Well.
I call my publicist back.
Because I just don’t know about this. I mean, I’m concerned now.
I come from a very large, very competitive family. Extremely competitive. And by competitive, I mean, my mother says we’re not allowed to play Scrabble anymore when we get together because of the injuries and the tears. One of the rules in my family is you don’t ever get a trophy for participation, you don’t get a trophy for just being you. So getting an award today BECAUSE I’m a woman and an African-American feels . . .
I was born with an awesome vagina and really gorgeous brown skin.
I didn’t do anything to make either of those things happen.
To get all Beyoncé about it, people: “I woke up like this.”
Seriously.
I know this isn’t an award because I’m a woman or BECAUSE I’m African-American. I know that it’s really about breaking the glass ceiling that exists in the face of being a woman and being black in this very male, very white town.
But I haven’t broken through any glass ceilings.
“Do they know I haven’t broken through any glass ceilings?” I ask my publicist.
He assures me that I have. I assure him that I have not.
I have not broken through any glass ceilings.
If I had broken through any glass ceilings, I would know.
If I had broken through a glass ceiling, I would have felt some cuts, I would have some bruises. There’d be shards of glass in my hair. I’d be bleeding, I’d have wounds.
If I’d broken the glass ceiling, that would mean I would have made it through to the other side. Where the air is rare. I would feel the wind on my face. The view from here—way up here where the glass ceiling is broken—would be incredible. Right?
So how come I don’t remember the moment? When me with my woman-ness and my brown skin went running full speed, gravity be damned, into that thick layer of glass and smashed right through it?
How come I don’t remember that happening?
Here’s why:
It’s 2014.
This moment right here, me standing up here all brown with my boobs and my Thursday night of network television full of women of color, competitive women, strong women, women who own their bodies and whose lives revolve around their work instead of their men, women who are big dogs? That could only be happening right now.
Think about it.
Look around this room. It’s filled with women of all colors in Hollywood who are executives and heads of studios and VPs and show creators and directors. There are a lot of women in Hollywood in this room who have the game-changing ability to say yes or no to something.
Fifteen years ago, that would not have been as true. There’d have been maybe a few women in Hollywood who could say yes or no. And a lot of D girls and assistants who were gritting their teeth and working really hard. And for someone like me, if I was very very VERY lucky, there’d have been maybe one small show. One small shot. And that shot would not have involved a leading actress of color, any three-dimensional LGBT characters, any women characters with high-powered jobs AND families, and no more than two characters of color in any scene at one time—because that only happened in sitcoms.
Thirty years ago, I’d think maybe there’d be a thousand secretaries fending off their handsy bosses back at the office and about two women in Hollywood in this room. And if I were here, I would be serving those two women breakfast.
Fifty years ago, if women wanted to gather in a room . . . well, it had better be about babies or charity work. And the brown women would be in one room over there and the white women would be in another room over here . . .
From then to now . . . we’ve all made such an incredible leap.
Think of all of them.
Fifty years ago trying to get out of separate rooms, thirty years ago trying to not serve breakfast or be groped by their bosses, fifteen years ago trying to make clear that they could run a department as well as that guy over there.
All the women, white or black or brown, who woke up like this, who came before me in this town.
Think of them.
Heads up, eyes on the target.
Running. Full speed. Gravity be damned.
Toward that thick layer of glass that is the ceiling.
Running, full speed, and crashing.
Crashing into that ceiling and falling back.
Crashing into it and falling back.
Into it and falling back.
Woman after woman.
Each one running and each one crashing.
And everyone falling.
How many women had to hit that glass before the first crack appeared?
How many cuts did they get, how many bruises? How hard did they have to hit the ceiling? How many women had to hit that glass to ripple it, to send out a thousand hairline fractures?
How many women had to hit that glass before the pressure of their effort caused it to evolve from a thick pane of glass into just a thin sheet of splintered ice?
So that when it was my turn to run, it didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore.
I mean, the wind was already whistling through—I could always feel it on my face. And there were all these holes giving me a perfect view to the other side. I didn’t even notice the gravity, I think it had already worn itself away. So I didn’t have to fight as hard. I had time to study the cracks. I had time to decide where the air felt the rarest, where the wind was the coolest, where the view was the most soaring. I picked my spot in the glass and I called it my target.
And I ran.
And when I finally hit that ceiling, it just exploded into dust.
Like that.
My sisters who went before me had already handled it.
No cuts. No bruises. No bleeding.
Making it through the glass ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman’s footprints.
I just hit at exactly the right time in exactly the right spot.
So I’m breaking my family’s rule today.
This is a trophy for participation.
And I am beyond honored and proud to receive it.
Because this? Was a group effort.
Thank you to all the women in this room.
Thank you to all the women who never made it into this room.
And thank you to all the women who will hopefully fill a room one hundred times this size when we are all gone.
You are all an inspiration.
10
Yes, Thank You
I was at a dinner celebrating women in TV hosted by Elle magazine and its editor in chief, Robbie Myers. It was one of the YES events I’d made an agreement with myself to attend. In the beginning of the Year of Yes, I dreaded these events. Small talk, nerves, photographers—it was all too much, it made my brain freeze. But by this point, deep into the year, I found myself almost looking forward to these events. I was almost comfortable. I smiled for the photographers and made my way down the press line into the event, where I actually managed to exchange intelligent small talk with talented writers and actors I had long admired.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I no longer had that horrible sinking feeling that I always had at parties. That sad, runny-nose-pressed-to-the-cold-glass feeling of not belonging.
There were no longer disturbing silences where people stared at me, waiting for me to speak. I no longer did the thing where I tried to stand as still as a marble statue in the hopes that freezing my form would magically render me invisible to the naked eye. I was blessedly no longer worried about flinging a chicken bone across the room.
And I only needed one pair of Spanx at a time these days. They were still too tight. But still. Progress.
I actually found myself thinking, “This is going to be a great evening.”
Before dinner was served, Robbie Myers welcomed us. She was smart and funny as she called out each name and pointed all of us o
ut. Then, explaining why they were chosen for the magazine’s list of great women in TV, she named each woman’s accomplishments.
The accomplishments were innovative, bold and impressive. A staggering number of powerful, accomplished women sat at that table.
And yet, as the editor in chief pointed to each woman and named her powerful achievements, without fail—
—without fail—
—every single woman named did one of three things:
1. Shook her head and looked away, waving off the words and ensuing applause as if to say, “No. Nooo. Not really. Look. It’s not as great as she’s telling you. I maybe really was just mopping the floors and I tripped and fell, and accidentally typed that whole script.”
2. Ducked her head, an embarrassed look on her face: “Me? She’s talking about me? Don’t talk about me, nobody should ever talk about me. Talk about someone else.” If there were any kind of cheers when her name was called, she covered her face with her hands. Almost as though she was trying to shield herself from a tragedy unfolding before her.
3. Laughed. A mortified, embarrassed, stunned “I can’t believe I’m even sitting at this table with all of these awesome people because what she is saying about me is the world’s biggest lie but they let me in the door anyway” laugh. Everything about her says, “WOW. Just . . . WOW.”
I chose Door Number Two.
Robbie Myers rattled off a list of all the things that I’d done, all the work, all the ways I’d changed how women are portrayed on TV, how people of color are portrayed on TV. And I ducked my head down, shaking my head. Covering my face with hands. Waiting for the attention and applause to go away.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move on.
Door. Number. Two.
But when the editor in chief sat down next to me and very pleasantly said something like, “Now, where are you from, Shonda? Ohio, is it?”
I responded with, “Did you notice not a single woman in this room can handle being told she is awesome? What is wrong with us?!”
The editor in chief blinked. I was not engaging in the rules of dinner conversation, which requires you to start with small talk. To start by wading in. I just leapt right into the deep end of the pool.
She blinked. And then she smiled.
And then we had one of the most honest and interesting conversations I’ve ever had with a complete stranger while suffering a deficit of oxygen to my brain due to the tightness of my Spanx.
But it stuck with me.
Bugged me.
Itched the back of my neck.
Not a single woman in the room could handle being told, “You’re awesome.” I couldn’t handle being told I am awesome. What in the hell is wrong with us?
I didn’t have any answers.
And not having any answers, I did what I was now starting to do in these situations.
I decided to YES it.
Which is what I was finding myself doing more and more frequently.
Instead of wallowing in the problem, I figure out what its YES would be.
Sometimes this ends up being a ridiculous mind game. But most of the time it works.
The point of this whole Year of Yes project is to say yes to things that scare me, that challenge me. So in order to YES a problem, I have to find whatever it is inside the problem that challenges me or scares me or makes me just freak out—and then I have to say yes to that thing.
Which feels like counterintuitive insanity.
But, I’m slowly coming to understand, it’s not insanity. I race into the wilderness and it’s all darkness and thorny bushes and rocky uphill paths and I am spitting out swear words left and right and then suddenly—
I break through into the clearing and find I’m standing on the mountaintop. Air in my lungs. Sunlight on my face.
It’s not insanity. It’s just tough.
It’s like surgery. You can’t close the patient’s chest until you’ve found the wound and operated on it. The problem is the open chest, the wound is the challenge and the YES is the operation.
You are making fun of me and my metaphor right now, aren’t you?
You are. I can feel it.
Cut me some slack.
I’ve spent TWELVE SEASONS writing Grey’s Anatomy, people. I can CBC, CHEM-7, type, cross and match you in my sleep. Do you know how to diagnose appendicitis? Fever and tenderness over McBurney’s point. The common causes of post-op fever? The five Ws—wind, water, walking, wounded and wonder drugs.
If you went into labor right now? I could perform a C-section on you.
You don’t want me to.
But I could.
And as any one of my writers who has been pregnant will tell you, I would.
The point is, my metaphors are medical.
The point is also that if you pass out in front of me, I will crack your chest and put you on an LVAD and start calling you Denny.
So maybe try to stay conscious around me.
Say yes to staying conscious.
Anyway.
I decide to do it. I decide that if it is so hard to own up to my own accomplishments, to take a compliment, to not duck my head and choose Door Number Two, then I’m going to say YES to accepting any and all acknowledgments of personal fabulous awesomeness with a clear, calm “Thank you” and a confident smile and nothing more.
I’m going to say YES and just . . . see what happens.
It sounds much easier than it is.
Someone says, “I love your show.”
You know what I say back?
I say, “Oh my God, I’m just so lucky. Really fortunate. It’s not me, it’s everyone who works with me.”
Okay. Look.
Everyone who works with me? They are AMAZING. I truly am surrounded by people—actors, line producers, directors, set decorators, costume designers, assistant directors, grips, craft service people, Teamsters, writers, so many people—who are incredibly talented and without whom Shondaland would literally not exist. There are a bunch of cool people at ABC who are pretty essential too. My agent, Chris. My lawyer, Michael. A lot of people make Shondaland the creative, happy and successful place that it is.
So it IS everyone who works with me.
But why am I running around saying it’s NOT me?
Because it is.
It’s me.
It’s me and it’s them.
It’s US.
And what the hell is up with the “I’m just so lucky” line?
I’m not merely lucky.
No one who succeeds is merely lucky.
Not in the “she tripped and fell right onto a television ratings chart” way.
Lucky implies I didn’t do anything. Lucky implies something was given to me. Lucky implies that I was handed something I did not earn, that I did not work hard for.
Gentle reader, may you never be lucky.
I am not lucky.
You know what I am?
I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard.
Don’t call me lucky.
Call me a badass.
yesyesyes
Okay. Now, I’m going to admit something to you.
That was all an act.
There is a part of my brain that is SCREAMING at me right now for giving myself all these compliments. Screaming and wringing her brainy little hands and nervously hopping around.
“You cannot say that out loud! People will think you believe that you are . . .”
That I’m what?
Into myself.
Cocky. Immodest. Brazen.
In love with myself.
That I think I’m special.
Shudder. Shake. Hop.
FLIP OUT.
I wrote that whole series of compliments to myself as part of my YES. And it was HARD to do. I felt like a complete jerk the whole time I was writing it. And the sad part is? Right up until I got to “badass”? Those weren’t even compliments.
The
y were facts.
Sadder?
Did I just say that I’m actually worried that people will think that I am into myself? I am worried that people will think that maybe I think I am special? That I am in love with myself?
Wait.
Isn’t that the GOAL? Don’t people pay money to licensed therapists to get into themselves, to fall in love with themselves, to think they are special?
Now, let’s all put our Gloria Steinem cashmere thinking caps on and see if we can decipher this puzzler: what is the opposite of a cocky, immodest, brazen woman?
Anyone?
A meek, chaste, timid woman.
Who in the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Queen Bey wants to be a meek, chaste, timid woman?!
Do YOU? Because I sure as hell don’t.
I’m outraged.
But I still can’t take a compliment.
And neither can any of the other women I know.
You know what? I don’t think we’ve been raised to do so.
yesyesyes
Mindy Kaling went to Dartmouth College. I went to Dartmouth College. Actually, there’s kind of a cool mafia of Hollywood women who went to Dartmouth. Connie Britton. Rachel Dratch. Aisha Tyler.
What? Five is too a mafia.
That’s not the point. The point is that one day, I’m sitting around minding my own business when a member of the mafia whom I don’t actually know but whose TV show I obsessively watch calls me up. For reals.
Mindy Kaling is on the phone.
Now, to be clear, I don’t watch a lot of TV during the TV season. Because I’m working. But Mindy Kaling’s show was something that I watched in real time, when it aired, and I tried never to miss it.
Mindy Kaling is on the phone.
And she is asking if I will come and do a cameo on her show, The Mindy Project.
Like act.
Like an actor.
Act like an actor on her show.
The show that I watch in real time when it airs and never miss.
The one that stars Mindy Kaling.
This is a joke, right?
I am being filmed and later this will be on the internet and people will laugh at me. All my high school terrors are coming true. It’s definitely a joke.
But it’s not. She means it.
Mindy Kaling is serious.
She wants me to come and act on The Mindy Project.
Year of Yes Page 13