DramaLit Blog 1.0: BU School of Theatre

In a rush to check my morning e-mail, something stopped me: an add on my yahoo news about an American Apparel ad campaign scandal. Until the moment I read that article I didn’t believe that owning a pair of American Apparel leggings and being a feminist were facts about myself that would, on this fateful day, conflict.

American Apparel issued a contest, “The Next Big Thing,” to inaugurate their new “plus size” line of clothing. Expanding their line to include sizes above 12 (keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that the average American woman is, in fact, a size 12…thus 12 is not an enlarged size).  An excerpt from the campaign reads: “Calling curvy ladies everywhere!… [and] those of us who need a little extra wiggle room where it counts,We’re looking for… curvaceous bods to fill these babies out. If you think you’ve got what it takes to be the next XLent model, send us photos of you and your junk to back it up… We’ll select a winner to star in your own bootylicious photoshoot.” (American Apparel Can’t Take a Fat Joke by Alexander Abad-Santos)

As you may have guessed, some “plus sized”  women took issue with this request and one, Nancy Upton, decided to do something about it. Fearful that many women would end up objectifying themselves, Upton determined to take matters into her own hands. She entered the contest, hired a professional photographer and proceeded to address what she felt was a contest that mocked her size by mocking the contest itself. Upton commissioned high fashion shots of herself devouring and bathing in various foods, in an attempt to prove to the company that, in her words, “I can be fat and I can be beautiful. The two are not mutually exclusive.” (ABC News: Consumer Report 09/15/2011)

Upton won the popular vote for her photographs, but the company refused to name her the winner, citing the fact that Upton had ignored the spirit of the contest and ignored the positive facets of the campaign. But Upton said she considered her endeavor successful because she had “provoked discussion and promoted awareness about the depiction of plus-sized women in the media.” (ABC News: Consumer Report 09/15/2011)

Herein lies the connection to the theatre that this article incited in me, that Upton sought to provoke discussion about a raw question she had. She could have addressed this question in a quieter way. A more “appropriate” way. She could have written a letter to American Apparel. But that has been done, and what discussion would have developed from a letter? None. What publicity? By choosing the provocative route, Nancy Upton has forced the media to deal with an uncomfortable and unanswered question– We raised this question in our class– Why aren’t we asking questions that we don’t have the answers to? My dream is that as theatre artists we can be this aggressive (as aggressive as Upton) in our work so that the questions we are asking expand beyond the parameters of the institutions we are working within.

Thank you, Nancy Upton!