Bossypants (16 page)

Can I try the Roger Vivier?” By the fifth one they’d sigh, “Do they not have the vegetable tartlets?

Bummer!” in a passive-aggressive tone that means “Somebody go get them.”) You may sink into a slight depression over the next thirty-six hours. You may wonder why your loved ones don’t call out, “Amazing, gorgeous, right to me!” as you scramble their eggs.

But just be patient, for in a few weeks, the magazine will be out and you will have incontrovertible proof that you are a young Catherine Deneuve. You casually check the newsstand on your way to buy Bengay heating pads. One day, there it is! Right between Jessica Simpson and those people from
The Bachelor
who murdered each other—it’s your face! It
is
your face, right? You can barely recognize yourself with the amount of digital correction. They’ve taken out your knuckles and given you baby hands. The muscular calves that you’re generally very proud of are slimmed to the bone. And what’s with the eyes? 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. You looked forward to them taking out your chicken pox scars and broken blood vessels, 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.

A lot of women are outraged by the use of Photoshop in magazine photos. I say a lot of women because I have yet to meet one man who could give a fat turd about the topic. Not even a gay man.

I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion. It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society… unless
I
need it, in which case, everybody be cool.

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.

Do I worry about overly retouched photos giving women unrealistic expectations and body image issues? I do. I think that we will soon see a rise in anorexia in women over seventy.
Because only
people over seventy are fooled by Photoshop
. Only your great-aunt forwards you an image of Sarah Palin holding a rifle and wearing an American-flag bikini and thinks it’s real. Only your uncle Vic sends a photo of Barack Obama wearing a hammer and sickle T-shirt and has to have it explained to him that somebody faked that with the computer.

People have learned how to spot it. Just like how everyone learned to spot fake boobs—look for the upper-arm meat. If there’s no upper-arm meat, the breasts are fake. Unlike breast implants, which can mess up your health, digital retouching is relatively harmless. As long as we all know it’s fake, it’s no more dangerous to society than a radio broadcast of
The War of the Worlds
.

Photoshop is just like makeup. When it’s done well it looks great, and when it’s overdone you look like a crazy asshole. Unfortunately, most people don’t do it well. I find, the fancier the fashion magazine is, the worse the Photoshop. It’s as if they are already so disgusted that a human has to be in the clothes, they can’t stop erasing human features.

“Why can’t we accept the human form as it is?” screams no one. I don’t know why, but we never have. That’s why people wore corsets and neck stretchers and powdered wigs.

If you’re going to expend energy being mad about Photoshop, you’ll also have to be mad about earrings. No one’s ears are that sparkly! They shouldn’t have to be! You’ll have to get mad about oil paintings—those people didn’t really look like that! I for one am furious that people are allowed to turn sideways in photographs! Why can’t we accept a woman’s full width?! I won’t rest until people are only allowed to be photographed facing front under a fluorescent light.

It should absolutely be mandatory for magazines to credit the person who performed the Photoshop work, just like they do the makeup artist and the stylist… in very tiny white print on white paper.

Some people say it’s a feminist issue. I agree, because the best Photoshop job I ever got was for a feminist magazine called
Bust
in 2004.

It was a low-budget shoot in the back of their downtown office. There was no free coffee bar or wind machine, just a bunch of intelligent women with a sense of humor.

I looked at the two paltry lights they had set up and turned to the editors. “We’re all feminists here, but you’re gonna use Photoshop, right?” “Oh, yeah,” they replied instantly. Feminists do the best Photoshop because they leave the meat on your bones. They don’t change your size or your skin color.

They leave in your disgusting knuckles, but they may take out some armpit stubble. Not because they’re denying its existence, but because they understand that it’s okay to make a photo look as if you were caught on your best day in the best light.

In an act of amazing bravery, I will let you see this photo of me with Photoshop and without.

There are seven differences. See if you can spot them.*

Photoshop itself is not evil. Just like Italian salad dressing is not inherently evil, until you rub it all over a desperate young actress and stick her on the cover of
Maxim,
pretending to pull her panties down. (That “thumbs in the panties” move is the worst. Really? It’s not enough that they got greased up and in their panties for you,
Maxim
?)

Give it up. 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!

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. Isn’t it better to have a computer do it to your picture than to have a doctor do it to your face?

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.) I can’t be expected to lead the charge on everything. Let me have my Photoshop.

For today is about dreams!

Dear Internet

One of my greatest regrets, other than being the Zodiac Killer never learning to tango, is that I don’t always have time to answer the wonderful correspondence I receive. When people care enough to write, the only well-mannered thing to do is to return the gift, so please indulge me as I answer some fans here.

From tmz.com

Posted by Sonya in Tx on 4/7/2010, 4:33 P.M.

“When is Tina going to do something about that hideous scar across her cheek??”

Dear Sonya in Tx,

Greetings, Texan friend! (I’m assuming the “Tx” in your screen name stands for Texas and not some rare chromosomal deficiency you have. Hope I’m right about that!) First of all, my apologies for the delayed response. I was unaware you had written until I went on tmz.com to watch some of their amazing footage of people in L.A. leaving restaurants and I stumbled upon your question.

I’m sure if you and I compare schedules we could find a time to get together and do something about this scar of mine. But the trickier question is
What
am I going to do? I would love to get your advice, actually. I’m assuming you’re a physician, because you seem really knowledgeable about how the human body works. What do
you
think I should do about this hideous scar? I guess I could wear a bag on my head, but do I go with linen like the Elephant Man or a simple brown paper like the Unknown Comic? Too many choices, help!

Thank you for your time. You are a credit to Texas and Viking women both.

Yours,

Tina

P.S. Great use of double question marks, by the way. It makes you seem young.

From Dlisted.com

Posted by Centaurious on Monday, 9/21/2009, 2:08 A.M.

“Tina Fey is an ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll.”

Dear Centaurious,

First let me say how inspiring it is that you have learned to use a computer.

I hate for our correspondence to be confrontational, but you have offended me deeply. To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair. I’ll leave it for others to say if I’m the best, but I am certainly one of the most dedicated trolls guarding bridges today. I always ask three questions, at least two of which are riddles.

As for “ugly, pear-shaped, and bitchy”? I prefer the terms “offbeat, business class–assed, and exhausted,” but I’ll take what I can get. There’s no such thing as bad press!

Now go to bed, you crazy night owl! You have to be at NASA early in the morning. So they can look for your penis with the Hubble telescope.

Affectionately,

Tina

From PerezHilton.com

Posted by jerkstore on Wednesday, 1/21/2009, 11:21 P.M.

“In my opinion Tina Fey completely ruined SNL. The only reason she’s celebrated is because
she’s a woman and an outspoken liberal. She has not a single funny bone in her body.”

Dear jerkstore,

Huzzah for the Truth Teller! Women in this country have been over-celebrated for too long. Just last night there was a story on my local news about a “missing girl,” and they must have dedicated seven or eight minutes to “where she was last seen” and “how she might have been abducted by a close family friend,” and I thought, “What is this, the News for Chicks?” Then there was some story about Hillary Clinton flying to some country because she’s secretary of state. Why do we keep talking about these dumdums? We are a society that constantly celebrates no one but women and it must stop! I want to hear what the men of the world have been up to. What fun new guns have they invented? What are they raping these days? What’s Michael Bay’s next film going to be?

When I first set out to ruin
SNL,
I didn’t think anyone would notice, but I persevered because—like you trying to do a nine-piece jigsaw puzzle—it was a labor of love.

I’m not one to toot my own horn, but I feel safe with you, jerkstore, so I’ll say it. Everything you ever hated on
SNL
was by me, and anything you ever liked was by someone else who did it against my will.

Sincerely,

Tina Fey

P.S. You know who does have a funny bone in her body? Your mom every night for a dollar.

From a bodybuilding forum

Posted by SmarterChild, on 2/24/2008, 2:10 P.M.

“I’d stick it in her tail pipe.”

Dear SmarterChild,

Thank you so much for your interest. Whether you meant it in a sexual way or merely as an act of aggression, I am grateful. As a “woman of a certain age” in this business, I feel incredibly lucky to still be “catching your eye” “with my anus.” You keep me relevant!

Sincerely,

Ms. T. Fey

From tmz.com

Posted by Kevin 214 on 11/9/08, 11:38 A.M.

“Tina Fey CHEATED!!!!!! Anyone who has ever seen an old picture of her can see she has had
100% plastic surgery. Her whole face is different. She was ugly then and she is ugly now. She only
wished she could ever be as beautiful as Sarah Palin.”

Dear Kevin 214,

What can I say? You have an amazing eye. I guess I got caught up in the whole Hollywood thing. I thought I could change a hundred percent of my facial features and as long as I stayed ugly, no one would notice. How foolish I was.

So let’s wipe the slate clean. Full disclosure, here is a list of the procedures I’ve had done. Eye browning, nose lengthening, I get my teeth lightly henna-ed each month to give them their amber luster. I’ve had my lips thinned, and I’ve had a treatment called Grimmáge where two fishing wires are run through my jawline and used to gather the skin until it looks like a fancy pillow.

I’ve had sebaceous implants (small balls of Restylane placed in random locations to give the appearance of youthful neck acne).