Bossypants Character Analysis

Prejudices serve as a mean of division among society, and while their origins can vary from individual to individual, their presence is prevalent and terrifying. Tina Fey’s memoir, Bossypants, has examples of prejudices that target multiple groups of people, and all of these prejudices are deeply rooted in modern society. Bossypants uses Fey’s memories and ideals to reinforce and exhibit harmful stereotypes and prejudices that are all commonly held beliefs in society. As homosexuality has only achieved relative acceptance in recent years, homophobia was stronger and more harmful in Fey’s youth. Tina Fey reflects the ideals of that time period in her writing, but shows it intertwined with her modern understanding by displaying the contrast

In Bossypants, Tina Fey uses offensive humor to target multiple ethnicities, races, and even homosexuality while commenting on gender. An example of this in Bossypants is when Fey is listing off what she states are the necessities to be beautiful in current society such as “hairless Asian skin with a California tan,” “a Jamaican dance hall ass,” “long Swedish legs,” “small Japanese feet,” and “the abs of a lesbian gym owner.”(Fey 23). Fey primarily uses race-based stereotypes to talk about the social stereotypes of women in relation to beauty. While Tina Fey is using this humor to bring awareness to gender-related issues in this instance, Fey makes more offensive jokes later on in the

Tina Fey acknowledges beauty standards periodically, including her racially-charged list of ideal beauty requirements. Fey tells the reader that she does not care about beauty standards when she states her twelfth tenant of beauty: “If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important Rule of Beauty. “Who cares?’”(Fey 104). Tina Fey’s last and most important rule is to disregard the rules of beauty, but this does not align with the prevalence of the mentions of beauty standards throughout the text. Tina Fey mentions them in regard to herself when she says, “One afternoon a girl walked by in a bikini and my cousin Janet scoffed, “Look at the hips on her.” I panicked. What about the hips? Were they too big? Too small? What were my hips? I didn’t know hips could be a problem. I thought there was just fat or skinny.”(Fey 20). This quote comes from a memory of a time before she learned to disregard the standards of beauty, but reveals to the audience the first time Tina Fey really thought about them in relation to herself. This quote shows that Fey has a history of dealing with beauty standards; however, regardless of her statement on page one-hundred and four, beauty standards are immensely pervasive in the text such as when she says, “If you don’t have a good body, you’d better starve the body you have