Elastic Heart

I didn’t

hear ya’ll

complaining

then,

so why 

R.I.P. Kenny Baker (1934 - 2016)

Some troubling shit always occurs.

It works like this: I bring in my giant file of head shots, which include actors of all races, sizes, shapes, ages, and experience levels. Each student picks a head shot from the stack and gets a few minutes to sit with the person’s face and then make up a little story about them. 

Namely, for white men, they have no trouble coming up with an entire history, job, role, genre, time, place, and costume. They will often identify him without prompting as “the main character.” The only exception? “He would play the gay guy.” For white women, they mostly do not come up with a job (even though it was specifically asked for), and they will identify her by her relationships. “She would play the mom/wife/love interest/best friend.” I’ve heard “She would play the slut” or “She would play the hot girl.” A lot more than once.

For nonwhite men, it can be equally depressing. “He’s in a buddy cop movie, but he’s not the main guy, he’s the partner.” “He’d play a terrorist.” “He’d play a drug dealer.” “A thug.” “A hustler.” “Homeless guy.” One Asian actor was promoted to “villain.”

For nonwhite women (grab onto something sturdy, like a big glass of strong liquor), sometimes they are “lucky” enough to be classified as the girlfriend/love interest/mom, but I have also heard things like “Well, she’d be in a romantic comedy, but as the friend, you know?” “Maid.” “Prostitute.” “Drug addict.”

I should point out that the responses are similar whether the group is all or mostly-white or extremely racially mixed, and all the groups I’ve tried this with have been about equally balanced between men and women, though individual responses vary. Women do a little better with women, and people of color do a little better with people of color, but female students sometimes forget to come up with a job for female actors and black male students sometimes tell the class that their black male actor wouldn’t be the main guy.

Once the students have made their pitches, we interrogate their opinions. “You seem really sure that he’s not the main character – why? What made you automatically say that?” “You said she was a mom. Was she born a mom, or did she maybe do something else with her life before her magic womb opened up and gave her an identity? Who is she as a person?” In the case of the “thug“, it turns out that the student was just reading off his film resume. This brilliant African American actor who regularly brings houses down doing Shakespeare on the stage and more than once made me weep at the beauty and subtlety of his performances, had a list of film credits that just said “Thug #4.” “Gang member.” “Muscle.” Because that’s the film work he can get. Because it puts food on his table.

The hall of mirrors that is the interplay between fiction and real life becomes a negative feedback loop with real consequences, because we internalize things and then we act them out.

It is so well known that women are better and safer drivers than men that OUR CAR INSURANCE RATES ARE LOWER. Women get into fewer accidents, get fewer DUIs, and receive fewer speeding tickets than men.

“women never shut up”

Several scientific studies have shown that not only do men talk more than women, they also think that women have been talking for much longer than they actually have. Men interrupt and talk over women, dominate conversations, and still think women talk too much.

“women are shallow”

Lol next

“my wife is my ball and chain lmao”

Multiple studies have shown that marriage between men and women: Increases male lifespan, decreases female lifespan Decreases male depression rates, increases female depression rates Decreases male stress levels, increases female stress levels Increases male health and happiness, decreases female health and happiness Increases a man’s chance of getting a raise or promotion, decreases a woman’s chances of getting a raise or promotion

“women are too emotional”

Men love to say this about women after hurting them, in order to shift the blame and dismiss their feelings in one go. In reality, women are taught to hold our tongues and control ourselves quite literally from birth. We’re taught to put men’s needs and wants ahead of our own emotions regardless of the personal cost. Men are taught to do more or less whatever the fuck they want to women. Men take their emotions out on women while women are expected to shove theirs down.

from “No Means Force” at Dave Hingsburger’s blog.

This is important. It doesn’t just apply to little girls and other children, though it often begins there.

For the marginalized, our “no’s” are discounted as frivolous protests, rebelliousness, or anger issues, or we don’t know what we’re talking about, or we don’t understand what’s happening.

When “no means force” we become afraid to say no.