A female character is a protagonist if she is central to her story, and her presence is necessary to tell her story. — Webster Dictionary
I love a good female protagonist. I search for them in TV shows and in movies. Not only that, but I hunger and yearn to see female driven stories about women that reflect, relate, and set me on fire. After watching Flea Bag, I spent a few hours reading reviews and looking for a similar show. It was like a sugar craving, and I wanted more now.
I was looking for it outside myself because I was looking for it within myself — I just didn’t realize it at the time. This begs the question, where are you the female protagonist in your life? Sometimes, you are the main character driving the story, the motivations, the action scenes, the drama, the comedy. Sometimes, you may feel like you are influenced by the supporting lead, the villain, or the slapstick best friend that always invokes some crazy ass, unforgettable adventure.
You know what it feels like when your desires, your energy, your agenda is what is sailing your ship. It may have happened for only a blimp of a moment, a blink of an eye, for five minutes, but you cherish it because it was so profound. It was like life was so magical at that moment. What made it so rich and touching was you connecting with your own energy.
I’ve noticed this in my life at times when I make a wish. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, I’m so happy to see my wish come true. This shows up for me as the small wishes like winning a giveaway, running into a friend, being flirted with by someone quite attractive, or over hearing just the words I needed to hear that day. Those moments are filled with sudden magic. The big ones, too.
This can be challenging as a woman because, as all the TV shows and movies will show you, there is always something to be responsible for or to take care of — no matter if that motivation comes from within or outside yourself.
I did a quick search for popular shows in the 60s. I was shocked to see so many male driven television shows. If there was a woman, she was a supporting character, and I think that speaks volumes to some of the programmed expectations women have faced. This has been breaking down over the last five decades. It is not to say that there were no women in incredible roles who clearly owned their character before the 60s like Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, and Judy Garland. They told captivating stories about women from their times, but times have changed. Note: They were very much a creation of the ideal woman from the movie world (and agenda of its own).
The difference is that there are more women wanting to tell their stories, share their vision of their life from their perspective, able to step into the writer’s room and the director’s chair, and I am so hungry to see more of this.
So where are you driving the story in your life? Where do you want to drive the story in your life?
Women can be beautiful, messy, disastrous, funny, loving, adventurous, tragic and so much more. I am grateful for the expansion of being able to go deeper in our story telling about the lives of women. It gives us the ability to see ourselves reflected in the world, and that is a validation — visibility matters.
Digging into the stories we have been told, the stories we tell ourselves — the truth and the lies — is a well worth endeavor as a seeker of one’s self. Dismantling stories old and new, so that you can find yourself as a woman in your truth, well, I’ll be teaching this in January in the Women’s Healing Salon at The Art of the Seer Academy.
I have the wonderful opportunity to close out 2022 binge-watching television. 2022 was a year of big change, and that meant a new rhythm to my life. I’m grateful to have the space to simply enjoy life, do nothing at all if I want, not shower for days (I am not even kidding, and it feels good), eat all the junk foods, and make spur of the moment plans. Some people call this end of the year Dead Week. I just call it time to just be, without, well anything (feel free to insert your word of choice) if you so choose.
Here are a few female driven and lead highlights from this week, month, and a few from the year.
Movies and TV Series
I really enjoyed this series about a woman facing her own death, her journey to acceptance, and her commitment to how things could suddenly change — her stepping into really living her life. This show explores belief, faith, choice, one’s own agenda, other’s agenda, and faces death/life in all its various forms.
I just started this limited series, and to be honest, I’m excited to be watching it because Michelle Yeoh is in it. From the first moment of starting this series, I noticed it is a female-driven show, and I now see why I was instantly excited and committed to watch it. Similarly to how I felt about…..
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Speaking of Michelle Yeoh, this movie. That is all. She’s amazing and the journey of a very responsible woman learning acceptance, without controlling or resisting what it is, with grace and forgiveness is such a healing to witness.
A flight attendant’s life gets turned upside down after she wakes up in a hotel room with a dead man but no memory of what happened.
Killing Eve is an award-winning spy thriller, a cat-and-mouse game between disillusioned intelligence agent, Eve (Sandra Oh), and glamorous assassin, Villanelle (Jodie Comer). Created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag), this dark-comedy-meets-psychological-drama is hailed as “categorically transgressive” and “completely delightful”.
In 1958 New York, Midge Maisel’s life is on track– husband, kids, and elegant Yom Kippur dinners in their Upper West Side apartment. But when her life takes a surprise turn, she has to quickly decide what else she’s good at — and going from housewife to stand-up comic is a wild choice to everyone but her. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is written and directed by Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls).
In the 1950s London, a widowed cleaning lady falls madly in love with a couture Dior dress, deciding she must have one of her own. After working to raise the funds to pursue her dream, she embarks on an adventure to Paris that will change not only her own outlook — but the very future of the House of Dior.
Music
We Fight Giants Together by Bandits on the Run
My good friend and colleague William Pacholski, the creative director of Art of the Seer Academy, sent me this lovely and touching song recently. This band and their music is such a healing. They are a wonderful musical group of women with a vision and message.
“Bandits on the Run hope their music will continue to inspire change and activism, and will ultimately lead people to greater connection with others as well as themselves. Though some tracks on the forthcoming EP take on a darker tone than their past work, the underlying thread of optimism and hope never wavers. In “We Battle Giants,” another single from the EP, Bandits on the Run champion the spirit of their friendship and overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles together. Kevin Cole of KEXP said of the track: “I fell in love… This song is how I want to wake up every single morning, I want to feel this way: uplifted, so enthusiastic, inspiring, empowering; it’s like a battle cry. Man, it’s better than a triple shot of espresso.” As always with this fruitful group of young ruffians, there’s lots more “there” there.” -Bandits on the Run
Confidently Lost by Sabrina Claudio
From the moment I heard her voice, depth, and musical styling, I was in love. Her songs are incredibly touching, vulnerable and beautiful. I found her music on a random playlist in Spotify and certainly don’t regret it.
“The most notable track, is the album’s title, “Confidently Lost”. This is where she identifies herself as being unidentified, fighting against not only the stigma of having to be “defined” in the industry but also in today’s society as a whole. A light blues and jazz record, she discusses her certainty in her imperfection that is extremely rare to be stated so openly to this day. “Constantly evolving, steadily revolving, I am confidently lost. I don’t need you to find me. You don’t define me.” She further rejects the often silent idea of maintaining a level of perfection to others, with the knowledge that it does not exist.” — Play Too Much
Orion’s Belt by Sabrina Claudio
Hypnotic. This song makes me soon and brings so much joy to my heart.
“In “Orion’s Belt”, she discovers the most intimate form of love, one that is mentally stimulating and vulnerable. She expresses how the passion she shares with the other is so strong that it is almost unbearable between them, but that it somehow draws them even closer together.” — Play Too Much Podcast
I love audio dramas, deep thinking, and entertaining podcasts. Here are a few from this year I’ve loved!
“What does it mean to be human? How do we want to live? And who will we be to each other? Each week a new discovery about the immensity of our lives.” — On Being
Krista Trippett writes this wonderful newsletter called “The Pause” which she began this year. In the most recent one, she spoke to pausing, solidarity, and a calling to care. Check it out here.
Audio Dramas
I love audio drama, especially if they are female driven and lead. Here are a few.
“Lydia was perfect, because Soft Voice told her exactly what to do and what to say. But one day, Soft Voice left.” — Qcode
“As an escape from her carefully curated life and dying marriage, Diana secretly runs an erotic website where women reveal their intimate sexual fantasies.” — Qcode
“Tessa Thompson stars as an idealistic young journalist trying to make a name for herself by following a group of paranormal explorers, obsessed with a seemingly harmless pastime known as the Left/Right Game. The journey takes her into a supernatural world that she and the other members of the expedition can neither handle nor survive.” — Qcode
There is a theme here. That is, I love Qcode Media.
Books
Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit
This was a recommendation from my good friend and colleague Kris Cahill, who is the director of the Art of the Seer Training at the Art of the Seer Academy. It is a phenomenal book, I have yet to finish, that brings up so many topics and themes that show up in a woman’s life. You can guess that she isn’t very nonexistent anymore.
“An electric portrait of the artist as a young woman that asks how a writer finds her voice in a society that prefers women to be silent, from the author of Orwell’s Roses
In Recollections of My Nonexistence, Rebecca Solnit describes her formation as a writer and as a feminist in 1980s San Francisco, in an atmosphere of gender violence on the street and throughout society and the exclusion of women from cultural arenas. She tells of being poor, hopeful, and adrift in the city that became her great teacher, and of the small apartment that, when she was nineteen, became the home in which she transformed herself. She explores the forces that liberated her as a person and as a writer–books themselves; the gay community that presented a new model of what else gender, family, and joy could mean; and her eventual arrival in the spacious landscapes and overlooked conflicts of the American West.
Beyond being a memoir, Solnit’s book is also a passionate argument: that women are not just impacted by personal experience, but by membership in a society where violence against women pervades. Looking back, she describes how she came to recognize that her own experiences of harassment and menace were inseparable from the systemic problem of who has a voice, or rather who is heard and respected and who is silenced–and how she was galvanized to use her own voice for change.” — Penguin Random House
Another recommendation from Kris Cahill that I am looking forward to reading in the new year.
“As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.
Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.” — Viola Davis
Visually stunning, with a hint of Alice and Wonderland through the multiverse. I am still in the middle of reading this, but it is fascinating.
“A comic series by Luana Vecchio. A woman running away from a broken heart discovers a mother-key into parallel universes. The rules are: The key can work on any door. The mother will only let you visit 53 universes. Do not ask to speak to the mother. Never hop more than 53 times.” — Image Comics
As She Appears, a Collection of Poetry by Shelley Wong
I stumbled upon a panel at the Portland Book Festival this past fall. I was riveted, inspired, and took down so many notes from the panel she presented with another writer. The focus was on women of color’s voice and their story, presented without apology through poetry.
“In this tender debut, Shelley Wong contemplates the geographic, social, and bodily terrains of womanhood after the end of a relationship. Wong moves as seamlessly through the landscapes of a California marked by fire, an island populated with both non-native and invasive species, and the tidal waves of the ocean, to the interior spaces of a museum, the intimate vulnerabilities of a person discovering their mettle. This quietly daring collection reveals how to find oneself, how to be seen, invoking powerful women along the way. It is through these invocations, meditations, and encounters with both the brilliant worlds of flora and fauna, that the speaker can firmly say ’I choose myself’ and take the reins of her own agency. Never have I traveled on such a gentle but strengthened path.”
In Conclusion
If you made it to the end of this, congratulations! There was so much I wanted to share. As I wrote this, with the accompaniment of heavy rain on my window, and the darkening of the sunset filling my apartment, I listened to Bandits on the Run. This song played, touched me, and is a wonderful way to wrap this up. Take a listen below. Now is the Time.
Now is the Time by Bandits on the Run
Have a great new year!
Now Is The Time — Lyrics
Come a little ways and sing a little prayer with me
Not for some old deity or for a future to be
But for the music that is passing right before us
Blink and you will miss it before you even glimpse it it’s gone
But if you take up the song you’ll hear it echoin on and on.
NOW! is the time for magic
NOW! is the time for listening
And all our heartbeats quickening
For anything, you can think,
Anything that you believe in
NOW! is the moment shimmering
And all our eyes are glistening
And you and I can listen in to
All that happens NOW!
Leave all of your laws your caveats and clauses behind
See what a silence can find — — —
Take in some air before you wear your thin excuses,
You’ll scare the Modern Muses
You could try to find a reason OR Steep in the season of NOW
And be the WHAT not the HOW Don’t take the easy way OUT
NOW! is the time for magic
NOW! is the time for listening
And all our heartbeats quickening
For anything, you can think,
Anything that you believe in
NOW! is the moment shimmering
And all our eyes are glistening
And you and I can listen in to
All that happens NOW!
Choose to sing or not to sing don’t fear being freer
Choose to sing or not to sing don’t fear — you’re here!
NOW! is the time for magic
NOW! is the time for listening
And all our heartbeats quickening
For anything, you can think,
Anything that you believe in
NOW! is the moment shimmering
And all our eyes are glistening
And you and I can listen in to
All that happens NOW!
Is the time for magic
NOW! is the time for listening
And all our heartbeats quickening
For anything, you can think,
Anything that you believe in
NOW! is the moment shimmering
And all our eyes are glistening
And you and I can listen in to
All that happens NOW!
