How Tina Fey Helped me Love My Body
Do you know how many women say broad-minded things in public (Every woman is beautiful in her own way), but don’t believe it in their heart of hearts, at least not of themselves? Not of their body.
I’ve been looking for a woman who knows how to face the funny facts of her body, laugh, own and share them with anyone else who cares to listen.
The search is over. I’ve found her. Enter stage right, Tina Fey and her Bossypants.
And Tina has plenty to say about the current state of beauty and women.
For instance, in her day (her phrase) you were either gifted a beautiful body or not. If not, then you went about finding some marketable trade, and quick.
“Now if you’re not “hot,” you are expected to work on it until you are . . .
It’s like when you renovate a house and you’re legally required to leave just one of the original walls standing. If you don’t have a good body, you’d better starve the body you have down to a neutral shape, then bolt on some breast implants, replace your teeth, dye your skin orange, inject your lips, sew on some hair, and call yourself the Playmate of the Year.”
Makes me think of the cosmetically enhanced playboy look that drag queens like RuPaul can replicate and manufacture . . . in themselves.
Where can we find some tips to hold on? How can we keep from feeling we must buy something to fix healthy, functioning features that we know are plenty good enough?
For starters we can name the impossible items that every girl is currently supposed to have. Tina’s list:
- Caucasian blue eyes
- full Spanish lips
- a classic button nose
- hairless Asian skin with a California tan
- a Jamaican dance hall #@*$&
- long Swedish legs
- small Japanese feet
- the abs of a lesbian gym owner
- the hips of a nine-year-old boy
- the arms of Michelle Obama
- and doll tits (I almost censured this word, but it loses the punch)
So Tina Fey attempts to lead by example. She takes inventory of her healthy body parts from straight Greek eyebrows to an upside down patooshkie, a rounded belly, a small high waist, “wide-set knockers that aren’t so big but can be hoisted up once or twice a year for parades,” strong legs with hefty calves, wide hips, a small high waist and her father’s flat, bony, pale feet. (p 24-25).
Now here’s the best part, besides being able to really laugh at yourself and invite others to join in. Tina goes on to appreciate each of her healthy features. She writes,
“I would not trade any of these features for anybody else’s. I wouldn’t trade the small thin-lipped mouth that makes me resemble my nephew. I wouldn’t even trade the acne scar on my right cheek, because that recurring zit spent more time with me in college than any boy every did.
At the end of the day, I’m happy to have my father’s feet and my mother’s eyes with me at all times. If I ever go back to that beach in Wildwood, I want my daughter to be able to find me in the crowd by spotting my soda-casehips. I want her to be able to pick me out of the sea of highlighted-blond women with fake tans because I’m the one with the thick ponytail and the greenish undertones in my skin.” p. 25
By the time I finished these pages I knew I had an example to follow. I hold Tina completely responsible for what follows.
My healthy body parts inventory:
- Flat eyebrows that grow with a slight pointy-ness in the middle, a trait I’ve plucked away since a high school play when I played the villain with mascara enhanced pointy brows (mascara also makes good scruffy beard for playing homeless men). Recently (i.e. post-Finn), I’m letting these brows grow back into pointy-hood. We’ll see if a villain role is in my future.
- Asian hairlessness (thank you Mama Grace for being so 100% Hispanic you look Japanese) which makes me the envy of all bikini-wax veterans.
- wide, strong nails that will not stay buffed into the fashionable square shape, but work great for cleaning between grout and teeth, not in that order.
- full, Spanish lips that look best smiling and betray the combination of Mexican and Spanish. Top lip is all my mother and even puckers into a little mustachio of wrinkles when I kiss. Bottom lip is my grandmother and it’s great for pouting and kissing.
- small teeth that have never been straightened or whitened (farewell movie star dreams) but do look like me. I have the smallest teeth of anyone in the family. They make a small statement next to my lips, but they chew, cut thread and enunciate beautifully.
- strong arms, lovely wrists trained by years of ballet and watching my grandmother move her hands. I also have her rather bony, awkwardly angular elbows which work to draw extra attention to important points from pulpits and podiums.
- a hiding toe (second to last on the left foot), that mimics my mothers and that we both proudly gave to Finn.
- wild, curly (sometimes sexy), frizzy, untamable hair that does my Polish and Hispanic ancestors proud.
- a nose I’ve finally grown into, as Dale once said. Wide nostrils that take a mere puff or air to enhance into flared, distinct caverns. Great for smelling gas leaks FIRST and for shocking young children.
- a not flat belly that belies the child I once held. A belly and hips that say Mexican-American, not Spanish or German, not English or French. My hips barely hold Finn, so my arms are stronger than hourglass shaped women. The belly I have named (thank you, Anne Lamott) “sugar plum” because sugar makes it look like a plum. I don’t know if I’ll ever lose it or if I’ll every fully want to lose it. Sit-ups will probably not be part of the process.
And Tina is correct, I wouldn’t trade any of my body for anyone else’s either. The recurring acne on my temples that began in college when I started dating my soon-to-be fiancé and ended when we broke the engagement. The silver collar scar on my left kneecap, won after cranking the dial on a treadmill too fast.
I don’t want straight, silky hair or dimpling elbows. I don’t want cupid lips or a slender nose. I want to think of my grandmothers when I detangle knots and flare my nostrils. And my belly, I want to remember that my body carried life (twice now) and still remembers how to hold a baby within and without.
I know my body could look more like a movie stars’, but then, well, it wouldn’t be mine.
Not the one God designed at his drafting table ages and ages ago.
So all that to say, thanks, Tina.
While Tina’s got lost more to say on body and image (photoshoots and photo shop, parenting and showbiz, being skinny and being fat), here are a few of my highlights (mostly unrelated to beauty) from Bossypants, in no particular order:
“My mother knew the importance of getting the right fit for a bra, so she took me to a JCPenney and tried onion over my clothes. She tried a bra on me over my clothes in the middle of JCPenney. I thank her for this. This early breast-related humiliation prevented me from ever needing to participate in “Girls Gone Wild” in my twenties.” from “The Secrets of Mommy’s Beauty” in Bossypants p. 104
“By nineteen, I had found my look. Oversize T-shirts, bike shorts, and wrestling shoes. To proven the silhouette from being too baggy, would cinch it at the waist with my fanny pack. I was pretty sure I would wear this look forever. The shirts allowed me to express myself with cool sayings like “There’s No Crying in Basketball”, the bike shorts showed off my muscular legs, and the fanny pack held all my trolley tokens. I was nailing it on a daily basis. Find something like this for yourself as soon as possible.” p. 111
“Don’t be fooled. You’re not in competition with other women. You’re in competition with everyone.” p. 88
“I’m a working parent and I understand that sometimes you want to have a very productive Saturday to feel that you are in control of your life, which of course you are not.” p. 52
After realizing she was using her gay friends as props to “to be funny and entertain me and praise me and listen to my problems . . . It was a major and deeply embarrassing teenage revelation. It must be how straight teenage boys feel when they realize those boobs they like have heads attached to them.” p. 42
To those who ask about her scar and then follow-up with “It’s so beautiful”, Fey writes, “Ugh. Disgusting. They might as well walk up and say, “May I be amazing at you?” To those folks let me be clear, I’m not interested in acting out a TV movie with you where you befriend a girl with a scar. An Oscar-y Spielberg movie where I play a mean German with a scar? Yes.” p. 8-9.
As a girl I (this is Jonalyn talking) was told to “Stop being the Mommy” by which my parents meant I should stop being the boss. Fey writes, “Contrary to what I believed as a little girl, being the boss almost never involved marching around, waving your arms, and chanting, “I am the boss! I am the boss!” p. 5.
I knew it! So I’m changing my strategy around here.
August 31st, 2011 at 10:52 am
I LOVED this book so much. Thanks for writing about it. Tina a great role model in this area. I may not be totally ok with the fact that my nose slightly leans to the left, but it’s a part of me and I wouldn’t change a thing.
August 31st, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Hey Julia,
I have a crooked smile, first pointed out to me when I got a cartoon done. At first I was insulted that he would exaggerate such a “flaw”, but now I think it says Jonalyn. All over it. I even refuse to practice smiling “perfectly” because it feels like too much self-image consulting.
Makes me think of the movie The Kid where the child tells his older self who becomes an image consultant, “I finally get what we do. We help people act like someone they aren’t, so no one will see who they really are.”
August 31st, 2011 at 11:06 am
Such a great book. That made me want to read it again! I love her directness and humour.
Way to use the anne lamott body-naming!!
Sugarplum is great.
I think women should all take an inventory of themselves like that – puts one’s body in such a different perspective. It’s beautiful to think of all the ancestry we carry in our features and unique parts…and it’s sad to see so many people stamp out (or want to stamp out) their original image with a bland copy of society’s ridiculous idea of beauty.
I pray for men out there to SEEK that uniqueness in women too, to value the journeys and history and experiences and struggles and accomplishments that formed the features and bodies of each woman. That they’d see beyond what they are told is supposedly beautiful to the depths of experience that have molded us into what we are, whatever that looks like!
August 31st, 2011 at 8:21 pm
Coryn,
Thank you. I liked Tina’s directness, too. A great example that women need not be catty!
Studying our ancestry has been so meaningful to me, too. For others see: Golden Hands and Exotic Poles (which contrary to my cousin’s suspicion is not a porn site
).
I’m glad you’re praying for this, too. I agree and would add that women play a big role in seeking out the unique stamp in each man they know, too. To add to your list (great one, btw), each man has a distinct way they form their words, unique way they walk and cough, sneeze and swing their arms, run and laugh.
We all get to customize our interest to the person we’re loving, married or unmarried, male or female. In a few years I think we’ll see a more visible epidemic of men getting surgical procedures for that “ideal” look, too.
September 5th, 2011 at 7:37 am
So true – I tend to think about what’s being perceived of me and less about how I’m perceiving the men around me…good to see both sides!
September 5th, 2011 at 8:23 am
Realizing the flip side is an empowering step. Just as we were wounded in community about OUR bodies, we’ve also (probably) been part of other’s wounding in our community.
September 1st, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Sounds great! I need to go read that. You’re spot on to encourage everyone to create their own list of beautiful traits that were initially met with alarm – so often accompanied by taunting or criticism of others. How are we so fragile to bend at another’s whim?
September 5th, 2011 at 8:18 am
An idea of where the fragility comes from.
When I meet someone who crumbles in the face of criticism I think I can assume (despite Josh’s thoughts that it’s hasty
) they are not confident in their abilities. I speak from what I see in my soul. For instance, I can handle criticism about my art work SO much better than criticism about my views on having one child. The reason? I’m much more certain I’m a talented artist than I’m correct about Finn being our one and only.
So this makes me realize the spots of weak confidence need all the more guarding, and slow building up with the encouragement of people who get what I need/want, people who are my balcony sitters, who cheer me on because of true understanding and love. Appearance is, for many of us, a place of weak confidence.
October 4th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Because the words of the Liar are always accompanied with a ring of truth.
Because the differences have not been pulled out with dignity by those we respect.
Because the seed of fear lives in our souls until the Gardner comes and weeds it out.
Because we don’t believe the quiet waters of peace about who we are and how we look are ours for the drinking.
September 29th, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Thanks for your great post! I love the idea of remembering family members through the features we share. I get annoying little tension headaches, which is something my mom, sister and I inherited from my late grandmother (if that’s possible!). Lately instead of being frustrated by these headaches, I’ve been able to bear them better knowing it’s something that I have in common with my grandmother, who I sometimes worry I’m forgetting.
October 7th, 2011 at 9:25 am
Andrea,
This is a beautiful perspective for everyone to read. Very redemptive, deeper than normal living. Love it.