AKA a little female rage never hurt anyone…
The soundtrack of my life would not be complete without this song. Okay… we are going darker with this one, but can’t always be boppy, sappy, or happy. This song connects me to my feminine rage, a guttural war cry that rises from the depths of my soul and comes out (not quite as beautifully as Cynthia’s version) while driving alone in my car with the speakers blaring. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this post may not be for you, but if you do… chances are you are a woman who has been through some Shiz… University. For anyone who has read my stuff, you might recognize this vibe. Let’s face it… Sera in Playing With Fire pretty much matched this vibe. If you liked that, I can’t wait for you to read what I’m working on now!
Honestly, this song rose to the top of a list of favorites, which have surprised and delighted me in the last 20 years or so. I wasn’t sure anything could replace my beloved songs from the musicals of my childhood, but I was wrong. Songs like Reflections in Mulan, What Was I Made For in Barbie, Surface Pressure and What Else Can I Do from Encanto, and of course, Let It Go from Frozen give me hope that the message women have been passing down to future generations will continue.
I have always loved the movies with a strong female lead… give me a Princess Leia, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, over a helpless princess waiting around for her prince anyday. I’ll even go for a Mulan, Belle, or Megara, since they fall in love but only on their own terms. However, what really fascinates me are the characters who are often considered a villain and who are, what I would consider, misunderstood or, in writer speak, an anti-hero. Characters like Maleficent, Cruella, and Elphaba are so much more layered and have more to offer since their stories hide in the shadows of the more beloved (or perhaps just more marketed) tales. Their backstories tell the actual truth, the why behind the angry fairy, crazy fashionista, or wicked witch, and provide us with more context to highlight who the villains truly are. Hint: They aren’t always who you are led to believe, and that is where I love to live as a writer.
I’ve lived my life as a rule follower and have felt the sting of dismissal, neglect, exclusion, and even been on the receiving end of some pretty nasty bullying. It made me a quiet and shy girl that kept to herself and read incessantly. When my dad took me and my brothers to see Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, it changed my life. We’ll save the fact that it cemented Harrison Ford as the love of my life at an impressionable age and jump-started my whole fascination with anti-heroes for another post. What I want to focus on here is the character played by Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia. She ended up being the role model I so desperately needed at a time when my life was in flux.
Without getting into specifics, I’ll just say that I’m Gen X, a child of divorced parents where my dad got custody, and I was out on my own at 19 when he remarried. We navigated step-parents and extended families pretty well in my memory, but blended families can always have their issues, heck, let’s face it… actual families can be messy as well. Anyhow, in 1977 when the movie came out, I was 12 years old, and to say that the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for a quiet and shy young lady to have a strong, independent, sassy, and noble woman as a someone to imprint on, is probably an understatement. She, along with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, who had already made an impression in Singing In The Rain, were completely my jam… as they are to this day. So when I see a play or movie with a character who embodies the same vibe, I’m all in. I will also add that when they both passed away in 2016 within a day of one another, I was gutted.
While Princess Leia will always have a special place in my heart, Elphaba is the perfect role model for my next transition. I was in the first batch of Gen X kids, so when you do the math, you will quickly realize where I’m at as far as age. I like to think of it as my crone era, and Elphaba is the perfect character for me to embody as I move forward. The choices I make will be what is right for me, and while I firmly believe in harm to none, I have to put myself into that equation as well. That was the piece that was missing all of these years, and it took me a long time to realize that. Too long.
So here is to embracing our inner feminist, standing up for what we believe in, defying a bit of gravity and giving our dreams some wings, even in our 60s. Perhaps the rise of the crones is exactly what is needed right now, and I’ve got my popcorn ready to watch it unfold. Maybe it will be like another favorite of mine… Suicide Squad... or maybe a little more subtle, like 9 to 5 (by the way I can’t believe I haven’t put that on the Soundtrack Of My Life yet).
Either way, I would like to thank Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande for breathing new life into characters I already connected with, and sharing them with a whole new audience. Perhaps there is a quiet and shy girl in the audience that needs the message this movie brings, which is one of following your heart. At age 60, I needed to hear it too, and I’m ready to defy a little gravity of my own. Can’t wait to see what this era brings! So happy I have a new song to add to the Soundtrack of my Life!
As always, thank you for sharing this journey with me, and for taking the time out of your day to read my thoughts. It means a lot. For anyone interested in my writing please feel free to stay awhile and poke around on my website. I have a ton of content I’ve been developing over the years and I would love to get your thoughts on it.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information about subsidiary rights, please contact the author at saraybooksllc@gmail.com. You can find the Author’s Privacy & AI use policy here: https://dahenneman.com/home/privacy-policy-for-d-a-henneman-author-saraybooks-llc/.