The Eye of The Beholder

When I moved to the Los Angeles area from Silicon Valley almost seven years ago, my main purpose was to work for a specific entertainment company that I had been a fan of for my entire life (and I achieved that goal, thank you for asking). However, one of the perks of moving to a place like LA was that I had it my mind that I would be far less likely to be bandying about with romance. The idea was to literally set myself up in a place where it was almost ridiculously difficult to get a date due to the image issues for which the area is renowned, and therefore would force me to concentrate on more important things; things like developing a real career, perhaps finishing school, doing some respectable performing and maybe even finding out who I really am now that I would be away from those who spent my lifetime telling me who that was.

For the most part, LA didn’t fail to deliver the absurd constraints of image related judgment that I had expected. Conversely, I do get hassled less here than I did in Silicon Valley, about my appearance, but it is obvious that most of the people I run into wish I fit the “beautiful people” stereotype of the community a bit better.

Case in point, when I was reviewed for a show I was in a couple of years ago, the reviewer gave me high praise (the highest of the cast), but couldn’t help but inject a comment about my weight. “Sunny brings life to the evening whenever she is onstage, throwing both her considerable physical and psychological weight into each of several hilariously fleshed out characters…” When I sent out the entire review to my friends and family, very few were not fiercely upset as to the fact that my size was so brazenly insulted. I had to remind them that in a place like this, for that reviewer to find a fat woman entertaining had to have been somewhat of a surprise and therefore more respected. I didn’t find his comment to be insulting so much as to say, “This big woman kicked ass and took names. I didn’t need her to be a size 2 and perfect to find her work exciting.” Maybe that’s putting a sugar coating on it, but I’m okay with that if it is.

Going to the gym in LA has its lion share of image weirdness, particularly the one CB and I frequent. Unlike the 24 Hour Fitness (that closed at midnight, oddly enough) up North, our gym is packed to the rafters with sweaty, panting, young and hot entertainment industry folks. Considering that the gym is located within five miles of several major studios, this was hardly unexpected. But unlike a good deal of my experience with Los Angeles, this is one of the places that borders on the comically stereotypical of what you would expect of a gathering of Hollywoodians to be. Every conversation somehow turns to industry networking. Being about as little of a “player” in the entertainment business as one can possibly be, it is always funny to listen to people make themselves more important than they really are, in hopes that if they keep talking, their audience will somehow lend them a hand in making their fantasy a reality. This particular brand of the LA cliché is often amusing, but mostly just sad.

The other night, sitting in the Jacuzzi after a particularly brutal but rewarding work out, a man who could have been in his late thirties, but obviously had done some “hard living” and looked closer to fifty made his way into the tub with his hyper-clingy (and I believe heavily drugged) girlfriend. The nauseatingly oversexed pair settled in with CB, two young gentlemen and myself and he immediately began schmoozing while his moll made sure to smother him in PDAs to ensure that CB and I don’t get any crazy ideas about her “catch”.

Now, this incident was certainly not the first of the schmoozing kind, but it was certainly the most transparent. It was clear that whoever this man was (he looked familiar but not familiar enough to place) hoped to do some serious networking. Too bad he wound up in the hot tub with an attorney, a newbie of two weeks to both LA and the biz, an animation color stylist and an ex-secretary. As he made his way around the circular bubbling brew of potential connections, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him. I would be the last of the tubmates to interrogate and I assumed that I had the least to offer in terms of what he seemed to be seeking. Apparently, I was wrong.

After a quick couple of exchanges, he actually managed to size me up fairly well as someone who enjoys wordplay and suggested that I quit doing whatever it is that I have been doing for a living and try my hand at writing. I said, “I am a writer. In fact I’m writing a one-woman show about being a big woman searching for love in a place like Los Angeles.”

I had expected, based on his friendly demeanor, for the schmoozer's response to be something supportive without being condescending and for the subject to be dropped. Instead, the response he delivered up, as his lady friend smothered his head in kisses while sitting with her legs wrapped around his neck, was, “I’ll take you on!” About that time, a young, handsome black man was entering the Jacuzzi and settling in where the attorney had vacated. Picking up on the conversation, he chimed in, “I love big women! The bigger the woman, the bigger the love.” The two men began waxing poetic, in earnest, about the joys of large women. So much so, in fact, I actually felt uncomfortable and I could see that CB was more than a little miffed when words like, “I hate skinny women” began to fly. She is, after all, a very thin woman.

I politely laughed off the advances and made a foolhardy mistake in attempting to point out the folly of their assumption that all big women are big lovers. I have known too many big women who are just as selfish and steeped in angry insecurity as a starved starlet may be. They were disinterested in hearing that the stereotype, albeit a wobbly attempt at being somewhat sycophantically approving, was wrong; even if it was coming from the horse’s proverbial mouth. It was about that time that I noticed CB’s temperature rising from the anti-thin sentiment brewing, and with my fingers and interest in the conversation growing more clammy by the minute, I motioned to CB to go.

Once we were safely out of earshot, back in the locker room I turned to CB and said, “You know what I find funny about that entire conversation?” Still angry at being inadvertently ostracized, she shot me a sharp, “What?!” To which I said, “Even though they fancied themselves to be fans of the fat chick, they still assumed that I had not found the love I was seeking. I never said I didn’t find it, but they assumed I hadn’t. Interesting isn’t it?” She agreed, but I could tell that her feeling of having been insulted was of more interest to her at the time.

As we were leaving, the black man who had been extolling the virtues of big women happened to be standing by the reception desk. I shot him a brief smile and made my way out. When we were clear of the door, CB pointed out that she shot him a dirty look and wagged her finger at him in disapproval. It hurts her just as much to feel judged about being model thin, as I have for being the exact opposite. I try to soothe her spirits when these instances arise, but her anger is bigger than me. She has not yet reached a place where she accepts that practically everyone suffers from some sort of stereotyping. She hasn’t fully absorbed the calming knowledge that almost everyone has had some reason to be alienated, ostracized and / or ridiculed and that she can choose to blow off someone not finding her attractive as nothing more than a matter of taste and leave it at that. I understand how she feels. It took me over a decade to get to a place where I am not engulfed in rage every time an attractive man looks at me like I am a mountain of rotting meat.

Beauty, sexiness, attraction, hotness and even disgust… it is all very much in the eye of the beholder. That leaves me to wonder... whom do I wish to behold me as hot other than myself? When I think of wanting to be sensual, sultry and lovely, should I also concern myself with who my audience may be? Maybe so… maybe so.