Quick, name your favorite Mean Girls line! “Four for you Glen Coco, you go Glenn Coco!” Kevin G’s rap? Or maybe, “She doesn’t even go here!” I know, I know, the amount of awesome scenes in Mean Girls is probably around the same number of girls that have felt personally victimized by Regina George.
Now, name a scene that was an accurate portrayal of being a teenage girl. While drama, backstabbing, and frenemies definitely happen in high school, the scene where the Plastics look into a mirror and name their body insecurities is a relatable moment for many women.
With society constructing beauty ideals and pressuring women to fit those ideals, it can be hard for a woman to feel naturally beautiful in her own skin. You’ve seen those articles about magazines airbrushing their models to make them look skinnier. What about Dove’s commercial that shows how some ads mix models with computer generated images?
Sarah Marcum a BFA theater studies third year, and Paige Brown, a BA in acting and African and African diaspora studies third year, teamed up to start a real conversation about women’s body images with a theatre piece. After surveying a section of the female UT population, Sarah and Paige have been creating a meaningful piece entitled “Does This Make My Ass Look Big?” to “give due justice to women’s voices.”
HCTX: What inspired you to create this piece?
SM: I’ve had a personal struggle with body image as I’ve grown up. There is so much pressure coming from the media. Everyone is excited about plus size models being in the industry, but even they have restrictions on the way they look. They have to be “curvaceous”; they have to be the perfect hour-glass shape. Men are affected by society’s beauty ideals, but it seems more common in women. Beauty really impacts our day-to-day lives.
PB: Sarah and I often talked to each other about our insecurities. Then we started a conversation on how it affects us racially. This sparked the big idea: That one idea of beauty could affect our lives daily, even though we are different from each other.
HCTX: What has your process been with the piece so far?
SM: In early spring 2012, I started a Tumblr focused on portrayal of women in the media. Then I realized my perspective was only that of a white, middle-class woman, and I wanted to explore how it affected women of other ethnicities and classes as well, so I presented the idea to Paige. We created a survey centered around body image and received a lot of great feedback. We also had informal conversations that informed our work as well. What was interesting is that every girl who said they didn’t feel beautiful said they felt so because of society’s impositions of beauty upon them.
HCTX: Why do you think it is so important to have this conversation?
SM: It is such a relatable and relevant topic. We talk about it, sure, but in a controlled manner. I want to know: How do women actually feel? Paige and I talk about this. We really just want girls to start questioning their point of view on beauty, and question who influenced it. Let girls start defining beauty themselves. We presented our work in progress the other night, where we had an installation of the survey results. There was a moment where one girl said, “I love this because it is what I write in my diary every day.” That was the most perfect reason why I want to do this, because we want to give voices to the women who don’t feel beautiful, but also celebrate those who do feel beautiful!
HCTX: What are your future plans with this piece?
PB: We hope it can manifest itself into a performance piece that will encourage a deeper look into body and image.
HCTX: Do you have any confidence tips for our collegiettes?
PB: I like to surround myself with positive, like-minded people. I also remind myself that I am one-of-a-kind. It seems kind of cheesy or cliché but it works for me! Define your own beauty and appreciate yourself.
SM: Just realize that you aren’t alone, because all women feel this way, and all women have insecurities. We always like what we don’t have, and we are always competing with our ideals of beauty versus someone else’s ideal. I hope everyone feels confident everyday.