I don’t often do much out of my comfort zone, especially around people I don’t know as well. My friends know me to be outspoken, and I can be, but it is usually only when I am at least 75% comfortable it will not be met with much backlash, unless I am really frustrated about whatever it is someone is saying-and then all bets are off. The outrageous act I did wasn’t huge, but it was pretty memorable for me since I decided to speak out in a setting, I wasn’t entirely comfortable in.

I was sitting in my Film and TV Production class on a Thursday night about two weeks ago, and we got our new groups for our final group project. We were handed our assignment, and told you come up with a dream sequence. So, this could be anything as long as it makes sense that the student sleeping in class in the film was the one dreaming it. Our entire group was running blanks but did have minimal ideas. I suggested maybe either a comedic or dark twist on a Disney princess story or something, but that wasn’t something we wanted to do. A kid in my group suggested we do maybe Snow White, but have a guy playing the part of Snow White because it would be funny.

This made me uncomfortable. It may not seem like a big deal, but with society going in the right direction where gender doesn’t matter as much, you can be who you want, I didn’t want anything to come off in a negative way and I really didn’t want the fact that a man was dressed up as Snow White to be the comedic punch line. I thought that may be a slap in the face and come off as saying this is funny, it isn’t real, guys please don’t do this-type of a thing. They talked for about 30 seconds to a minute before I interjected and said that I am not comfortable doing a film like that because I don’t want that to be the punch line, and I explained why like I just did above. This was met with sighs and looks that said, “why does this matter” and “why is this offensive” and an actual spoken “but it is still funny”. Only one other person in my group, (mind you, my entire group is guys besides me), didn’t seem to have a problem that I said something about it, and seemed to understand where I was coming from. He didn’t really say anything, but I could sense from his body language and facial expression that he didn’t have a problem with what I said speaking out and he just went on to trying other ideas. The other two guys in my group, while one just had looks of being annoyed on his face, the other kept saying how it would be funny and how it won’t come off the way I am saying it might. So, I explained then let’s find a way that we can create it and ensure that it doesn’t come off as the guy dressed as Snow White is the punch line. Once I said that, we just moved on to our other ideas, because they didn’t want to put in that work.

For me personally, I was very proud of myself that I said something. The group’s ideas were going into a territory that I didn’t want them to go in and I didn’t want to be a part of anything like that or create anything that could maybe hurt people. I felt very relieved right after saying it initially, yet also very anxious, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I know it has taken me awhile to get here, with my anxiety especially hindering me when I feel the need to say things or speak out, but this showed me that I don’t have to be afraid anymore to speak out. That I should just do it, and maybe, like this time, it’ll end for the better. I wasn’t too concerned with the backlash I got back from group members and their discomfort because I decided that I wasn’t going to care about that anymore because it is really important to me to only make content I can fully support and that includes everyone and won’t be something possibly offensive.

I know now going forward that while I will always have anxiety when doing outrageous acts, it is worth it in the long run. I have always wanted to just be able to speak out, since I was in high school, and now I feel like I actually can and since I did this one thing I will be more comfortable doing more in the future.

****This essay is inspired by Gloria Steinem’s book Transforming Politics pages 382-393, particularly the part about outrageous acts.****