Of course, nobody gets into this business to always be a nonspeaking prostitute, dead, or beat up, or whatever, but that’s a lot of what’s out there. You take what you can get. But like I said, being beat up is way better. You get rehearsal time, you get to work with the other actors, sometimes there’s a choreographer if the fight is supposed to be really fierce.
It’s not as easy as it looks to get knocked against a wall. You have to know how to do it so you don’t get hurt. And falling down takes practice. There are little tricks you learn so you don’t take the fall hard and scrape your elbows or your knees. You also have to watch that you don’t totally wreck your outfit, or the wardrobe people give you a hard time and take the cost of your costume out of your paycheck. One trick I’ve learned is that you always want to know where you are in the frame. Is your fall going to be actually seen, or are you out of frame when you go down? Usually, the camera stays with the principal actor, getting his reaction when I go down. I mean, he’s getting the big money. Anyway, I always ask, because what’s the point of going for realness and risking a hurt shoulder or torn stockings when you are out of frame and it’s all about him?
There are now entire TV stations (cable, but still) devoted to women and women’s programming. They are not afraid to take on women’s issues and also to provide leading roles for women to play. I remember the first time I saw a made-for-TV movie on one of these stations back in ’97, and I instantly thought, I could play the hell out of that cheerleader. I think it was what made me decide to be an actress and wholeheartedly pursue my goals. The movie was about a high school romance that quickly turned to disaster when the all-star jock proved to be a psychotic jerk who used violence to control his girlfriend. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Fred Savage (known for playing the kid in The Wonder Years) portray an evil bully. He was amazing. So scary. The name of the movie is No One Would Tell, and the girlfriend is played by Candace Cameron of TV’s Full House fame.
Sometimes when I’m on set waiting while a shot is set up, I speak to my fellow actors. I often mention No One Would Tell as an early influence on my work. Usually, I am reminded by whomever I am speaking to that actors like Fred and Candace were probably cast in that movie because they both had been child stars, they had name recognition, not to mention connections. As a kind of joke, I remind whomever that it is way too late for me to become a child star. But then, on a more serious note, I tell them that I am trying to get my name recognized by being an occasional dead person and make connections through my roles as a nonspeaking prostitute who gets roughed up. It’s just a matter of being patient, I tell them.
It’s hard not to get discouraged in a business like mine. Especially when I turn on the TV and see Nicollette Sheridan playing a woman who has just received eye transplants to restore her vision and is acting up a storm while being bombarded with images of the last moment of her donor’s life (Deadly Visions, 2004), or see Jamie Luner, of Melrose Place fame, playing a blind lawyer who gets raped by a guy who then escapes from jail vowing to kill her (Blind Injustice, 2005). When that happens, I get totally down in the dumps about the state of my career, and I have to face the fact that I might not be getting the breaks because basically, I’m nobody. But I’m not giving up. I’m going to keep going.
What I’m really hoping for is a plum part as a forensic investigator on an ongoing series for network TV. That’s my dream. But I don’t want to be just the kind of forensic investigator who wears a lab coat and glasses and puzzles over a corpse laid out in an antiseptic environment. I want to be the kind who gets to wear low-cut blouses that are tailored to the body, flank-hugging slacks, and tousled hair while she investigates a dead body at the scene of the crime. Instead of being the dead body at the scene of the crime, or the nameless corpse with a tag on my toe, I want at the very least to portray complex human emotions on-screen and have my own trailer. This business is full of opportunities for an actress who knows how to play the hell out of a living person with a speaking part. I know they’re out there for me to sink my teeth into. I can’t wait.
In Memory of Imette
Periel Aschenbrand
For as badass as I am—or like to think I am—in the back of my mind, I am always wholly aware of the fact that at any moment I could be raped.
The fact that I’m totally paranoid doesn’t detract from the other fact, which is that this is true.
So when someone picked up NYU student Imette St. Guillen and sodomized and raped her repeatedly and bound her hands behind her back and shoved a tube sock down her throat and wrapped her face in packing tape and lopped off her long black hair and sliced up her genital area before he dumped her by the side of the Belt Parkway, it didn’t escape me for one second that she just as easily could have been me.
To begin with, the bar she was last seen alive in is around the corner from my house.
And that’s just to begin with.
For the first few days, I locked myself in my apartment. It got to the point where I was afraid to take a shower. And this isn’t some bogeyman fantasy. I’ve read nearly every FBI criminal profile book and every Ann Rule book that has ever been written. Ignorant people who adore me tried to tell me I was overreacting, but it was useless. I know what the fuck I’m talking about.
I said from the get-go that the person who did this to Imette was a serial killer, and everyone was like, Periel, really, get a grip.
So I did.
I went to the John Jovino gun shop, also down the street from my house, and bought mace and a Screecher, which looks like a baby fire extinguisher but makes a really loud noise, and a big-ass hunting knife with which, if need be, I could slice off someone’s testicles. I tried to buy a stun gun, but the Chinese person behind the counter said, “Po-rees only.”
I was unhappy about that because I thought the gun, in addition to being able to immobilize someone, would be a fairly sexy accessory. I made do, and for about two weeks, I walked around with my hands in my pockets, the Screecher in one hand and the mace in the other. I was petrified. I was also ready to seriously fuck someone up.
When I profiled the killer over dinner, I explained that someone who commits a crime like this has raped before because it was a fairly organized crime. It’s clear by the way he killed her that he enjoyed it and that he would not be someone who could be rehabilitated—based on the fact that it was so violent, he’d likely been fantasizing about something like this for years. My friend looked at me and said, deadpan, Wow, P. It sounds like you’re about to crack this case wide open.
I was like, You can make fun of me if you want, but you’ll see. When they find this guy, he’ll have raped and killed before. And if they don’t catch him, he’ll definitely do it again. This guy gets off on this. Don’t you get it? He likes this. It’s a game to him. He enjoys the torture. And I’m not going down! I screamed as I exhibited my array of weaponry.
My friend continued to look at me as though I had completely lost my mind.
I continued: Imette St. Guillen was a student of forensic psychology. If anyone knew about these sociopaths, it was her. Two of her fingernails were ripped off. Do you know what that means? She fought like a fucking tiger. It means if this happened to her, it could happen to anyone. Don’t you get that?
But wait, you’re a guy. You have nothing to worry about. Serial killers almost never kill grown men.
So there you fucking go. With your six feet of height and your dick between your legs, you have nothing to worry about. Except for me. You should be worried about me. You should be very worried about me, because the reality is that, literally at any point, I could be raped.
This is a fact that is lost on most men. Not because they don’t love us but more because they just don’t understand what it feels like to walk down a dark street and see a creepy guy and be scared for your life. They don’t understand because they can’t understand.
So for Imette and for all the other women who have met their fate in a fashion so hideous most of u
s don’t dare to even think of it, I’m thinking of you, and though I’m bathing again, I’m still carrying a knife in my back pocket.
Respect
Kimberle Crenshaw
Black vaginas
the hardest-working vaginas in America,
and still they get no respect.
No vagina has done so much for this country
and received so little. Really.
Black vaginas built this country.
It all started right here,
between blueberry black, chocolate cream, honey brown,
praline pecan
French vanilla
legs.
It wasn’t the Declaration of Independence,
the Constitution,
or the Stars and Stripes that gave birth to America.
It was the black vagina that laid the golden egg,
or rather, the chattel slave.
That’s right—during America’s formative years, the most valuable property it produced,
the property that the entire economy was based on, the property that was mortgaged to build America
was property in slaves.
Twelve billion dollars’ worth.
One can’t begin to fathom it in today’s dollars. And where did it come from? Whose vaginas passed this twelve billion dollars?
Whose vaginas were capitalized, colonized, and amortized all to give birth to America?
Whose vaginas have been appropriated, syndicated, deprecated, but never, ever
vindicated in the process of building this country?
The black vagina, the only vagina that was less valuable when it was protected, loved, and respected
than when it was open, taken, and occupied at will.
And the law made it that way—black women couldn’t be raped as a matter of law during those old days.
The law said
that rape was something that happened to white vaginas, not to black ones.
But those were the old days, we can rest assured.
We finally got that Respect that Aretha’s been talking about all these years.
Or did we?
Has the black vagina received the respect she deserves even today?
Is it respected when those who enter our vaginas against our will are least likely to be arrested, least likely to be prosecuted, least likely to be convicted, and when, by some miracle, they are convicted, they will receive only one-fifth the sentence of those who rape white vaginas?
Is it respected when no one seems to know or care about what happens to our vaginas within our community, right here in Harlem?
Is it respected when everyone knows about the Central Park Jogger, but no one knows about the eight other women of color raped in New York that very week, one who was gang-raped, thrown down an elevator shaft, and left for dead?
Is the black vagina respected when our own community readily embraces those accused of rape, and chastises a woman for “not having the good sense God gave her” or “having no business being up there with that man at two in the morning” or “being foolish not to know what the brother’s true intentions were”?
Is it respected when politicians trip over themselves trying to be tough on black vaginas by embracing punitive policies to sew up and shut down these vaginas now that our labor isn’t needed anymore?
After four hundred years, is this the respect we’ve been waiting for?
I don’t think so …
So here’s an idea. The next time we hear ReRe belting out
R>E>S>P>E>C>T,
let’s reach for it, own it, proclaim it as our national anthem for black vaginas,
for all vaginas,
because we know that respect goes to those
who demand it, expect it, and refuse to live without it
So from Harlem to Watts
from Memphis to Detroit
from Nairobi to Beijing
from Kingston to Jerusalem
let our voice, our demand, our command, be heard:
RESPECT this vagina!!!
The Aristocrats
Kate Clinton
I sobbed through the movie The Aristocrats.
To clarify, The Aristocrats is not a documentary about the Bushes.
The Aristocrats is a movie about the world’s filthiest joke and the comics who love to tell it. Here’s how it goes: A showbiz family visits a vaudeville talent agency. The agent asks the father to describe their act. The father proceeds: The family dog is trained to poop in their son’s mouth while the boy is copulating with their nine-year-old daughter while the father is urinating on the mother, and on and on. The agent asks the father what they call themselves. The father says, “The Aristocrats.”
Hi-larious.
By process of natural selection, the fittest survivors of the film’s comic Darwinism, the aristocrati of comedy, are mostly male. The comic elders mouth the classic line, which I heard often in my career, “Look, funny is funny.” That gender erasure reminds me of something June Jordan once said: “There is power and there is point of view and whoever has the power determines the point of view.”
So, the ejaculatory stand-up/punch-line brand of male humor has a funny point of view, while the multiorgasmic, extended storytelling of women does not have a funny point of view. Because the long multipart middle section of the Aristocrats joke is safely bracketed by the familiar levees of setup and punch line, when men tell it, it is hilarious.
But I was sobbing.
Men have always said that women have no sense of humor. Often after we’ve been seen together laughing, howling, tears streaming down our faces. Men can feel so left out. It’s just that women know whose butts are the butts of the jokes.
I grew up in a land of reversals. Where men who told jokes about women were funny but women who told jokes about men were anti-male. Where, year after year, there was the appearance of a cartoon depicting the same “funny” scene of a barelegged man in an old raincoat exposing himself to a woman. The cartoon was made even “funnier” by the horrified look on the woman’s face. By extension, rape was one of the funniest things a guy could do. The ultimately practical joke.
I remain a faith-based comedian. I believe in the power of laughter in a democracy. It takes the tyranny of the things we are given, and it blows them apart. When I’m listening to someone tell me the largest pile of crap, I nod, listen, and then just burst out laughing. I pause, then say, Oh my God, you mean it. And that person will never say those things again with any degree of confidence. And it’s time to take them down.
God told me. She did.
Connect: A Web of Words
Robin Morgan
• Threat • Shout • Bellow • Hit • Slap • Smack • Strike • Beat • Bash • Batter • Pummel • Punch • Slash • Stamp • Pound • Maul • Hammer • Bludgeon • Fist • Belt • Knife • Gun • Punish • Control • Mutilate • Blood • Ambulance • Sorry • Drunk • Welt • Swollen • Scar • Lies • Made Me Do It • Deserved It • Her Own Fault • Taught a Lesson • Shame • Neighbors • Secret • Whimper • Fear • Skulk • Shuffle • Wince • Tremble • Shudder • Shake • Cower • Cringe • Flinch • Crawl • Listen • Wait • Whisper • Bruise • Bandage • Guilt • Bumped into a Door • He Didn’t Mean • Shatter • Wound • Fracture • Rupture • Harassment • Provoked It • Stalking • Invited It • Restraining Order • Funeral • Scream • Stranger Rape • Acquaintance Rape • Date Rape • Marital Rape • Child Rape • Asked for It • Wanted It • Entitlement • Masculine • Selflessness • Feminine • Disgust • Bitch • Cunt • Slit • ’Ho • Witch • Hag • Illiteracy • Purdah • Suttee • Clitoridectomy • Infibulation • Stoning • Terror • Burka • Chador • Forced Shrouding • Pornography • Forced Exposure • Sex Traffick • Hunger • Child Bride • Kidnapped Bride • Mail-order Bride • Bride Burnings • Harem • Forced Marriage • Child Marriage • Slavery • Humiliation • Tears • Begging • Prostitution • Poverty
• Hooker • Pimp • John • Brothel • Loneliness • Hemorrhage • Lovelessness • Dread • Exhaustion • Hide • Run • Where • Duty• Family • Minister • Priest • Rabbi • Mullah • Trapped • Again• Stupid • Ugly • Fat • Old • Face-lift • Backstreet Abortion • Maternal Mortality • Female Infanticide • Suicide • No • Femicide • Gynocide • Genocide • Silence • No • Weep • Howl • Blood • Gasp • Wail • Grief • Mourning • Secrets • Lies • Propaganda • Torture • Waterboard • Electrodes • Lash • Cane • Whip • Burn • Starve • Boy Next Door • Serial Killer • Gang • Sect • Nation • Empire • Molotov Cocktail • IED • Patriot Missile • Peacekeeper Missile • “Big Boy” A-bomb • “Nuclear Hardness” • “Deep Penetration Capacity Bomb” • “Potent Kill Capability” • “Rigid, Hardened Silo” • “Erector Launchers” • “Thrust Ratios” • “Soft Targets” • Toy Gun • Toy Tank • Toy Missile • No • How • Planet • Why • Madness • Rage • Shrill • Strident • Yes • Crazy • Hope • Bread • Shelter • You Too? • Recognition • Truth • Strength • Dignity • Yes • Transformation • Human • Together • Yes •
Stew