Something I’ve been reflecting a lot about lately is identity. Identity is more than just a jig saw puzzle from the box with tiny shapes resembling squares filling in the blanks. Like a game of Tetris, with many shapes and sizes that sometimes feel like they leave gaps in the overall image. There are so many pieces and possibilities and we get to the architect placing each exactly where we want it to go. Except unlike Tetris, once placed the pieces are not static, and we can shift them daily or even moment to moment. There are core pieces of our identity that seem to stay with us wherever we go and other pieces that seem to bounce in and out of frame depending on the day. Identity is layered. The sum of many parts yet beyond it. I’ve been reflection on identity a lot lately and how having illness has impacted it more than I once thought. It’s a difficult balance because if you let it, illness can become all consuming and override the other elements of your identity. Yet up until this point I think I tend to at times swing toward the other direction and live in denial of my illness, feeling like I should be capable of doing all the things I once was able to. Fact is, spending too much time on either side of that equation can warp your identity.
Allow me to explain. For those of you who have not yet heard, about 3 years ago now I was diagnosed with Psoriatic Disease. A disease where my immune system attacks my joints and nerve endings throughout my body. In some ways a mish mash of msn and rhumetoid disease (also known as rheumatoid arthritis but the title offers connotations far different from what the disease actually is). Individuals with Psoriatic Disease experience a breaking down of the body that leaves them in pain and some may become wheel chair bound or even bed ridden. The uniqueness of Psoriatic Disease is that it also isn’t constant. Flare ups occur where there is immense pain and immobility, and once gone the pain might diminish even as far as almost not being there. Almost. Today I am struggling to open a bottle of water. A few months ago, I could lift a 30-pound box without a second thought. The struggle for me has been that many of the activities I once engaged in, hiking, jogging, kayaking, swimming, etc. are now currently near impossible – especially for prolonged periods of time. For many years these were tied to my identity. To deny my disease is to deny that I do still want to be partaking in these things. And perhaps one day I will be able to again; treatments shift and as I mentioned above it is not constant. But right now I simply can’t. Wanting to work towards the possibility of engaging in these things one day again and believing that day can come - that is true positivity. Denying my current state or ignoring it in order to only talk about the good in my life (which there is also of course plenty of good happening too) is not true positivity. It’s ignorance of how much my health concerns are actually impacting my life. Including my identity. Now of course God will always be at the centre of my identity. I believe I am my soul, not just the activities I do. But the activities that I do have the capability of expressing that soul to the world. And yes there are different ways to express them than the activities listed above, but part of identity is in the style of expression of who we are, not just the fact that we are expression it.
Having this disease does mean I at times cannot engage in the world in the way I fully want to. But it is also far from being the only way I engage in the world. Balancing both sides is how you take a healthy approach to identity. Not just with illness, but with many other things as well. You are not fully any part of your identity, you are the Tetris game of many pieces forming how you want it to look at any given moment, rearranging, shifting and juggling each piece until it fits exactly as you would like it to given the current layout of pieces you have to work with.
So for those of you with illness who have ever had people tell you never to identify with it, graciously choose how, when, and why you are choosing to identify with certain elements of it and understand that unless they have ever been there, it may just never make sense to them. You are allowed to admit the impact it has on you and how your life has shifted. That is your call, not theirs. At the same time never be afraid to push your self, choosing never to give up and celebrating each victory along the way. I finally got that water bottle open. Today that is my victory. Far different from that 2-hour trek up a mountain, but in this moment just as important. What’s yours?
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This blog post will explore why I believe Jada Will and Chris have become scape goat distractions to the much deeper cultural issues of the academy and Hollywood and what it is like for those working in that realm.
Why exactly are we referring to the event that occurred at this years Oscar awards as the slap and the joke and not the fact that either side of the event actually unveils much deeper issues within the culture of the academy and Hollywood, and western culture as a whole? To begin, Chris’ joke is being treated as wrong because of Jada’s health challenges. As someone who also faces an autoimmune disorder, I strongly understand that this adds a layer of inappropriateness to the joke, however I think we are missing the deeper narrative here. Over the past while so many horror stories have come out of Hollywood regarding sexual assaults and abuse made by men against women and their bodies. Even if Jada did not have alopecia, these kinds of jokes are the foundational building blocks that lead to this primarily male-embodied violence against women occurring. Women are also judged by their outward appearances and bodies in extremely hurtful ways within the industry – sometimes being denied roles and often treated as lesser than. There are so many reasons why this joke is inappropriate when the academy has so many toxic layers when it comes to women’s bodies and their autonomy. Especially with all that has come to light in recent years. I am curious if Jada’s hurt and fallen face in response to the joke was deeper than just the pain of her health issues and cut beyond that to any role she has ever been denied based on appearance or any negative experiences of lack of respect towards her body that have occurred over the years within the industry. Jada’s health struggles represent only one of many MANY reasons why these approaches and standards in the industry are wrong, unhelpful, and unrepresentative of the full range of the human experience. I have heard so many people say that Will resorting to physical violence is not okay because the joke was not a form of physical violence and was only emotionally hurtful. Is that truly the case though? To be clear I do wish Will’s response had been different and he had walked on stage looked Chris dead in the eye and demanded he apologize rather than slap him. But so many people are talking about how physical violence is only ok in response to physical violence without any acknowledgement that these kinds of joke are exactly what leads to physical assaults against women and physical sexual abuse and many other forms of physical gender-based violence. Jokes about women’s bodies are exactly what starts to erode and remove autonomy from women over their own bodies and feed the mindset that men have a right to act towards these bodies however they may please. This kind of joke is the first step in the journey of physical violence against women. To be perfectly clear, I do NOT assume Chris to be a danger to women himself. It seems to me to be more like oversight and lack of understanding of what women face. But the joke is feeding another man’s mindset that these actions are ok and that that other man has the right to say of or do to women’s bodies as he pleases. I think Chris owes more than just Jada an apology. I think he owes an apology to every woman in Hollywood who has ever been assaulted (sexually or in any other physical way), inappropriately hit on, denied a role based on physical appearance, encouraged to change something about their physical appearance in order to get a role etc. And men and non-binary individuals too for that matter! Because yes ALL of these things also happen to men and non-binary individuals too. The slap was not okay, but the joke was equally as violent. I also don’t understand why Will is no longer with the academy. Either both of them should be removed from the academy (which to be clear I do NOT think is what should happen), or better yet both stay in the academy and we start to acknowledge the deeper issues of what is going on and work towards change in the industry. I would love it if they were to have a discussion around Jada’s big red table about how both their actions negatively contributed to the problems that run rampant in the academy and start to discuss solutions towards forward movement and change that needs to take place in the culture of the academy. There are several layers to what needs to shift in Hollywood that came to light in that moment. And instead of Hollywood taking the time for everyone to do their inward reflection and work and acknowledging that large scale change needs to occur, both of these individuals, Will and Chris (and Jada too), have become scape goats to put the blame on and talk as though they are the only two and make the event about them and their sides of the story (and about Jada’s health struggles) rather than what each element represented and how their actions (or lived experience with alopecia) were simply arrows pointing to much deeper complex issues within the academy that need to change. I actually think that Jada, Will, and Chris are all victims to the toxic culture of Hollywood that they have been doing their best to navigate and fit in, and that that is really what was coming to a head and led to that moment on stage where one individual felt it necessary to use an inappropriate joke and another had finally had enough and choose to stand up against injustice in any way he could think of in the moment in what realistically may have not been the best or most effective approach. Working for years in a toxic environment leads to toxic actions that match with the energy of the environment you are in. It’s the basic psychology of the human experience. The issue here is neither Chris nor Will (though both could certainly grow and act differently in the future), but rather the toxicity of the environment that they both embodied in different ways that day. We also cannot avoid the fact that African-American actors are under certain added pressures when doing their best to fit the environment that the white patriarchy found within Hollywood (and western culture as a whole) creates. As a white individual it would be inappropriate for me to offer an opinion or speculate on what these pressures might be or what the possible impacts of this intersectionality are, but I am certain this has added another layer of difficulty for each of these individuals as they attempt to navigate the work environment and toxic culture of Hollywood. And I would love to hear from voices who do have lived experience that could offer insight and opinions on this topic. I have the utmost respect for all three of these individuals and the work they have done over the years and will continue to do in the future. They are all doing amazing things and I hope this experience does not deter any of them from continuing to move forward and bless the world with their gifts. I would love to see these beautiful folks come together around Jada’s red table and unpack their learnings and experiences in the toxic environment that is Hollywood. I would love to see them use this as an opportunity to come together in unity and identify the real problems and deeper issues that this event just scratched the surface of. To me that would be an extremely powerful thing to see moving forward and I think it would help shed light on the toxic elements of the academy in a way that truly could start to lead towards some very positive changes. There is opportunity here – a sapling ready to sprout from the ashes in order for new growth to take root. |
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Life Coach Practitioner Katelyn Townsend helps individuals like you build enriched lives full of joy. Archives
December 2022
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