“Body Courage” was not what I expected. It was not the typical theatrical play I was expecting to sit through. It was intimate. It was personal. It was deep. It was funny. It was sad. It was so many adjectives wrapped up into one short show.
My experience with the one- woman show (as I think of it) was liberating. The actor, Danielle, spoke to the audience about the vast categories of body image and all the different insecurities that come with them. She started with her own experiences, which was very important, as it introduced her as an equal to all the other people she interviewed. As a child, she was scolded by one side of her family to lose weight and to be healthier, while the other side embraced the idea of fat and encouraged her to let her spirit grow through her body. Specifically, her mother and her maternal grandmother fought with Danielle to lose weight. They put her on diets as a child and forced her to exercise (at such an early age, it’s just embarrassing for a child to have to think about their weight constantly). Her paternal grandmother, however, counteracted anything her mother tried to accomplish by not letting her give in to the diets, and encouraging a fat lifestyle (an even fatter one, if possible!). Neither one of these methods provided Danielle with a safe environment to make choices about her body. She was at odds with herself and all the people who influenced her in life, which quickly turned her to alcoholism as a way to escape all the excess noise. She reenacted interviews she had with people all over the world who struggled with their own perspectives of their bodies, as well as that of other people.
Her interviews consisted of people on opposite ends of the spectrum, from “Tan Mom” to a young athlete in India. She talked about body issues in the sexual aspect, like a woman selling herself to take care of her children. She spoke about the experiences of not only sex workers she interviewed, but their clients as well, gaining insight on how they began, why they began, and what it did for them emotionally. She spoke about body issues that may seem silly to a lot of people, like an Afghan woman who had her freckles surgically removed because she was oppressed by her own culture. She didn’t “fit the look of an Afghan woman.” On the Indian boy that was mentioned- she talked about his struggle to accept his body. He was a scrawny young boy when he began to train for India’s national cross country team, and when he had stretched himself far enough to accomplish his goal, he was turned away. He was told he was not good enough; he was not strong enough. She explained his fight to come to his own definition of strength, acknowledging that it may be different for everyone. She interviewed a transgender woman who felt that what was critical to her transition, was not the physical change from man to woman, but the cultural acceptance that came with her own acceptance of herself. The memories she carried were not her first glances in the mirror as an “official woman”, but the kindness of her coworkers when she first transitioned, and the kindness of clothing store workers when she first went out to shop for a bra. Danielle also interviewed a black man, who remembered the riots over Emmet Till and what that meant to the black community. He explained his outrage as he wondered, “Is that what they think about black?” Race riots have and still do made black people question their value as a person. It’s not always only white people that have to realize that black is beautiful.
As she brought her show to a close, she reminded the audience of her own experiences. She talked about the interview with her mother that she had in preparation for her play. Her mother asked her for forgiveness for pushing her out of the insecurities she had, not of Danielle, but of herself. She was raised to feel ashamed of her body as a fat child, and she felt the only way to overcome was to not let her daughter have anything to be ashamed of. But in doing so, she only created a cycle of body shaming in her family. Danielle ended her play with her mother’s realization of her own body courage.
“Body Courage” reminded me that insecurities come in so many different forms. I often forget that it’s not as simple as “too fat” or “too thin”. Body issues are also not solely based on what is aesthetically pleasing. The mold of what a culture of people are meant to look like can be harsh to people who don’t always fit it, like black people with darker skin, or Middle Eastern men and women who have freckles. Religion plays a role (think of all the Muslim women who are scared to go out with their hijabs). The definition of masculinity can play a role. The list goes on.
I’ve learned that it’s not as simple as urging people to lose weight to be healthy. Yes, health is important. But, did we forget that health is not just physical? Health is also, social, spiritual, mental, and emotional. In Danielle’s case, as a fat child, she was pulled by one side telling her to lose weight, and the other telling her “the fatter the better”. Neither one of these perspectives are positive, and the two of them paired together can be detrimental to the mind-set of a child (or of anyone of any age). So much embarrassment often comes with the realization of the need for a change in one’s body. This needs to dealt with delicately, and not by surrounding a person with forced diet and exercise.
Something else that the play has taught me to be more aware of is how far back in their lives someone’s insecurities can really be rooted. The different backgrounds that people come from allow for different paths in life. It’s impossible to be aware of the millions of influences that are made on our everyday decisions as well as life decisions.
