Posts Tagged ‘Women’s Issues’

On Being Invisible and Drop Dead Diva

Monday, July 6th, 2009

I have heard some talk about my new show “Drop Dead Diva.” People are concerned that we are making fun of fat people or that it is a show about fat jokes or something ridiculous like that. I want to reach out and assure our potential audience that I would never condone or be involved with a project like that. The reason I took the job in the first place was because it dealt with issues of body image with such respect and grace. I have been affected negatively by ‘fat jokes’ and the status quo of women’s bodies for as long as I can remember. I almost killed myself dieting, once in my early twenties, after being told by network executives that my ‘face was too full’ to play the role of myself on my first television show, “All American Girl.” All I wanted to be was thin enough to – well, play myself! I didn’t eat for weeks and exercised day and night and wound up in the hospital. My TV show was eventually canceled – and replaced by Drew Carey’s show – you know, because he is so thin.



“Drop Dead Diva” is a show about us. For those of us who struggle to be visible. I never lived up to the thin, blonde beauty queen ideal – the image I saw in magazines and movies and television. Because of this, I always felt invisible. “Drop Dead Diva” is about learning to become visible. Through the character Jane Bingum, played masterfully and eloquently by Brooke Elliott, we triumph because we see her beauty, we share her beauty, we show everyone her beauty. Sometimes when I have a break in a scene, I will go behind the camera and watch Brooke on the monitors, and I want to cry because she always wins, she always shines. She makes me feel like I exist. And she is beautiful. Save your judgments until you watch our show. Do it for yourself and all the young girls out there who feel like they don’t exist because they are not a size 0.



Liberate the Vagina Show

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

There are few things I hate more than ignorance and one of them is overly cold air conditioning during the winter. I am one of those people who is always cold. I am freezing all the time. My hands and feet are like blocks of ice and during the winter I am always completely bundled up head to toe. I think I must be part lizard or something because when it is cold outside, I am practically incapacitated. I need to stay on a hot rock or something until spring comes.



My hates collided when I did an episode of the TV show, The Doctors. I was asked to host the show because of my extensive interest in/knowledge of the vagina. I think it’s very exciting for a mainstream TV show like this to want to do an entire episode based on the vagina and to ask someone like me, a real ‘expert’ on the subject, to play co-host. It was really pretty fun, except for the fact that it was totally freezing outside and the air conditioning inside was cranked up as high as it could go. Everyone was cold! I was so cold that I got a temperature migraine on one side of my head. If you watch the trailer, you can see even though it was cold, I still managed to get some zingers in.





You can imagine how disappointed I was to hear that the show was never aired because the powers that be at the networks thought that it was too racy! That is ludicrous and ignorant and perpetuates the ‘mystery’ of the vagina! How are we supposed to learn about our bodies if we aren’t even allowed to discuss them in detail? The show was set up so that women could talk to each other frankly about what is going on down there, and if we aren’t able to bring up the subject even in a medical context, when can we bring it up? I think it is a great disservice to women to silence us when we attempt to share truths about our bodies.



Are we supposed to believe that our bodies are somehow wrong and dirty and bad because we are female? This kind of thinking is archaic and misogynist. I expect better from the world, and certainly more from television. Turn the a/c off and turn your minds on!



Oasis by Amanda Palmer

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Here is amazing Amanda Palmer’s new video for “Oasis!” I love this song!!!





Regarding Palin

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

I am being accused of sexually objectifying Sarah Palin, and I did it because I think it is funny – mostly because she is anti-gay, and would like people like me to be sent to a camp where we can study the bible with other gays and lesbians and have electrodes placed on our privates until we are forced to become heterosexual – like her and um, Track. So I said I would like to do rude things to her, because frankly, I like pussy, and I am not giving it up anytime soon – no matter what the “Christians” have to say about it. Gay sex is monumentally more fun than straight sex. God made it that way, so we would stay gay! He wants us to persevere! Stay strong!! Gay sex is better than straight sex. Sorry, it just is – I should know – I have liberal amounts of both. And Sarah Palin is missing out.



However, I do feel the misogyny against Palin – you would have to be blind not to see it. The interview with Charlie Gibson was where I felt it most acutely. Gibson had such contempt for her – of course due to her inexperience and utter inability to answer any question properly and saying the word “nucular” – but I feel if she were a man, he wouldn’t have had as much hatred in his eyes. The last idiotic VP – Dan Quayle – was met with a certain amount of criticism, but it was nothing compared to what Palin has had to face, and will continue to face.



I am certainly not defending Palin – because make no mistake – she is the ultimate misogynist. She is a woman hater in the extreme. To force women to have children against their will, to deny abortion rights EVEN in cases of incest and rape is abominable. She is an insult to feminism, a sickening example what a woman will do to other women in order to please men and further her own career. Women do shit like that to other women to keep them down – to make their achievement seem more extraordinary – to keep women out of their way, so they can enjoy all the power and the men themselves, and that stuff makes them worse than sexist men. It is worse to be a traitor than a perpetrator. That she made rape victims pay for their own forensic exams shows that she believes that women somehow deserved to be raped – that it is our fault, just like unplanned pregnancy, just like being victimized by men – or women like her. She acts like all women are wearing a miniskirt and are asking for it. So fuck her.



Bowling for Boobies

Friday, September 19th, 2008

I am truly sorry that I am going to have to miss “Bowling for Boobies” in LA on October 13, but people should check it out!



It is a very important event that supports the Busted Foundation, which raises money for women who are dealing with breast cancer. There will be lots of hot celebs there bowling with their boobies. I am kind of a good bowler too, so I am upset that I can’t be there!! I have to hold my boobs in while I am bowling because I bowl so hard I could bowl my boobies right off my body. Strike!!!



Check it out and create your own Bowling for Boobies team!



Palin

Friday, September 12th, 2008

At first I thought Sarah Palin was some kind of Republican pandering – a misguided attempt to woo Hillary voters over to the dark side, as if they believed women voters were so stupid that they would vote for anyone in skirt, but now I see that she is much, much worse.



I have nothing against hockey moms – I just don’t want to be one. If Sarah Palin had her way, she would take away that right not to be a mom. She wants to outlaw abortion – so to call her a feminist is as laughable as calling evangelicals ‘Christians.’ They shouldn’t have the right to call themselves Christian, for they have no Christ-like attributes. I am a feminist and a Christian – and when I see Sarah Palin – I see neither. And it is official. She is evil. I saw on Violet Blue’s awesome blog that Sarah Palin forced rape victims to pay for their own forensic exams.



This is serious and bad.



My Own Body

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

I make a big deal about showing off my physique whenever I can because I think it is important for people to know what a 39 year old woman looks like. I don’t see that many images of women like myself out there, so I want to be a good example. Whenever I can, I put on a bikini or even just pasties and a g-string because I don’t want to hide out. I think that too many people have body issues, and if we just confront those issues head on, we can get rid of them.



For years I kept myself covered up because when I was doing TV a very long time ago, one of the executives I was working with said after my first screen test, “Never, ever show your stomach in public again,” and it just made me feel so freaked out by my own body. I just wanted to disappear. It sent me into a dieting frenzy that was almost deadly.



Now that I am older and wiser, I just want to enjoy my life, and not worry so much about what people think of me, how I look, if I am too fat or something – I just don’t give a shit.