No, we don’t really get Saturday Night Live where I live in Malaysia — it’s something that we need to actively seek out in YouTube. This is not where I know Amy Poehler’s from the best, even though I’m aware that she’s one of the show’s regulars. I remember her as the annoying Olympian ice-skating evil stepsister in Blades of Glory opposite her SNL co-stars Will Ferrell and Jon Heder.
In the movie she played the role of the villain to a tee, but I couldn’t help thinking it’s because of her natural facial demeanor, with a devilish smile that appears more as a tortured grimace or an enjoyment of deliberate evil. In the cover she looks fine, with that same smile but assertive. It is a good representation of the book, which I didn’t expect much from but I like more than I can give it credit for. Poehler is a badass without really trying, and I think that’s the right definition of badassery.
Poehler is a woman whose autobiography you can read and compare the list of achievements she’s had in her career in entertainment. You notice that she doesn’t really brag about her list of achievements — she is more proud of her grassroots achievements in the Upright Citizens Brigade: a comedy society which supports up and coming comedians, from all levels and fame, something that she still regularly attends and loves, than of the list of things she had done in front of the camera. Her list of credit in iMDB is absurdly long, but she has not space to list down everything in her book.
The achievements she listed down in terms of her career in the book are only a handful and only a couple come to my mind from the book : SNL and Parks and Recreation. Reading this book makes me want to binge watch Parks and Recreation, which is sadly unavailable in Netflix at the moment. Her long career in SNL, with her stellar costars take up a few pages of the book, including a chapter where she unknowingly took a joke too far without knowing, and how she redeemed herself.
Yes Please isn’t the book that I expected from a middle-class, blonde, white American stand up comedian. If I list down these characteristics for you (and me for that matter), I would assume a work that’s tainted with ego, self-indulgence and perhaps an excess of obnoxiousness. Instead, it is a work laden with humility and grace — Poehler was more ready to self-deprecate and praise the people around her immediate reach. Knowing that she wrote this during the time of her divorce while not having a bad word to say to her now ex-husband shows great character.
Ultimately, it is an assertion of being a woman in a largely male-dominated industry. It is the assertion that being an industry where being pretty is taken for granted, your personality can still beat the pretty faces:
“But I was eventually okay. And you will be okay too. Here’s why. I had already made the decision early on that I would be a plain girl with tons of personality, and accepting it made everything a lot easier. If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life where you decide what your currency is going to be. I decided early on that it wasn’t going to be my looks… Decide what your currency is early. Let go of what you will never have. People who do this are happier and sexier.”
If that wasn’t a reincarnation of Marcus Aurelius from the voice of a blonde, white American woman I don’t know what is. Or when she refused to jump in an audition when they asked her what her most embarrassing moment was:
Quick note here: everybody wants you to share YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT all the time, and I am here to tell you that you don’t have to. You don’t have to tell it or tweet it or Instagram it.You don’t have to put it in a book and share it with anyone who doesn’t feel safe and protective of your heart.
Makes fucking sense, doesn’t it?
Amy Poehler does not shy away that women are victims of sexual discrimination from those who are rich, wealthy, fat and wields the power to make or break your career, even before we know Epstein has an island where he can indulge in Tiberius-type of shenanigans. She admitted her vulnerability of allowing an embrace to someone undeserved with malicious intentions, and it makes your fucking blood boil. She allows a space in the book to take a breather from all the shit:
But to list Poehler’s career achievement without mentioning her personal achievements is missing the entire point here. Poehler is more proud of being a daughter, and a mother, and to overcome the tribulations of being in a family, of running a family. She is more proud of starting small, waitressing in various restaurants all around America while still trying to break it into comedy. And when she does, we barely notice.
Yes Please is a surprise. It is a book filled with variety: vignettes, photographs, fake book summaries, empty pages, an entire chapter by somebody else, footnotes by somebody else and a whole lot of other shit. But it is refreshing, and Amy Poehler is one funny woman. Her thoughts run a mile and minute, but you’ll be fine keeping up with her. It is also in many ways, a vulnerable book and therefore a book which may help. And for a comedian who wears her heart on her sleeve, we can only respond with the apt title of the book.
