Peeing In Jar With Boys Analysis

In the chapter Peeing in Jars with Boys (page 124) she discovers the male tradition of peeing in jars and leaving them strewn around the writer’s offices at SNL. She uses this example as a way to marginalize the difference between women and men comedy writers and comics. At one point, she questions if this was a test by the urinators; if you see the jar and ignore it, you are accepted. She dispels this theory saying “…they didn’t really give a fuck whether you came in the room or not” (Fey, 125) and that not all the men peed in jars; just a handful did. She then uses the peeing in jars theory as an argument for women in comedy. Fighting back the critics that say female stand-ups are not funny, “… I can state: Male comedy writers piss in cups” …show more content…
She talks about her being caught between a rock and a hard place: have another baby and give up her dream job, or be happy with the kid she has and keep working? She goes on to list all the movies that she could write and star in asks, “Do I even have the right to deprive moviegoers of those experiences?” (Fey, 244). She also debates underlying issues like, “Work won’t visit me when I’m old. Who will be my (oldest) daughter’s family when my husband and I are dead from stress-induced cankers?” (Fey, 245). She writes that there are women in comedy that are disregarded after a certain age. She comes to the conclusion that, “…“crazy” in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore” (Fey, 246). This is the chapter in the book, in my opinion, where Fey goes all out. She targets the males in the industry who assess women based on their looks. In an office in LA somewhere, there are a group of men who sit around a table and, “…say things like, “I don’t know. I don’t want to fuck anybody on this show.”” (Fey, 246). She then writes to those who have had the same thoughts about her, “… I hope that you would at least have the intelligence and self-awareness to know that the feeling is extremely mutual” (Fey, 246) She introduces a solution to the crazy women in comedy: to hire more women writers and producers. She tells her reader that she knows that she has the opportunity to create more jobs for women in the industry and provide them with the tools that they would need to succeed. Which is also why she feels the needs to stay in the business. Even though, in today’s times, she did have the second baby, this personal debate where she had to choose between her career or her family is still a real