00:02
Ode to Shrill
00:04
Ode to being able to see myself in a TV show, finally.
00:10
In one scene, with the personal trainer grabbing Annie’s wrist,
00:14
I’m reminded of the time I’ve also been fed a line similar to,
00:18
“There’s a skinny person in there waiting to get out!”
00:21
What I was told was, “There’s a person in there who wants to start living!”
00:28
No, there’s a person right the fuck here,
00:30
and I am living!
00:33
It’s worth noting that the same person who told me this
00:37
later heard about my story of date rape
00:39
and implied that rape didn’t happen to big girls.
00:43
And tell me, what does someone that heartless know about living?
00:48
We curvy women are living,
00:51
but we are tired of living in a world that ostracizes us.
00:55
Let me tell you how much I’m living.
00:58
I’m living to the fullest every time I chase my daughter at the park,
01:01
because my body can have fun, yes it can.
01:05
And, as my daughter hugs me and says I feel like a pillow,
01:09
I’m living.
01:10
Every plushy microfiber particle of me is living.
01:15
I’m living in my art, pouring passion out on pages.
01:19
I’m fat, but I’m sure as hell living.
01:24
There’s also a moving scene in Shrill
01:26
in which my pretty fucking face flat out ugly cried.
01:29
It was the fat babe pool party,
01:32
with all the body-positive women dancing in their swimsuits,
01:37
in their curves and their belly rolls and their breasts and their fat.
01:41
Their beautiful fat was glowing,
01:43
and they were happy and they were connected as women.
01:46
And I cried because I want that.
01:48
I want that for me. I want that for my daughter.
01:51
I want to live in a world where all women are accepted for who we are
01:56
and a world where women are more loving of each other.
01:59
And that scene, that scene was everything.
02:04
I’m sure most viewers just saw an ordinary millennial movie party,
02:08
but for us, all the fat babes out there watching,
02:11
we saw an in-motion painting that stirred hope.
02:15
We finally saw ourselves.
02:18
We saw representation.
02:21
We saw something that had never been painted that way before.
02:26
We need more shows, more films, more writing,
02:29
more poems, more art about this.
02:32
Thank you, Shrill. Thank you, Lindy West.
02:34
Thank you Aidy Bryant.
02:36
I’ll end this with a quote from the Lindy West article
02:39
that started it all.
02:41
“I reject the notion that thinness is the goal,
02:45
that thin equals better,
02:48
that I am an unfinished thing
02:50
and that my life can really start when I lose weight,
02:55
that then I will be a real person
02:58
and have finally succeeded as a woman.
03:01
I am not going to waste another second of my life.”
03:06
(cheers and applause)
◊♦◊
Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
◊♦◊
Talk to you soon.
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