Today has been a bit weird.
I'm watching Star Trek (the reboot movie).
I own it and have watched it about ten times since it came out.
So one of my favorite people in the blogosphere is the author of the blog The Rotund. I am also her friend on LJ and lately we’ve been getting to know each other a bit. And today’s post is one that really hits close to home and is, I think, very worth reading. Here it is for your reading pleasure.
In the past several years, as I’ve gotten closer to my goal of becoming an opera singer, I’ve frequently come up against people who informed me that I would have to be a smaller size or risk not ever being hired. Generally these warnings were made in kindness and worry for my future, but they always established that this was the status quo, and I was not supposed to challenge it. But despite the fact that part of me despaired of ever being thin enough to be considered employable, I never gave up my dreams of being an opera singer. I have always held that hope, and now I think I finally understand why.
Hope is important. Especially for those of us who have been battered and bruised by life, who may appear cynical sometimes but really just fear to voice our dreams and hopes to those who might judge us for them, or try to reinforce the status quo by telling us how impossible those hopes and dreams are. More than ever, it’s important for me to hold on to that dream of becoming an opera singer, because despite the stereotypes most people have, there are very few fat women in American opera these days (in an attempt to keep up with cultural ideals of beauty, mostly) and not that many in other countries either. And visibility, in every area, in every kind of job, including the arts, is important for every minority. Fats, women, people of color, homosexual people, transgendered people, everyone who is marginalized or otherwise oppressed by the current dominant culture. The more we’re known, the more our voices are heard, the further we can go down the path of being accepted.
So I will never give up the dream of being an opera singer. Hope is important. It’s something we have to hold onto, even when everything else seems lost.
MirrorMe 