One night a few weeks ago at the bar I work at, I got hit on by a guy named Jake. This happens a fair amount, and I’m pretty sure they’re all aspiring screenwriters named Jake. I don’t have a uniform, and when I’m standing by the bar waiting to carry drinks to customers, I look like a girl who is alone in a bar. Cue drunk dudes assuming I do not value my solitude or personal space.

Jake approaches me. I scream over the music that I am working and do not want him to buy me a drink. He asks what I do when I’m not working. I scream that I’m an actress and a writer, and, being in LA and having exactly zero shame, whip out my business card and hand it over. While examining my business card, he adjusts his dark-rimmed glasses and says he’s a screenwriter too. NYU class of 2012, in case I was wondering, which I was not.

He says, “I bet working at a bar you get a lot of material for writing.” I scream that I do in fact. He then, confidently and shamelessly, proclaims that he’s not going to get anywhere in writing or directing as a white dude, and that I, as a woman, am a “novelty,” and should “use that to my advantage.” He then said it would be better if I were black.

I was proud of myself for having the presence of mind to respond something like, “Actually in the short span of my film career, I’ve been lucky to have mostly great experiences, but when I’ve served in leadership positions I’ve received a fair amount of condescension from people who have no right to condescend to me. Also it would not be better if I were black; I assure you.”

I used a hand gesture to describe that being a woman in film feels like ~hands pressing on my face~

He didn’t get it.

He muttered something like, “Woah, that sucks, but you know,” and then said his Uber was there and he promptly exited.

There are many, many Jakes in the world. They usually don’t bother me. This particular Jake, however, did.

I thought about him for the rest of the night and later, while I lay in bed, feet throbbing from a night of running vodka sodas to young Hollywood. I thought about him the next day as I tweeted about him, hoping the momentary release of sharing a small trauma on social media would make me forget.

It didn’t.

I realized that the reason I’m still thinking about Jake is that while I did speak my truth, and felt good about that and my little hand gesture, I did it because I was trying to prove something to him. I needed to somehow give him concrete facts about why I was oppressed in the film industry, and that saying, “It would be better if you were black” was layers on layers of fracked up.

What I wanted to say, but couldn’t, because both the music and my anxiety were too loud, was this.

Oppression is not logical or legible. Externalized, it looks like women and minorities (and intersections thereof) not being in as many leadership positions in the film industry, thus inspiring all of these conversations around inclusivity (#oscarssowhite, The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, etc). Problem solved!

Internalized, it’s a warm, familiar, suffocating blanket that cannot be differentiated from your brain itself. It is not a system within your brain. It IS your brain.

Your brain was created in part by this interplay of trying to make sense of a world which values your reality less than other people’s. It feels like, in situations where your particular identity is not often found, walking into a party where you don’t know anyone. Should I get a drink? I don’t know the host very well. I don’t want to seem like I’m being greedy, but I should have something in my hand. God I wish I were drunk. I guess I’ll just hang in the bathroom for a while until I can find a nice dog. Is everyone staring at me or am I just being paranoid? Wow these people seem really nice, but I feel very suspicious and afraid of them for some reason. God I’m such an idiot. This is all in my head. BE COOL, NATALIE. JUST BE COOL FOR ONCE.

Humans desire survival. They strive for security. They do not strive for joy. That’s why I apologize every time I speak, even though I can actively feel those apologies stacking a weight on my shoulders.

I also didn’t say that the condescension was pretty easily dismissed, or that the director I’m co-writing a film with is a 45-year-old man who has been absolutely nothing but supportive and encouraging with me. I didn’t say that I would not trade my femaleness, despite the danger, objectification, and lack of representation for anything in the entire universe, but that it’s still hard to be a woman every single day.

My femaleness, though I struggle with how well I perform femininity, is one of my greatest joys. It’s an inextricable part of what makes me an artist, and an inextricable part of what makes me despair. I don’t feel that it’s a novelty, per se, but I think it’s a juicy, interesting thing about me. Hopefully people will give me opportunities because they like me and my work, both of which are female. So will they only give me opportunities because of my femaleness? Will I care if I’m getting paid?

The hours I’ve spent thinking about all of that ^^ have been innumerable. How many hours could I have spent writing or relaxing when this was running through my head? What was Jake doing while I was worrying about all of this?

There are many contradictions. There is joy and sorrow at the same time. I understand Jake’s frustration, but what is MORE frustrating is that I will never ever be able to articulate all of this to him in a way that he will ever understand. I attempted to give him facts about something that is based on a lie. I was speaking his language about something without words in it.

Oppression is a phantom. Oppression is a metaphysical force with tangible consequences and effects, but also with intangible consequences and effects. Oppressed people have to contend with this faceless, slippery thing every day and somehow try and convince other people of its existence and harmfulness. Believing in someone’s oppression, in her experience, requires a leap of faith, not logical reasoning.

Most of the people I know who worship logical reasoning are white men. Logic and reasoning are necessary for our collective existence. But it is not lost on me that the people in my life who tell me to “be logical and reasonable about x, y, z” are people whose lives seemed to have been governed by these rules. My life has largely not been (and I’m a straight white cis lady!).

In my gender studies classes in college, we were always searching for the source of oppression. We were searching for the source of gender. We were searching for sources that could never be found. It was head spinning and off-putting. There is one text I come back to over and over, as a balm. This is Judith Butler from her essay, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.”

“Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself.”

This quote has served me as a mantra and prayer. When I repeat it to myself, I remember that there is no concrete source for the illogical, supernatural, metaphysical, cosmic, outside-of-reason, manipulative, horrifying force that is gendered oppression. There is only performance and justification. Anything can be justified if you need it enough; anything can be explained away.

So what Jake sees is a person who should just game the system, which seems to him to be swinging my way in the cultural discourse around the arts. From his perspective, the logical and reasonable thing to do would be for me to use my gender (which for some unknown reason has been oppressed and is now being celebrated-ish) to get ahead. He thinks that this will, in turn, keep straight white men out of the film industry. He sees his own destruction.

What I see that Jake fails to see or be curious about seeing, is that I have to contend with my insecurities as an artist in addition to my insecurities about this nebulous game that I don’t know the rules to. I see polo shirts and jeans and direct, masculine hand gestures during discussions about how Quentin Tarantino is the greatest of all time. I smell Old Spice. I see dudes looking at me expectantly, hoping that I’ll be brilliant, and then feeling blank and very aware of my breasts, anxiety churning my stomach. I read my scripts back to myself and think 1) it is shitty in general 2) my priorities are all wrong 3) plot is too feminine 3) female whininess 4) I have no place here. I cannot be invisible, even to myself. Everyone sees my femaleness, and so do I. It’s exhausting.

Can I logically talk myself out of all of those points? Yes. Does it work? No. Will I ever know if any of that is true or if it’s just me questioning myself because I’m a woman? Do all women feel like this or is it just because I’ve experienced abuse because I’m a woman?

In a perfect world, Jake would be right. I’d be able to use my “novel” identity to take advantage of all the outreach programs and diversity pushes happening right now. But we do not live a perfect world, dear Jake. We live in a world where the exchange of internal and external oppression creates a very strange, grey, shitty, and at times joyful and euphoric and defiant experience for those caught in its crosshairs. It’s different for everyone, and we are all trying our best, including you.

What would help though is for the Jakes of the world to put the logic and reasoning they so desperately cling to, away for a moment. Save them for later, for they are still necessary, and to listen to what we are saying. To watch the strange hand gestures we make in the dark in West Hollywood bars, and then say, “Tell me more.”

 

 

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Natalie Houchins is a graduate of Northwestern University, with
degrees in Theatre and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is a writer and
actress based out of LA, who is perennially homesick for Austin, TX.
She currently spends her free time hiking, watching Battlestar
Galactica and resisting the Trump administration. For more information, visit her website: www.nataliehouchins.com.

 

A common narrative about artists is that they have it really hard. They’ve chosen a career without upward mobility, much money, or social clout, unless they somehow break into the stratosphere. There are scores of stories about artists who had to fight for their right to pursue their art as a career. Parents and friends and teachers and societies that collectively told these people: no, you are not allowed to do this. You have to put on a suit and go to a job and be a normal person. You will never make money, you aren’t good enough, you’re too fat, you’re a woman, you’re gay if you do that, you “should” be doing…fill in the blank.

We hear stories about people who had to go their own way and forge a path that diverged from their upbringing. We collectively understand that being an artist is hard work, and that the “struggle” is somehow a part of that.

I read the Patti Smith memoir, Just Kids, in 2013. In it, she details her entrance into poetry, visual art, and music. It is filled with strife, an unsupportive family, an unplanned pregnancy and subsequent adoption, poverty, hunger, drugs, and sex. It’s a stunning book, full of insight and wisdom. As an artist, I deeply connected with her story of discovering the creative impulse, though I didn’t relate to the narrative of her life.

I read the book while attending a summer program in England, where I studied Shakespeare. It was paid for by my parents (and a grant). When I got back from my summer program, I was in a show based on Just Kids that my wonderful parents attended.

After the show was over, I continued my senior year of college studying theatre at a prestigious, well-funded institution, paid for in part by (you guessed it) my parents. Over the course of that year, I often thought about Patti. She fought for so much. She went hungry. She was homeless. She put up with enormous amounts of shit, all for her art. As I lay awake in my apartment that my parents had indeed paid for, I thought of Patti and I felt ashamed and unworthy.

I’ve been an artist my whole life, but began pursuing it in reality at age nine, when I appeared in a local theatre production. My dad was the one who gave me the flyer advertising the audition for chorus members in Really Rosie. He drove me to the audition. He drove me to the callback, the rehearsals, the performances, and then later, every single audition, rehearsal, and performance of every show I was in until I could drive myself.

My parents attended all the shows I acted in, wrote, or directed, including the ones I did in college. They encouraged me to go to a performing arts high school, and to pursue a degree in acting and writing. They allowed me to live with them while I saved money to go to LA. They are incredibly proud of my little loser life that I’ve constructed for myself on the way to theoretical artistic success. They are awesome. They are dysfunctional (giving me an abundance of material to pull from) and interesting and very kind. Never, not even once, have I felt like they disapproved of my life path.

So, what’s my problem?

When I graduated college, I felt, like most do, extremely unmotivated. I did a lot of sitting and staring at screens and walls. I drank a lot of wine. I halfheartedly looked at casting calls and wrote some mediocre (at best) stuff. I was even bad at waiting tables, giving up shifts left and right, forgetting drink orders, and then whining about shitty customers. When people would ask what I was “doing,” I evaded it. I wanted to be the truest, most artistic version of myself, but instead spent my days curled up and waiting for Christmas.

Somewhere along the line, in the middle of all that love and encouragement (and pressure) I had lost the “for what” of why I loved art. I did all the shows, camps, education, etc because that’s what I did. That’s what my schtick in life was. I was “performing” the role of art-kid. I performed for my parents, peers, friends, teachers, and extended family.

In college I continued this, doing just enough to keep my part. There were no real obstacles. Going to a performing arts high school, I didn’t even really experience bullying because of it. My high school was poorly funded, but that was it. Theatre kids (at least to my knowledge) weren’t shoved into lockers or subject to any other tropes. Growing up in Austin, being artsy was the norm. No one was trying to stop me from doing this. No one was pushing back.

I graduated, spent a trying nine months in Chicago, and then finally moved back home to Austin to have a good, long, honest look at myself. I felt bloated from all the emotional support and encouragement. What was I fighting for? Being an artist is about the struggle, right? Why am I even doing this? Do I love it? Yes, but what do I love about it except all the positive reinforcement? Is it time to just accept that I should do something else?

The answer I got to that question was a resounding “hell no.” After about two minutes in therapy I realized I had plenty to say and also that support from your parents and community can absolutely make you lazy and unproductive, but only if you let it. You know what can also make you artistically unproductive? Untreated depression, working 60 hours a week at minimum wage, oppression, and hunger. There are people who have overcome all those things and have gone on to be spectacular artists. Maybe the struggle of all that gave them inspiration, and perhaps something to prove. But there have also been billions of people with the artistic spirit who have not been able to cultivate and pursue it, because of circumstances outside of their control.

The struggle can give us fire and a certain distillation of truth and knowledge of what is important—a closeness to life—but it’s not going to put words on the page. If you have time and space and emotional support, use it. Compassionately watch the people around you, push yourself to learn more about the people not around you, and interpret what you see in the way that feels right to you.

Don’t shame people (or yourself) for having support. Instead, try your damndest to give that support to people who don’t have it. We should be funding the shit out of schools like my high school; creating scholarships and communities for kids whose parents are unable or unwilling to support them. We need all voices. The artistic spirit transcends circumstances. If it’s there, it’s there, whether your parents are bankrolling all of it, cheering from the sidelines, or actively working against you.

We should not romanticize the struggle, because this validates society’s views about artists and puts arts funding directly at the bottom of the priorities list. Struggle isn’t cute or even necessary, especially when you desperately have something to say and can’t say it because you’re hungry and severely depressed. So, to my friends who come from families and institutions that gave you a chance: count your blessings, look outside yourself, and give a hand to help those who don’t have it. There is plenty, especially now, to fight for.

 

Support Natalie’s writing on our site by subscribing to our newsletter on this link, Subscribe here!

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Natalie Houchins is a graduate of Northwestern University, with
degrees in Theatre and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is a writer and
actress based out of LA, who is perennially homesick for Austin, TX.
She currently spends her free time hiking, watching Battlestar
Galactica and resisting the Trump administration. For more information, visit her website: www.nataliehouchins.com.

 

Last Monday, I was so depressed I didn’t leave my bed until noon. After eating breakfast and spending an hour staring into space, I pulled it together enough to go to the gym. I walked in, took in the smell of the lobby, and then immediately turned around to go back to my car. I listened to NPR drone on until the tsunami of feeling subsided and I felt like I could drive.

When I’m depressed, everything feels impossible. My skin prickles with sensitivity. My mind snakes through the mountain path of fatalism and gender pain like a steam train. I buy a ticket, and I can’t get off until I reach the end of the line, whenever and whatever that is.

After I got home from my gym experience, take-out in hand, I sat on my couch and looked out my window. Watching myself have this experience, seeing my neural pathway train go round and round, I had the impulse to share something about it. I wanted to Snapchat a picture of myself with a caption that somehow described my experience while giving it levity. Something along the lines of: “tfw your depression hits, but then you get tacos and maybe it’ll be ok.”

Yes, I know I’m not very funny. I’ve never really “gotten” how to Internet. I LITERALLY (and I mean that literally) did not know what a meme was until a year ago. I’m almost 25, so I know I’m probably slightly over the hill in terms of Internet speak, etc, and I’m sure my impulse to write an article about this is evidence that I clearly do not “understand,” but the fact that I was having a pretty bad depressive episode (in my book) and wanted to share it with the world, gives me pause.

I didn’t pick up the phone and call my parents, friends, or partner. I didn’t text my therapist. I didn’t write in my journal or attempt to make art of any kind. What I wanted in that moment was for the 30 or so people who follow my Snap Stories to pay attention to me for three seconds. I wanted to hurl my experience into the ether and receive…validation? Understanding? Someone to relate? Someone to see me; truly see me?

In my purview at least, we are talking about ourselves more honestly on social media these days. For a while, I felt like the goal was to make your life look as awesome as possible. That’s still there of course, but now there’s something else. There is a desire for not just performance, but connection via sharing the more vulnerable parts of ourselves (maybe the performance of connection?), whether we are sharing something positive or on the darker side.

I see that Kermit meme. I see “existential” memes. I see little videos of kids or animals looking pissed/sassy/doing something clumsy or stupid, with an accompanying caption acknowledging that the person who posted it has done or felt something similar. There’s “relatability.” Instead of, “Look at how awesome my day was! My boyfriend bought me flowers and I feel really loved and wonderful and I wanted to share to make you jealous but also because I am consuming myself and am intoxicated by my own aesthetic,” we say, “tfw bae buys you flowers (heart eyes emoji).” That feeling when. You’ve had that feeling when. Everyone can relate to a feeling when. Look, I can share this braggy thing because y’all are with me, right? RIGHT?

And on the flipside, when we’re having a horrible day, we don’t share a picture/caption with what’s really going on. We mitigate it with some kind of humor or irony qualifier. Or maybe there’s no humor qualifier, but there’s something to signify that this was a CHOICE. Look at me, I’m being vulnerable. It’s cool. I did this on purpose. Or, when we’re hungover or feeling “vulnerable” (socially sanctioned vulnerability like sickness or sharing in a collective emotional experience a la an awards show or basketball game), we caption it with, “I literally want to die,” or, “my life is a dumpster fire.” Nevermind that you may have literally felt like dying at some point in your life, or that people have lives that are actually out of their control—lives one might consider a “dumpster fire.”

We want to share our vulnerability, but the act of sharing it, whether it’s something positive, horrible, or somewhere in between, is the opposite of vulnerability. When you control the narrative (however much we think we control the narrative on the Internet), you’re not being truly vulnerable. You’re sharing a curated portion of your vulnerability, just as I did in the first paragraph of this article. I tried to be as honest as possible about what happened that day.  My nitty gritty physical sensations, and my thought process—but the sentence, “My mind snakes through the mountain path of fatalism and gender pain like a steam train,” is a pretty way of saying something that isn’t pretty or even romantic.

I’m being forthcoming about my experience, and I suppose I’m opening myself up to attacks from strangers on the Internet who no doubt have things to say about mental health, etc, but I’m still the one who decided to proclaim my reality. Even if I don’t get any likes or shares, or any response, I’m still the one who made the choice. I’m still billing myself as relatable. Not abject. Not outside the “norm,” though the norm has now been greatly expanded.

There is nothing wrong with sharing our stories. I know I have been positively affected by reading and seeing what other people have to say about their pain or success. I think that the move toward more honesty, even if it’s couched in irony, humor, and hyperbole is a positive one. It creates space for real life conversations that may not have happened before. It gives us a collective vocabulary, however rudimentary, for talking about hard things like post partum depression, body image, oppression, chronic illness, disability, economic struggle, etc.

What worries me though is that we are all relating to each other in a way that is masquerading as authenticity, but, we must realize, is not. No matter how honest social media gets, the choice to put yourself there gives you agency that is always, ultimately, false.

All the Instagram photos in the world of your post-baby body or the way your face looks when you give yourself a double chin or a flower with a caption about your recent loss will not change the fact that your decision to share your experience, while valid and meaningful as hell, is not authenticity. Authenticity and earnestness will never be cool, because not being in control will never be cool.

Keep sharing your memes and struggles however you need to package them, but don’t forget that being vulnerable is when you allow people to see you when you haven’t made any choices. It’s hard fucking work, and it should be. The pay off is too valuable for it to be easy.

 

 

Support Natalie’s writing on our site by subscribing to our newsletter on this link, Subscribe here!

---

Natalie Houchins is a graduate of Northwestern University, with
degrees in Theatre and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is a writer and
actress based out of LA, who is perennially homesick for Austin, TX.
She currently spends her free time hiking, watching Battlestar
Galactica and resisting the Trump administration. For more information, visit her website: www.nataliehouchins.com.