The Boomers Who Lost Everything — and Took Us Down With Them

They didn’t hoard wealth. They fumbled it. And we, their kids, inherited the chaos, the debt, and the trauma they never faced.

It’s very popular right now to discuss the successful, hoarding Boomer who is keeping all the wealth and continues to acquire more. But I want to talk about the other version: the failed Boomer.

My parents are young Boomers. Both were the eldest children in families with four kids. Although that’s where many of their home life similarities seem to end, they both carry a lot of unaddressed hurt and possible trauma from their own parents. Of course, I only got limited details when I was growing up.

My paternal grandparents were both college-educated. My mother’s family was more blue-collar. My mother was encouraged to go into the workforce and little else, and she did the same with me. My father likely had college expectations put upon him, but I know that for many years he had his sights set on athletics. From what I know of his early life and what I’ve personally experienced as his child, I can say he grew into a person who overcommits and underdelivers. It’s not hard for him to get distracted, disinterested, and divested from projects he once committed to. However, he is charming, suave, and good-looking. He often talked himself out of bad situations by simply being a smooth talker. He was also a drinker, often between one drunk driving accident and the next. Ultimately, he completed some college and entered several blue-collar careers. His mind and body seem to have paid the price.

Despite my mother’s good work ethic, she seethed with anger daily. I only had visitation with her, but her rage left lasting impressions each week. What I wasn’t completely aware of was what her real coping mechanisms were. I thought they were screaming. In my early 20s, she was dealing with an insurance issue and allowed me to do an informal audit of her finances. I calculated that she had over $20k in credit card debt. She insisted that it couldn’t be true. It wasn’t even denial — it was blank obliviousness. She legitimately didn’t understand the results of her actions. For years, I had been told she was poor, though she always worked full-time. From the age of 15, she asked me to begin paying utilities when I stayed with her during the summer. Shortly after I totaled her credit card debt, we entered a rental arrangement together. She abruptly changed the amount she was willing to contribute, even though she made the most. I had newly relocated and was working part-time, and my younger sister was in school and also working part-time. Though I was the most highly educated person in the home, my education didn’t automatically translate to a high salary, and I think this frustrated her.

As they aged, I saw my parents struggle individually, since they divorced early in my life. Their biggest struggle was housing. My father lost a dilapidated house to taxes. My mother was repeatedly priced out of apartments. They both lived with family during different periods until it became intolerable for everyone involved. Eventually, they each settled into toxic relationships where they at least had housing. I didn’t care for either of their partners, but at least they had places to sleep.

Over the last several years, my mother has occasionally mentioned wishing she had bought a house. However, she doesn’t reflect with any specificity, like “I see now how I could have saved during this time and purchased that type of property.” Instead, she speaks as if it were never possible. She has been gainfully employed with the government for nearly 20 years. She’s about to retire with a pension and benefits. Instead of seeing how much power she has, she remains oblivious. If I dare to point out that she spent her money on unnecessary things, she reacts as if I’m speaking another language.

As I got older, I felt like I was screaming into the void as I was guilt-tripped into predatory student loans with double-digit interest rates, denied refinancing, and overworked in jobs that refused to meet basic human needs. Everyone, even a few years older than me, looked down on me, telling me to “try harder” and “hide my emotions.”

Currently, I’m not in contact with either of my parents. Slowly, as lawsuits pile up against for-profit educational institutions, and people wake up to the horror that is government-backed educational loans, and the way housing, education, and food prices have soared while wages stagnated, I’m starting to feel less insane. I thought it was just me. For nearly the first 40 years of my life, I thought my parents were the only failures in their successful generation. My peers had parents who were gainfully employed, with safe cars, well-built homes, full kitchens, toys, clothes, and vacations. My life was built on shaky appearances.

As I began to build my own life, my parents each reacted with a distant, stunned awe. I went through significant hardship, choosing to live with neither of them from age 16 onward. I was homeless on and off, entered sex work shortly after graduating from college, and despite those pieces of my journey, I began working for an Ivy League institution and hosted my own wedding at 32. My husband and I bought property three years into our marriage, even as I freelanced. Though our marriage was fraught with unhealed trauma and addiction, I couldn’t let that prevent us from securing safe housing. I didn’t even have children to consider.

I’m repeatedly faced with how little my parents prepared — not just for their future, but for mine. As a child, you assume your parents are making the best decisions they can. As an adult, you realize how easy it is to ignore the “right” thing and act on a selfish impulse. My parents’ impulses have dictated the course of my life — my relationships, financial state, and who I choose to associate with going forward.

Yes, Boomers overall hold the majority of power and wealth. I see it daily. But I often think about people like my parents. For different reasons, they failed themselves — and by extension, failed their children. Even the things they were given (my father had a preparatory education, free housing, cars, and the property he lost to taxes was paid for by my grandmother; my mother had fewer material privileges but squandered her time and money) were wasted. There was rarely consideration of sharing what they had with their children, even their time.

This isn’t exclusive to my parents. Their siblings also tell stories of instability, addiction, or a refusal to take accountability. In just two generations, we have multiple instances of property loss, suicide, repeated drunk driving, covert abuse, and parents abandoning children.

The growing knowledge that this generation hoarded wealth not just from us, but from each other, is sobering and validating. Because while I do blame my parents for their poor judgment, I also blame the system that exploited their lack of coping skills and fed their addictions. The other Boomers — the ones who “figured it out” — are the ones who have my mother’s decades of squandered money. Instead of acknowledging that, she’s now a Trumper living with a man who doesn’t respect her.

The 2008 version of me is screaming, “I KNEW IT!” over and over. It’s validating to suspect an infestation, get gaslit for years, and finally have an exterminator confirm you were right. But it’s another heartbreak added to the pile I’ve carried growing up — a pile of denial I didn’t want to see. I looked at my parents daily and thought, “You can’t possibly be this stupid, can you?” The anger simmered in me for years as they constantly spewed hypocritical venom about how much money I cost them, while they spent irresponsibly on themselves. I skipped field trips and meals (no money), parties (no car or phone), was rejected by boyfriends (their families said not to associate with the “likes” of me), and I was so angry for feeling ostracized and misunderstood by everyone — peer or adult — that I thought I had autism or a more severe personality disorder. Had I had my own children, I would have drilled my anger into them. That is the recipe for generational trauma.

Instead, I decided long ago that I will not, unless I can safely care for myself, have a child. My nightmare is recreating my childhood for someone else. I couldn’t live with that. As our birth rate declines, I know I’m not alone. There are many reasons people abstain from having children. This is one of them.

If my voice helped yours, you can find more of my work here.

The Boomers Who Lost Everything — and Took Us Down With Them was originally published in CROSSIN(G)ENRES on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When you’re a freelancer, have a trauma condition, and you get burned by a client…it can be massively hard to bounce back

The story I am about to tell occurred well over a year ago.

It has not only taken me that long for me to wrap my head around the situation and learn to progress from it, but also to rectify my anger about the whole thing. Many other freelancers, especially seasoned ones, would likely be able to pick up their business and move on much sooner than that.

I found it nearly impossible, for months on end.

I am an audiobook narrator and voice actor. I find a portion of my work via a platform for indie authors and narrators, managed by Amazon. At the time of meeting a particular client, I had produced and turned in over 35 books through this service, over a five year period.

Many narrators can have a higher haul than 30-something books, over such a timeline. I had largely been a part-time narrator, working a full time “regular” job in my “regular” life. Then, I began transitioning my work into commercial and private voice acting, seeing a better rate of return for my time. Voice performance became about 50% of my overall work in my 5th year. I was justified in upgrading my microphone, software, and hired a coach to help me integrate it all during my workflow.

All that is to say: I was not a complete moron when these clients found me and requested me to audition for their book.

They were a writing duo. Two women, white, British. In the author bio, the first one mentioned she was a new author, but also a songwriter, something called a “bucket-lister,” and she seemed very excited about everything. The other author appeared more experienced, but not substantially so (she also appeared to be indie, unsigned, not previously published). I assumed she was the unofficial editor keeping the structure of the book together.

My surface research showed positive reviews on the book. It was a good sign it had reviews at all. Many solicitations I get are for books that don’t appear to sell and have no following, and the author only wants me to do the job for a stake in future royalties. In short, I have no incentive to narrate a dud project if the author is not offering to pay me any production fee.

If you’re offering to pay me a fee outright, fine. But if you want me to take a chance on book sales, your book has to have promise.

This author duo requested me to do their book, for royalty share only, because they had no budget. They spoke very highly of their book, how many fans they had, and how well it would do. They very much wanted me for my ability to do an American southern accent for the whole of the characters.

So, I had a specific skill set which they wanted. And they were asking me to do their book for no up front fee, on faith of future sales.

See, they had written a period novel, set in 1950’s Alabama. It was categorized as “romance.” The literal subtitle they gave the book called it a “bittersweet story about love.”

I accepted the contract and negotiated a timeline to work around my other projects. The book was fairly standard novel length. 70,000 words?

I’ll save us all some time. Let’s … >> fast forward >>

Over fifty of those 70k words in the text ended up being the word n___er.

There was a rape scene. It was shortly (very shortly) followed by a far-fetched raucous/magical sex scene involving the victim and her new lover, where everything worked out wonderfully.

The only named black character, framed as a possible protagonist in the summary and the first 3rd of the text, is used to elevate the actual main characters’ story… then murdered.

One of the main characters has severe white savior complex. She may have been referred to as an actual angel in the manuscript. I haven’t gone back to check. (Oh wait, she’s also the virgin who gets raped.)

None of this was disclosed to me before I accepted the contract. None of the plot details were noted in the posting on the narration site I booked the gig through, for other narrators to see. Nothing. Zero.

Now, you may be asking yourself: But Ainslie, can’t you review the book before you accept the contract?

Yes, technically I can do that. I have the right to request the full manuscript ahead of time. However, once I have a PDF document that is several hundred pages long, I can only do so much with it in an efficient length of time. I can word-search it to spot check it and see how “hot” the language is (handy for romance books) with words like cock/pussy/cunt, or certain phrases I know to look for.

However, the word “rape” won’t show up in a rape scene…which isn’t that surprising when you think about it. Word searches don’t show you the context of how a uniquely American racial slur from the 1950’s is being overused. Skimming the text doesn’t illustrate the offensive use of character arcs.

Here’s where part of my PTSD begins to poorly affect my decision-making: it is also absolutely within my right and my flexibility to contact the author and/or Amazon and ask them to dissolve the contract based on the new information I have discovered about the manuscript.

And I didn’t do that.

Part of my trauma history is having no one to rely on when I most needed it. I transfer that pain to my own sense of loyalty, and I stick around too long on promises I have made to others, even if it is massively bad for me. In short, I have trouble saying no.

Apparently, this is a normal trait for people with a history of being neglected, and those who form trauma bonds.

Therefore, after I made this series of discoveries about the book, I was going to let it all go. It’s their “art” or whatever, and if they want make themselves look dumb… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I decided to finish it, slap an alternate-alternate pseudonym on this piece of trash, and walk away. As in, a brand new name I was going to pull out of my butt. Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock.

Then, I ran into a personal situation that forced me to relocate my studio equipment into a new space. That was no one’s problem but mine.

The new space, however, was a shared space. In a black family’s home, who have young children. Okay?

I told my new hosts about the book, immediately. Their first reaction was that if someone was using the word that much, they wanted to. They must have a deep need to get it out. But wait. What was the context, anyway? They were deeply curious.

Honestly? It was all over the place. Sometimes, white characters were yelling it at black characters in derogatory ways. Sometimes the black character was using it to describe himself, calmly. Sometimes, white people used it in a benign way towards the black characters. Sometimes, it was said between white people during casual dialogue, seemingly to illustrate what a common-use word it was, for the time.

And honestly, I think it may have been as simple (stupid?) as that. This pair of white non-American people wrote a book set in 1950's southern America, and felt the need to pepper it with a racial slur that was common at the time, simply because they read somewhere that that’s the way people spoke.

However, they gave no thought to whether or not they should do that, if it was necessary, if it added/subtracted anything to the story, or if it was even accurate. Did they interview anyone before writing this? Historians? Researchers? Actual Americans? People who lived through it?

Oh, and considering if the writing was distracting or offensive in the final result. You know. That.

I was confused as to how no reader had been perplexed so far by the content, and commented as much in any review. So, I went back to the postings. And I froze.

Over the course of my accepting the contract and working on the audiobook, the text had apparently been picked up by some additional readers, and even an online book club. It was getting panned on Goodreads.

FFFFFF.

Upon revisiting some of the older, original reviews on the book’s public listings, I noticed many of them briefly mentioned something about “free copy” or “beta reader.” This strongly implies they are friends and family of the authors. Positive reviews stacked up in favor of the text, to impress potential buyers and people like me; to influence us.

We were approaching the final deadline, and the authors reached out to me for “updates,” even though they could actively listen to uploaded completed files on the back-end as they were completed by me. This warned me of general impatience.

Remember, they hired me for $0 up front. They requested me to do their book on faith it would sell, and I would be compensated in the form of royalty payments. In general, communication and understanding of production terms on both ends is the name of the game on contracts such as this one.

In response to their request for "updates,” and no less than several weeks prior to the deadline, I very directly tell the authors that my studio needed to be relocated into a black family’s home. Therefore, for obvious reasons, I need a certain amount of privacy when I record their book due to the explicit content. This limited the hours I could record the material. I saw the production schedule needing to be extended because of this.

They do not address the issue I have brought up at all. They do, however, ask for an exact date when it will be finished. I cannot give an exact date, but I say it will be less than certain amount of time. I may have estimated three weeks.

They do not respond, and therefore I keep working. No one asked me to stop, and they did not tell me the extension was unacceptable. The deadline passed, and no one cut the contract. The authors allowed me to continue uploading audio chapters of their book to the back-end of the platform we were working through, which they could review at their convenience.

Six days past the deadline, I was coldly asked for another update.

I clarified, once again, the very specific and unique circumstances we were in, partially due to their manuscript content. I explained, once again, that all completed material up to this point was already uploaded for their review. Not only did this take care of their “update” question, but gave them something to review. Lastly, I confirmed that the finished project would indeed be delivered within the original window I quoted in my last message, though I cannot give an exact date of delivery (mostly because I am not psychic, and also because the new setup and situation was being adapted to day by day).

My response did not hide that I was a) repeating myself and b) calling attention to the fact that part of the issue was the manuscript content. I expected that to be taken into serious consideration, as I was attempting to problem-solve on my end, on the fly, and to be sensitive to the family who had invited me to work in their home.

The author duo did not like any of this, and took massive offense to it. But, they said nothing to me. I only knew how offended they were because of what came next.

Lets >> fast forward >> again.

Seven days later, when I was one final chapter edit away from finishing the entire book (roughly 24 hours), I received an automated email from Amazon saying my contract with the authors had been dissolved. The project was being removed from my queue. I was no longer responsible for turning it in. It was over.

But.

But I had just spent ten+ weeks of my life struggling over this book. I had moved my studio — in a rush — for this book. I had screamed racial slurs, first in my home and then in a black family’s home, for this book. I had narrated my first (and hopefully only) rape scene. I had recorded over 10 hours of finished, edited audio of this piece of trash. The labor that typically goes into that is x 3, and that’s if things are going well.

Within hours, I was on the phone with Amazon. I was convinced that they could not do this without speaking to me first. According to my trauma-drenched brain, I had put my time into this horrible and offensive project, and therefore I deserved the right to finish it.

In purely logistical terms, the author duo had cleared me to keep working past the deadline without stopping me, after they had been notified of the delay. The official policy on situations like this, according to Amazon, is that nothing needs to be contractually modified as long as “all parties agree” via the private message system. This appeared to have happened when I alerted them prior to the deadline, told them of my studio move, quoted the first delay, and they allowed everything to continue.

Then, when they pressed me for an update later, I reminded them that the manuscript + my recording environment = the same answer they got before. Since they didn’t care for that answer, they decided to flip their shit. They stormed up to Amazon and decided to pull the contract out from under me, making sure I received nothing. I had nowhere to turn anything in and no one to turn it into. It was clear this was a punishment.

Insanely, I found myself arguing in favor of me turning in this racist, horribly written book. All because I had worked so hard to fit it into my life and work schedule over the previous two months, for these two horrible women who were now making it their main mission to hurt me. They had turned me into a cheerleader for their project.

The Amazon rep I was eventually elevated to (after explaining to the first rep that this was not a joke, and I would surely end up in the hospital if they did not reverse this decision) apologized to me over two days worth of phone calls, but said he could do nothing. The decision was made, and he said the authors were “within their rights” to pull the contract because I hadn’t delivered within the original deadline.

I further had the rep clarify that even if I had turned in a completed product just one day late (with the author’s prior approval in the messaging system), that they still could have said “Fuck you,” and pulled the project for any reason, and cited that it was for being late. I had no actual rights, even if I followed Amazon’s stated rules and guidelines.

On the rep’s advice, which I knew was fruitless, I sent the authors an invoice for roughly $30/hr worth of labor, estimating my time spent on the project.

As expected, I heard nothing from them. Except…

The authors wrote about me on their Facebook “fan” pages, as they like to pretend they have a following and try to engage their audience. They claimed I had been difficult or had caused some sort of problem, and they were happy to be rid of me. They claimed they would look for a new narrator immediately. (As of the writing of this essay, there is still no audio release of that novel.)

I, on the other hand, was reeling from the lost time and financial equivalent I had poured into the project. Regardless of the content, I had stuck with the contract and essentially seen it through to the end. The time and energy spent on that, and neglect of other actual work I had on the table at the time, was huge.

I lost at least 15 pounds. Maybe 20. It became difficult for me to shower. I was hugely gun shy in taking new contracts. I blamed myself for not asking enough specific questions.

Should one of my pre-contract questions be “Does this story have rape in it?” which honestly seems nuts to me. I don’t feel like I should have to ask that. And, no. Rape does not appear in most stories. Therefore, the writer should simply divulge it as a plot point up front. In this world where we now have trigger warnings on Instagram posts, how god damn specific do I have to get when I ask a client what type of violence their 100k-word novel contains? They’re the ones who wrote it. They should disclose these type of plot points in the full summary, the same way they should make requests for accents and dialects.

More than that, honest answers will not follow other types of subjective questions like: Is this book racist? Is this book edited properly? Is this book confusing for the reader? Does the narrative flow properly? Are you an experienced writer?

This is often what comes next:

MY BOOK IS ZOMGAMAZING. IT’S WAS TOP 10 ON AMAZON IN ITS FIRST 4 HOURS ON SALE. ALL MY BETA READERS (parents) LOVE IT. I’M DOING SO MUCH PROMO FOR MY BOOK IT WILL SELL SO MANY COPIES PROMISE. IT HAS “VIOLENCE” I GUESS BUT IT’S NECESSARY TO THE STORY. I HAVE 50GAZILLION TWITTER FOLLOWERS AND I DIDN’T BUY ANY OF THEM FOR $75 i SWEAR.

Here’s another question you may be asking yourself: Hey again Ainslie, why don’t you just read the stupid book before you say yes? Wouldn’t that save you a lot of pain and aggravation?

Yes. But it wouldn’t save me precious time.

If I literally read every book (or book series) that was offered to me to narrate, I would spend a significant amount of time reading books that I won’t ever take to contract. Time that no one is compensating me for.

Instead, I try to spend my time working for commercial clients, making actual money. Or, I work outside performance jobs, unrelated to voice acting (but again, for actual money). Or I’m marketing my businesses, cleaning my home, doing my laundry, or sleeping. I’m not negotiating in vain with would-be clients with no money and terrible manuscripts.

But Ainslie, wouldn’t you get some pleasure reading/screening some of these books?

Actually, no. No, I would not. Most of these books are written by very inexperienced people, and are not good. And I wouldn’t be reading them for pleasure. I would be reading them for the reasons we’re discussing. Content. Proofing. That’s not pleasurable. Therefore, I need the writers to be candid and clear when pitching their project to me. It will save us all a lot of time.

Hiding the true nature of their content, giving me a deceptive sales pitch, and making their book look better than it actually is, makes everyone’s lives more miserable and complicated. Don’t you hate when you buy a product, only to get it home and realize it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to?

#metoo

As I was coming to terms with this entire situation, particularly as I spoke more with the Amazon rep, it became abundantly clear to me what kind of passive position I was in as a narrator. It wasn’t just the platform and the format in which I was working, but with my career as a whole.

I was at the mercy of too many other people when it came to being given material that I was about to put my name and voice on. Although I had told myself I was okay with being a romance narrator, I often had no idea how truly X-rated a manuscript was until after I was hired. This made it almost impossible to manage the direction of my brand and choose the quality of the work I did.

I nearly had a panic attack when I had the sudden, stark realization that I had ended up as a sex worker for the second time in my life, just a very different type than I had been before. And this time, it had happened without me even realizing it. But… that ball of yarn is another story for another time.

To remedy the situation, I almost totally stopped working on the Amazon platform in question. I greatly backed away from audio books, as a whole. I restructured how I approached my audio work, and how I wanted to make my money as a voice actor.

I now mostly do freelance commercial work, which is non-erotic.

I am grateful this experience helped me further define myself as a business owner and performer. It highlighted the huge confidence gaps I had in my career, where I wasn’t valuing myself properly, asking the right questions, or telling people what I needed. For all that, I can be glad that it occurred.

However, being put through these experiences, as someone with PTSD, is massively debilitating. I am preoccupied with vengeance, and get distracted by the fact that these people don’t seem to understand what they did, either to me with this contact, or with their book material as a whole.

I lost days to this circus of a situation in the days that followed the contract cancellation, possibly weeks. It brought back my dormant condition of anorexia, because I was rapidly losing control of a situation and began to panic. I still have not regained the weight (nor do I plan to, honestly), and my first meal of the day often comes after 2pm. Old habits die hard.

But, as I touched on, there is good coming from such a major mental health relapse such as this one. This was not the only severely negative thing that happened for me last year, nor the only relationship that fell apart. I was able to turn many of these situations inwards as I was breaking down, and reflect on them with my medical team.

Why do these patterns happen? How do I habitually deal with them? How are my thoughts and behaviors different or similar to how they were 10 years ago, and what have I learned?

I have mostly reached a point where I have left this experience behind me, roughly 18 months later. I have visited a few of their social media accounts a few times — a bad habit of mine when leaving traumatic relationships — and it is clear they hold themselves in a very fragile place, in terms of needing validation and thinking they are victims. They often post memes about mental health, supporting fellow women and respecting different people, and other things that directly contradict the entire interaction that I had with them.

It’s blood boiling.

Some of my other relationships that moved out of my life around the same time involved people I knew in “real life” saying very genuine-sounding things to my face in moments of crisis, then backpedaling at a later time. Why? They couldn’t keep up the façade of being a sweet, caring person all the time. More importantly, it wasn’t who they really were. Other people are better at keeping up that façade all the time, but in private interactions, they can’t fake it.

The authors were the latter. But on their public platforms? They’re pretty good at looking likable, liberal, open-minded, fun, free-spirited (They’re just also bad at marketing and have no talent, so they’re not actually popular). They just can’t maintain it in one-on-one situations, particularly when problems come up. Which is why I got shoved off the way I did.

What these two groups of people have in common is the trait of two-faced misrepresentation in order to get what they want. Personally, I have found myself hugely confused by people like this, as I can’t understand who they really are or what they want.

My PTSD seems to curb my ability to read subtle cues, such as subtext. I don’t know what people are really trying to say if they don’t come out and say it. When people like these authors come through my life, I tend to get more linear and matter-of-fact the more confusing and aggressive the situation gets. This almost always angers the people I’m dealing with, or results in gaslighting. Ex. “That’s not what’s happening! What are you even talking about?”

I now realize it’s likely because my problem-solving approach is an attempt to cut through the veils of bullshit, which otherwise takes away their power. And that’s all these people have. That’s why they get furious, and in turn often try to punish me.

I get fired. My things get taken away. My money gets stolen.

In my work, at this time in my life, I feel most lucky to have stayed independent. I do not have an agency or a manager. That means I control where I go and what I do. For me, this is what is working best right now, and for my trauma history. For some, it may sound counterproductive to isolate myself from people, since I obviously have trust issues.

Essentially what I’m illustrating, though, is this dangerous and accidental setup in the world of certain personality types instinctively taking advantage of those of us with trauma background who do not instinctively know how to protect ourselves. We have to take time to learn.

And until I have certain skills under my belt, I had to pull back from certain projects, some platforms, particular career paths, and certain communities. I’ll keep reaching back out as I grow more, and become more prepared.

I hope you can, too.

Ainslie Caswell is too many things, including a voice actor, writer, and creative model. Visit her at www.ainsliecaswell.com.

PTSD + bad client experiences was originally published in Invisible Illness on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I first wrote this piece in 2016, I didn’t know how many times we’d circle back to the same battles over women’s bodies, safety, and choices. I was writing from my own survival story — but the truth is, the system keeps recycling the same script.

With conversations about Project 2025, reproductive rights, and the push for ‘traditional’ households back in the headlines, this essay feels more relevant than ever. We can’t let these cycles convince us that silence or shame are our only options.

I’m resurfacing this work not because it’s comfortable — but because it’s still urgent. Sept 2025

Since Mike Pence visited the Richard Rodgers theatre on November 18th, there has been feedback that the Hamilton cast, and namely Brandon Dixon, should not have offered a now infamous post-curtain speech. Dixon concisely expressed that certain people, many of whom were on stage, were “alarmed and anxious” that the incoming administration does not represent and will not protect the rights and interests of certain groups of people in this country. Then, he thanked Pence for coming to the show and listening to their story and their message.

Internet comment threads (which no one should be reading, unless you’re in the market for an aneurism) are rife with “shut up and sing” and “get back to performing,” which all feel a bit reminiscent of the Dixie Chicks backlash of 2003. A CNN commentator even called the Hamilton theater-goers and cast members the de-throned New York elites who were out of touch with mainstream America, which all seemed to negate the Dixon’s concerns in her eyes.

Trump himself has called for an apology. He has also uttered this piece of delicious irony:

I don’t pretend to be a political commentator. Before the election results, I very nearly wrote an piece about the ethics of Trump converting his voters to television viewers for what was certain to be the Trump TV network. Shows you what I know.

However, what I do know is theatre. Those who are in denial about art intersecting with politics are highly mistaken about where their art is coming from, or how it came into existence.

Art is politics

Whether it’s sculpture, wall carvings or music, art has a motivation. It’s often telling a story or making a statement. Many times, those stories or statements are rooted in politics.

When art is used on the political side, as it often is, it’s called propaganda. Roman emperor Hadrian used buildings and even a large nearly functionless wall (sound familiar?) as propaganda. Neil Faulkner for the BBC says, “There seems little doubt that the wall, like other great Roman frontier monuments was as much a propaganda statement as a functional facility.” He goes on to say about the art depicted on structures and buildings erected at the time: “Through images on fresco, mosaic and sculpted panel, it promoted a cultural identity and shared values.”

Examples of politically infused art in the time of the American revolution are hard to come by, as Morgan Sumrell points out here. However, Sumrell make the ever-important point, “More often than not, a painting not only depicts the scene of a historical event, but also reflects the personal opinions of the artist in relation to the scene depicted.”

There are clearer examples of how artists feel about politics and war in paintings like Guernica (Picasso), The 2000 Yard Stare (Lea), and Self Portrait Along the Boarder Line Between Mexico and the United States (Kahlo). And do we even need to touch on modern street artists like Banksy?

“More often than not, a painting not only depicts the scene of a historical event, but also reflects the personal opinions of the artist in relation to the scene depicted.” — Morgan Sumrell

And finally, performance art is deeply political. Many examples can be seen of anti-establishment and protest music in the last century (Baez, Lennon, Dylan to name only a few). Greek playwright Aristophanes is one of the earliest known political satirists, writing a play criticizing a war general. Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator is a parody of Adolf Hitler, shining a light on the absurdity and inhumane aspects of the Nazi party. These are only some of the more obvious and highly visible examples in history. To delve into the depths of political stage and print satire, unity and protest songs, all the way to subtle examples in contemporary art and pop music would take up the rest of your holiday season. I’ll spare you.

All of this is to say, art has always been influenced by politics. Sometimes, it’s even commissioned by politics. And when that is the case…

When you consume someone’s art, you consume their politics

The ticket price to Hamilton includes asking to hear Lin-Manuel Miranda’s stance on many issues, not the least of which is certain political opinions. The show is rooted in America’s political history (that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone), but written in the style of contemporary hip-hop and features a cast which doesn’t necessarily adhere to what you saw in your third-grade textbooks.

Did you expect this show to be devoid of personal opinions or political leanings?

Art has messages. Those messages come from the person who created the art.

First and foremost, pieces of art such as Hamilton were never masquerading as something other than what they are: artistic presentations which have political statements held within.

Second, I’m perpetually confused how someone can readily consume the personal words and music of a human being who writes about life experiences, heartbreak, struggles, pain, joy, and everything in between (including opinions), all for the public’s personal enjoyment… but the second an opinion pops out that someone does not agree with or didn’t anticipate to hear, there is a move to silence the artist.

There is less outcry when songs like Born This Way, Where Is The Love, Same Love are released. This appears to be because the message isn’t “hidden.” It thematically smacks you right in the face. However, there is occasional uproar when, for example, a singer employs a metaphor that someone finds offensive, because the buying public seems to take their words literally and not allow any sort of allowance for artistic intent.

There is refusal or resistance to look for meaning behind the words for what they represent, or listen to why the artist used the words a certain way. Why did they use a certain image in their artwork or music video to represent an idea? No one cares. Consumers have begun to favor literalism only, and it is unfortunate the artist has to answer for it.

Art comes as a package, and it’s also multi-dimensional. Only seeing it one way is short-sighted at best. There is a reason artists tend to say that their “blood, sweat and tears” went into their art. There is a reason actors say “leave it all out on the stage.” It’s because pieces of you get left behind in the art. As a consumer, you pick up pieces of the artist you may not even realize are there. Their opinions, sensibilities and political leanings are included in that messy package.

If that makes you uncomfortable, that’s part of the package, too.

This country isn’t done being created

I had an epiphany as I was reading about how the Hamilton cast recalled that Pence was observed enjoying the play, laughing and smiling through the production. The show is peppered with references to strength in immigration and diversity. It seemed Dixon’s rational conclusion in his speech was that Pence would take some of the messages in the show he had just seen and (maybe? perhaps?) apply it to his outlook of the current-day America. This was Dixon’s plea to Pence.

“We’re finally on the field, we’ve had quite a run. Immigrants: we get the job done.” — Hamilton and Lafayette, “Yorktown” from the musical Hamilton

However, the rally call of many Trump supporters has been a sentiment of “we’re going take our country back.” The Trump slogan itself is Make American Great Again.

This results in several questions. When was the country “great”? Who are you taking it back from? When was this time you keep harkening back to, and what exactly did it look like?

However, those are the wrong questions, which are inflammatory and often lead to accusation of racism and sexism. The answers to those questions don’t matter, surprisingly.

There is a distinct reason why someone like Mike Pence can sit and watch a musical like Hamilton. He can laugh and smile, nod his head and tap his foot along with the music. He agrees that those immigrants got the job done. He agrees that they built this great nation.

The disconnect is that he (and millions of others, apparently) think that at some point in the past, those people finished the job. We’re not exactly sure when that point was. To be honest, I’m not sure they know either, which is why the answers to those aforementioned questions is moot. The issue is that because they think that job was “finished,” they believe that system may as well come to a grinding halt and get frozen in time in order to benefit all of those people who “finished” it.

Growth, in their eyes, only comes in terms of, say, a GDP number. It does not comes in terms of rights for marginalized groups, women, the poor, or anyone else who wasn’t notably recognized as a person before they finished the job. Progress after that point seems unnecessary to someone like Mike Pence. Why in the world wouldn’t we just focus on the GDP growth of the finished system? Duh.

Anyone who sees America as a completed cake will ask why us wacky artists and progressives keep adding more frosting and decorations. “JUST STOP ALREADY!” they keep screaming. “IT’S DONE!”

But a country isn’t like a cake, Mike Pence. You don’t mix some ingredients together, bake it for a while, top it off with some extra stuff, then call it a day and show it off to everyone and put it under glass (then destroy it after a special occasion).

A country (nay, a society) is an ever-evolving ecosystem which is constantly growing, petering off in certain areas, and regenerating. Did I mention changing? We’re always changing.

I believe Ana Marie Cox said it very clearly on election night when she was interviewed by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show:

“I’m trying to make a very fine distinction between people who actively are racist, actively are sexist, and something a little different, which is I think what happened. Which is people, mainly white men, experiencing… the kindest way to say it would be: nostalgia for an America that is gone and that will not come back. And Donald Trump told them he could bring it back.”

Nothing is finite, and nothing may be a better example of that than art.

Ainslie Caswell is a writer and playwright, experimenting with her writing on Medium. She is finishing a book about the year of her life spent as an exotic dancer. Visit her at www.ainsliecaswell.com.

Art Is Political was originally published in The Coffeelicious on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

late June, 2016

(In case you missed it… Part 2)

The launch party being hosted by the theater happens in excess of three weeks before the beginning of the actual one-act festival. There is a fair amount of ceremony just for ceremony’s sake. We are told to dress “red-carpet-ready.” There are some awards being given out to notable New York actors, which seem to be for recognition only. We like you, here’s an award.

I am arriving at this event only slightly irked about my experience with the process so far. I am irritated with my director because I seem to be responsible for doing his reservation errands, asking the cast myself to supply minor props and costume pieces, and he is treating this experience like a workshop rather than a festival project for which he’s being monetarily compensated.

I have driven into NYC for the event. I changed my clothes and did my makeup in Connecticut. I hope I don’t look like it. I don’t plan on staying the night, and I’m unsure how long all of this will go on for. I have to do a very brief on-camera interview with the director as soon as I get there, then hang around for over and hour before the event begins. The city is hot, and I hope I don’t melt.

This event is not free, so no members of our cast are here. Here’s something I wasn’t aware of: my director is also directing a second play in the festival. Perhaps that’s why he can’t keep things straight and wants to simply eliminate anything that he finds difficult…but I digress. In the throng of people, he has that other director and accompanying cast member to talk to. I am mostly by myself.

Truly, I am at this launch event to prove that I have a right to be here. I have felt a little taken advantage of by the process and the person I chose to direct my play. Looking presentable, being personable, submitting a quality video, and being humble will be my revenge against both my director and my own self-doubt. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s part of my agenda.

I can do this, and I can be here.

The interview is fine. The “host” slightly mispronounces my first name, even after giving her some prep. It’s not a huge problem.

There is a screening of a series of “trailers” or “video diaries” that fourteen of the twenty-nine plays have opted to submit. There is voting for the best one, and there will be a prize at the end of July. I made a video for our piece. My director chose his own brother to make a video for the second show he’s directing.

The video for my play are some shots of a cafe, and voice over by me. I inserted some talking-head vlog style videos from three of the actresses in the play. I would have liked the other actors to submit as well, but they did not. The video clocks in at 3 minutes. It’s shown first in the lineup. The artistic director later tells me he put it first because he liked it the best. Validation #1.

My director’s other show has video of the rehearsal, him giving direction, interviews with the writer and two cast members that leaves lots of space above their heads and off to the right or left, and no captions that I remember, other than at the beginning and end (which listed my director once on his own title card, and the “filmmaker” twice, both times with his own title card).

I realize that self-importance runs in the family.

During the award portion, the theater presents an award to Chapman Roberts. I would be lying if I said his speech wasn’t moving. Among other things he said, “Art changes the world, not politics.” With a nod to Hamilton, he says that art has, in various and extensive ways, shaped the way we see and understand things in the world (historically, socially, and politically).

During the mixer, where food and drinks are served, I don’t know anyone in the room besides my eager-to-eat director. He is flying around the food and mostly conversing with his other playwright. When he makes his way to me, he says he liked my video, and I know he isn’t lying because he sounds surprised by his own admission. I say I liked his brother’s video as well. I wonder what he would have said if my video had come out poorly.

He suggests we pose on the step-n-repeat. We do, and he takes a strong stance. I instinctively squish in next to him with my right shoulder behind his torso. The photographer tells us to get in closer, which seems to make me even smaller. I don’t consider until afterwords that women always do this in photos. We shrink behind the larger objects or people.

I begin talking to a one-man playwright/actor with the festival, which is the reason he doesn’t know anyone there. He constructed and submitted his own piece, and performs it by himself. We seem like two of the only people who are by ourselves, and we inevitably bond over this. We get drinks at an Upper East Side bar after the mixer.

Even after I suggest he needs to get out of his lackluster relationship, he seems genuinely flattered that I chose to spend time with him. He sends me a very complementary email later than night, saying, “ I really am impressed so much by your story and your play.” Validation #2, especially because it genuinely seems like he doesn’t want to sleep with me.

When all is said and done, I didn’t connect with anyone at the mixer besides this one-man-show performer, and my own director. I did briefly introduce myself to the theater’s artistic director, but he already knew who I was. All my business cards are still intact in my wallet.

The event was not a waste of time. I was able to do a little promotion for my show (via the video), meet another artist, and was able to view the other show videos to get a pulse on the content of the rest of the festival. I also got to be genuinely inspired by Chapman Roberts, a man I have not heard of before this evening.

He told us to create. Don’t let various things hold you back. He said our art is real, even if it’s not real or right for everyone else.

“If it’s right to you,” he said, “it’s right.”

Continue to Part 4…

Ainslie Caswell is a fledgling writer and playwright, experimenting with her writing on Medium and Twitter. She is finishing a book about the year of her life spent as an exotic dancer. Visit her at www.ainsliecaswell.com.

Producing a NYC Festival Play was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.