I am woman, hear me laugh

Bossypants
By Tina Fey
Published by Little, Brown & Co, 2011
Available at Amazon.com, US$11 (Bt340)
Reviewed by James Eckardt

Those eminent contemporary philosophers Jerry Lewis and Christopher Hitchens have advanced the proposition that women lack a sense of humour. It’s a notion that can be shot down in two words: Tina Fey.
The former Second City trouper, head writer for TV’s “Saturday Night Live” and creator and star of her own sitcom, “30 Rock”, has produced her first book, “Bossypants”.
As befits a writer of comedy sketches, the 25 chapters of her book are short and vary widely in quality. The best of them are hugely entertaining.
Born in 1970, Fey grew up in a Greek suburb of Philadelphia. She obeyed her mother and adored her father and would have graduated to a life of suburban normality except for joining a summer-theatre group that was a haven for gay kids.
She was shocked when two young actors fell into an adult romance.
“I had to face the fact that I had been using my gay friends as props,” she writes. “They were always supposed to be funny and entertain me and praise me and listen to my problems, and their life was supposed to be a secret that no one wanted to hear about. I wanted them to stay in the ‘half closet’ ...
“[The romance] was a major and deeply embarrassing teenage revelation. It must have been how straight teenage boys feel when they realise those boobs they like have heads attached to them.”
In Fey’s hands, teenage angst about her face and body – eyebrows, lips, legs, hips and boobs – produces geysers of humour. She claims to have “wide-set knockers that aren’t so big but can be hoisted up once or twice a year for parades”.
Next she was on her own as the lone Greek attending a white-bread college.
“Let me start off by saying that at the University of Virginia in 1990, I was Mexican. I looked Mexican, that is, next to my 15,000 blond and blue-eyed classmates, most of whom owned horses, or at least resembled them.”
Next stop: Chicago and the Second City improvisation troupe. To survive, she worked at the front desk of a YMCA, “the epicentre of all human grimness”. At Second City she found that each cast must have four men and two women, and no variations. “This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury.”
Things have since changed. “You might see four women and two men. You might see five men and a YouTube video of a kitten sneezing. Once we know we’re really open to all the options, we can proceed with Whatever’s the Funniest ... which will probably involve farts.”
Fey treads water with a couple of chapters on faux beauty tips before returning to the main trunk of the story and her 1997 interview for a writing spot on “Saturday Night Live” with founder Lorne Michael.
Making its debut in 1975, this late-night comedy show has featured such famous players as John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Will Ferrell. Fey rose to head writer, as well as newscaster on the popular “Weekend Update” segment.  
“I tried to apply Lorne’s lesson when staffing ‘30 Rock’,” she writes of her sitcom that mimics the backstage antics of “Saturday Night Live”. “Our current staff makeup is four Harvard nerds, four performer-turned-writers, two regular nerds and two dirtbags.”
She treads water again with a long, unfunny bit about the art of posing for magazine covers, before she hits her stride with the long, rousing saga of her six-week Sarah Palin imitation at the height of the 2008 presidential election.
She maintains that the former vice-presidential candidate is taller and prettier than she is, but no one could get over the uncanny resemblance of “brown hair and glasses”.  
Fey also has a great time answering the e-mail of fans and foes. To one poison-pen writer who claims Fey doesn’t have a funny bone in her body she replies: “You know who does have a funny bone in her body? Your mom every night for a dollar.”
She closes the book with a typically whimsical take on motherhood, “There’s a Drunk Midget in my House”, in which she observes, “Ah, babies! They’re more than just adorable little creatures on whom you can blame your farts.”
This leads to a self-deprecating meditation on the tug-of-war between family and fame. She’s happily married with a five-year-old daughter. Should she have another one? But what about the 200 people on “30 Rock” who depend on her?
My advice: Stick with the show.