.

After eight years with Saturday Night Live, Fey takes Lorne Michaels’s suggestion that she create a sitcom for NBC. She takes a development deal, which enables her to spend a few months composing her idea. In 30 Rock, she is the head writer at a late-night comedy show, Tracy Morgan is a star on the show, and Alec Baldwin—who had not yet agreed to participate—is her conservative boss.

Baldwin agrees to make the pilot, which she calls “awkward” and “sweaty” (154). The show is picked up by NBC even though he hasn’t signed the contract; Jeff Zucker, the CEO of NBC Universal Television Group, tells her they’re “really going out on a limb” (156) for her. In the meantime, Fey gives birth to her daughter and experiences mixed feelings about throwing herself into this time-consuming project. Baldwin signs the contract, and a “hardworking, funny” (157), eclectic group of writers is hired to work on the show.

The show premiers in 2006, and even though the “ideas came fast and furious” (165), their audience is relatively small. Fey jokes that writer Robert Carlock doesn’t unpack his suitcase the first year and “didn’t even buy full gallons of milk, assuming we’d be cancelled any minute and he’d have to chug the whole thing and get back on the plane to Los Angeles” (166). Fey herself “proceeded with the blithe confidence of a moron” (166). She appreciates that NBC, not only 30 Rock’s network but also the network of the fictional show, allows them to “make jokes about them all the time” (167).

Fey admires Baldwin’s natural ability to convey lines and work with the camera. She and the writers work long hours, often collaborating until the early hours of the morning in her apartment as Fey keeps an eye on the baby monitor. Although the hours exhaust her and her husband Jeff, who composes the music for the show, she and the writers get along well, and she thinks of this time fondly. She is proud to say she has only one breakdown, and she resorts to domestic violence “only once” (171).

While their goal is to create a hit show, what they end up with is “a low-rated critical darling that snarled in the face of conventionality” (171). They try to make the show “more accessible,” but shows, “like children,” are “going to be who they’re going to be” (172).

Fey writes that Friends, in which everyone is twenty-something and beautiful, cannot be recreated because it is “the exception, not the rule” (174). Most successful shows employ stars with “normal human faces,” and the “human-looking cast” (174) is one of her show’s assets. To the crew’s surprise, the show is picked up for the remainder of the season. Fey wouldn’t trade her “sickly little program” for a show with a bigger audience “because [she] love[s] [her] weird little show” (175).