Why You Need Me

 

photo by Joe Wien

 I woke up this morning thinking about going back to film acting, because it's really a special medium.  

Every time I auditioned for film, tv, or commercials (some of which I did book, BTW) I usually wasn't "enough" of something in particular.  I was fine, and I had good relationships, but there were always people who read as a character the minute they walked into the room, and not as an actress. I was definitely an actress. ( I used to call myself an actor, because that was how I saw myself - I told my friend one time, "you don't call a female doctor a doctress". How delightfully heartbreaking and naïve I was. ) 

WELL, now I've got a LOOK. It is distinct, it is fierce, and I think it could give me an edge.

I started thinking of the roles I could play on film; sick person ( lol, OF COURSE ), Alien Queen, terrifying biker lady, criminal, they could lay prosthetics on me right now...I thought, "...but you need to take a picture in a wig, so they can picture you in other roles..."   

I think back to the last play I did, "Stupid Fucking Bird" by Aaron Posner at The Theatre That Shall Not Be Named.  They didn't have a wig for me and I ended up using my own, (back when I was newly bald and thought wearing a wig might be a thing I was gonna do.) but I was STRUCK this morning by how powerful it would have been to have Emma appear without her wig in the kitchen scene with Trig. It would have been AMAZING, shocking and wonderfully powerful. It would have deepened those characters in innumerable ways. I wish I would have fought harder for that, I wish we hadn't had an icky, misogynist director who wasn't mortified, and I was only like a week totally bald when we opened, so I was just...Well, I would insist on playing that scene bald now. 

Then it hit me. HARD.

It is not my job to teach "Them" what roles I can play as a bald woman, it's their job to SHOW ME what roles I can't play as a bald woman. Because I'm out here playing all the roles. I'm a romantic lead, I'm a sweet mother, I'm a funny neighbor, I'm your typical shopper and/or product user, AND I'm a great actor (I'm taking that back, it's decided). I'll break your fucking heart, babies. 💔

Then I was led to thinking about my new creative venture, The Broads, LLC and the stress I've felt about teaching people why they want and need us. 

I've come to this conclusion:

The Industry needs us more than we need them. The Industry pays Johnny Depp 16 million dollars to NOT appear in a movie, surely they could pay us 2 or 3 for actual work? The Industry has nurtured and celebrated the likes of Shia LaBeouf, Harvey Weinstein, and gross Woody Allen, not to mention the unnamed crime procedural director who groped me in an elevator (with the ACTUAL QUOTE, "Don't you know how this works?"). The Industry's showrunners are 91% male...

I MEAN. Need I say more? 

The Industry needs us.  They need a couple of moms with solid energy. It's not my job to teach them why, it their job to show us why not, because y'all struggling with an optics and an ethics problem.  ALSO, a lot of these shows are trash. I mean, real lowest common denominator stuff. The Industry needs us. 

ANYWAY, back to myself.  The public needs to see me, bald and beautiful and romantic and vulnerable and buying toilet paper or dish soap because no one really knows how many people have Alopecia in this country because they feel like they have to hide. Because it is easier to hide. Because when I see parents of bald children, most of them are still looking to "fix" it, implying to their kids that they need  fixing. There are definitely beautiful bald women influencers out there and I applaud them for showing up as teachers and inspirations out in these streets, because heaven knows the people need it.  Women and girls need to see it, in particular, but so do the men who feel ashamed of losing their hair, and the men and ladies who rely on a patriarchal, racist beauty standard to order their world? You all REALLY need to see it.

SO. I guess I need an agent. 

💥NG💥