Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Me Talk Pretty One Day, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Insecurity
Humor, Commentary, and Observation
Class and Belonging
Family, Love, and Support
Summary
Analysis
Lou Sedaris has a special place in his heart for his daughter Amy. This is because Amy is his most attractive daughter. He often talks about how Amy will “shine like a diamond” in front of a camera, which is why he’s especially happy when a magazine decides to include her in a photographic feature of “interesting New York women.” With this on his mind, he calls Sedaris to make sure Amy is taking the opportunity seriously, wanting her to benefit as much as possible from the feature. This causes Sedaris to reflect on his father’s old-fashioned approach to physical attractiveness. Lou believes Amy’s beauty is her “greatest asset,” so he keeps close tabs on her looks. In fact, he pays close attention to all of his daughters in this regard, always quick to point out when they’ve gained weight.
Once again, it becomes clear that, although Lou Sedaris cares fiercely about his children, he often tries to support them in misguided ways. To that end, he subjects Amy and his other daughters to his outdated belief that physical beauty is a woman’s “greatest asset,” a viewpoint that reduces women to their looks. When he calls Sedaris to make sure that Amy is taking her upcoming photoshoot seriously, he demonstrates his characteristic overbearing nature while also showing that he wants the best for his daughter. Simply put, his interest in his children’s lives isn’t always helpful, but it does prove his desire to do what he can to support them.
Themes
When Sedaris and Amy visit Lou for Christmas one year, Amy wears the bottom half of a “fatty suit.” Thinking his daughter has gained an incredible amount of weight, Lou is beside himself. When Amy goes to the bathroom, he laments to Sedaris, asking what happened to her and saying that she’s “killing him.” Sedaris goes along with Amy’s joke, telling his father not to say anything. Plus, he adds, he’s heard that many men like women with such large rear-ends. Eyeing his son with extreme disappointment, Lou says, “Man, what you don’t know could fill a book.” For the rest of Amy’s stay, Lou makes frequent comments about her eating habits, suggesting that she must be eating too much because she’s bored. He even offers to pay her to seek “professional help,” adding that he’ll pay her for every pound she loses.
Amy is well aware of Lou’s obsession with physical beauty. Because she herself doesn’t seem to care much about such things, she decides to poke fun of her father’s overbearing preoccupation with her looks. In doing so, she draws attention to his inability to see beyond her looks, revealing just how superficial his ideas about beauty truly are. Although he only wants to support his daughters, he does so in a way that puts unnecessary pressure on them to conform to outmoded ideas about body image and self-worth.
Themes
The morning that Amy and Sedaris are scheduled to leave their father’s house, Amy takes off the fat suit. Her father is extraordinarily relieved, admitting that she fooled him. In the coming months, he continues to talk about the fat suit, saying that, though Amy tricked him, he always thought she was still beautiful—even with the fat suit on. This, he says, is because she’s beautiful “both inside and out.” However, this mentality recedes when he starts obsessing over her magazine appearance, calling Sedaris time and again to ensure everything goes well.
Lou Sedaris is able to celebrate Amy’s inner beauty only after learning that she hasn’t gained any weight. Although he says that he was capable of seeing through her physical appearance when she was wearing the fat suit, it’s clear that this is not the case, based on the fact that he couldn’t stop talking about her weight, saying that she was “killing” him. This, in turn, proves that the support he shows his children isn’t quite as unconditional as he’d like to think.
Themes
When Lou calls to ask how the photoshoot went, Sedaris pretends not to know. In reality, he knows that Amy didn’t wash her hair before the shoot. While waiting to be called by the makeup artist, she complimented the other women who were going to be featured, praising their beautiful outfits. When it was her turn to see the makeup artist, she said she wanted to look like somebody had “beaten the shit out of” her. The makeup artist obliged, drawing huge black eyes and other wounds on her face. Amy loved this look. After the photoshoot, she walked through the streets, and whenever somebody asked what happened, she smiled and said, “I’m in love. Can you believe it? I’m finally, totally in love, and I feel great.”
Once again, Amy demonstrates how little she cares about beauty. Instead of trying to look pretty in the way her father wants her to, she would prefer to turn the photoshoot into an opportunity to exercise her sense of humor. In this way, she prioritizes being herself over satisfying her father’s overbearing hopes or expectations.
Themes
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