Wendy Remembered

Wendy Remembered

Wendy Wasserstein died a year ago today leaving a six-year old daughter and a space in the world for a female playwright.

By Michelle Fiordaliso, Contributor Executive Coach. Author. Filmmaker. 

01/30/2007 03:37pm EST | Updated November 17, 2011

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Wendy Wasserstein died a year ago today leaving a six-year old daughter and a space in the world for a female playwright. It wasn't by her dying though, that she left a space open for a female playwright, she left spaces open by the life she lived and by the work she created. She paved the way for female playwrights everywhere. We, as young women, take for granted things that were once not so easy to acquire: the right to vote, rights to our bodies, rights to the American stage and the world of theatre. Wendy Wasserstein's work gives me the choice to fight my own doubts and demons and trust that my plays have a place in this world. And so, every morning for the past year, I find myself invoking her, praying to her to help me say something that will inspire people in the way that she did. 

In Wendy Wasserstein's obituary in the New York Times last year it said, "Although it was always laced with comedy, her work was also imbued with an abiding sadness, a clear-eyed understanding that independence can beget loneliness, that rigorous ideals and raised consciousnesses are not always good company at the dinner table. But she shared her compassion among a wide array of characters, those who settled and those who continued to search." 

Rigorous ideals and raised consciousness is what had me move away from a life as a psychotherapist and move towards a life as a playwright. When something painful is revealed about yourself in a therapy session, you leave the room with the weight of it, but when something painful about yourself, or your life is revealed in the theatre, if through the genius of the writer you can see yourself reflected through the words and actors on stage, the pain is like a shell embedded in the sand in the ocean. The wave recedes and reveals it, for a moment it's there, and then the wave washes the weight of it away. You leave the theatre with a renewed sense of yourself that's exhilarating, no matter how painful. Wendy Wasserstein's plays did this for women, over and over again. Her plays revealed our loneliness, our betrayal, our fears and most of all our hope. 

It always goes back to the quote from the Heidi Chronicles, because it's so perfect. Heidi says, "I don't blame any of us. We're all concerned, intelligent, good women. It's just that I feel stranded. And I thought the whole point was that we wouldn't feel stranded. I thought the point was we were all in this together."

I live in Los Angeles and I never get star struck when I see celebrities but meeting female writers makes my knees knock. I've met a lot of my favorite female playwrights but I never met Wendy Wasserstein. I wish I had. I think of her everyday and the fact that I don't feel stranded because of her. She opened the door to the theatre for women everywhere, and now it's up to each one of us that has something to say to walk through that door. 

Last year today, I mourned for Wendy and for her daughter Lucy Jane. And I mourned for American Theatre. I mourned for the terrified writer in me. And I mourned for women everywhere who feel stranded. But this year, despite my sadness, I am celebrating Wendy Wasserstein's life and work. And by remembering her, maybe women everywhere will remember that we are in this together, we don't have to feel stranded. Our independence as women and writers shouldn't beget loneliness. Thanks to Wendy's words, we have each other.

The Choice to Search for Integrity

The Choice to Search for Integrity

The more you look, the more hypocrisy you see. It begs the question: does indoctrination ever really work?

By Michelle Fiordaliso, Contributor Executive Coach. Author. Filmmaker. 

12/13/2006 04:36pm EST | Updated November 17, 2011

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We've long accepted that human beings are searching for something. We're searching for truth, meaning, and love, amongst other things. Google Trends, however, allows us to see precisely what people all over the world are searching for. In Egypt they're searching for sex. In fact, the most searches globally for sex are conducted in Arabic. In Salt Lake City, there are the highest searches in the world for pornography. And in the Philippines, a country whose population is eighty-five percent Roman Catholic, there's the highest search rate by region for information about abortions. The more you look, the more hypocrisy you see. It begs the question: does indoctrination ever really work? 

I was raised Catholic. My parents, although born in Italy, didn't force me to attend mass. They sent me to catechism and expected me to make the sacraments, but more for the cultural reason of wanting me to wear the silly white dress and take communion than out of real belief. The spiritual practices I adopted came from an internal desire to be close to God. My family didn't understand me, or my religious fervor, when I was growing up. My brother called me Sister Mary Snowflake as I left the house at eight-years-old to walk three blocks alone to St. Luke's Church in Queens, New York. 

In high school, I pushed off boyfriends who tried to cajole me into having sex by saying that no form of birth control was absolute and I was not going to have an abortion. No one ever taught me that abortion was wrong in the eyes of the Church; it just provided me with a good excuse because I just wasn't ready to have sex. In college, when I finally did have sex, my boyfriend and I used two condoms, spermicidal foam, and the pill. Phone sex would have been riskier. 

I never expected that I would be someone who would get pregnant without being married. When I was twenty-six, I discovered that I was pregnant. I had been dating the man for three months. Everyone in my life counseled me to have an abortion, my Catholic parents included. I'll admit I considered the option. I had no real home, no real job, and no certainty that the man I was with would stick around. After some thought, I knew that having an abortion just wasn't an option for me. No one could understand that while I had never been able to commit to a pro-life or pro-choice political standpoint, the idea of having my unborn child extracted from my body was the same as asking me to consent to the removal of, say, my heart or liver or stomach or any other vital organ. It wasn't a political choice and it wasn't a religious choice. In all honesty, it was a selfish choice. I was terrified to have a child alone but I was more terrified of having an abortion. In fact, upon closer analysis, I don't believe it had anything to do with choice at all.

If a woman's right to have an abortion is a choice, it's a choice she never wanted to have to make. It's more a surrender, a ceasefire. She is tired of the fighting in her head between herself and God and her unborn child. And pro-life -- I wonder if people think I'm pro-life because, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, I kept it. Pro-life, but in favor of whose life? I chose to keep my pregnancy because I was in favor of my life -- of my psychological well-being. I couldn't weather an abortion. I love my son. The world, my world, would be imperfect without him. But being a single parent has been a six-year struggle, financially and emotionally. There are nights I go to sleep feeling defeated. But in the morning, I recommit to being my son's mother. If raising a child has been so difficult for me, a person who has the support of friends and family along with a great deal of inner resources, I'm not sure how some other people do it. I never regret having my son, but having a child alone has made me pro-choice. If it takes a village to raise a child, then one person is without a doubt, inadequate. 

Neither the government nor the church was there to help me with my son. If people are going to rally for choice then they should spend equal amounts of time understanding the psychological ramifications of abortion and counseling women who have had abortions. And if people are going to rally for life then they should spend equal amounts of time helping the women that bring children into the world under less than ideal circumstances. We need a new word: neither "pro-choice," nor "pro-life" really apply to anything. 

The fact that I was taught to avoid sex until marriage didn't work. The fact that people tried to convince me to have an abortion didn't work, either. I made my own choices, based on my truth and what I could live with, and the rest I will deal with God about directly. 

We're indoctrinating people, but what we're teaching isn't working. Teaching Muslims to be chaste doesn't stop them from looking for sex. Teaching Mormons to be completely faithful in marriage and to avoid masturbation doesn't stop them from looking at pornography. And teaching Catholics from the Philippines that abortion is wrong doesn't stop them from seeking information about abortions and, let's face it, having them. 

Having a child has taught me one of the simple facts about human nature: deny someone of something, impose a rule or regulation, and you're bound to witness rebellion. Perhaps it's a defect in our design as human beings. We're oppositional. We're defiant. We may talk the talk but we're almost physically incapable of walking the walk indefinitely. Put something just out of our reach and our natural curiosity is transformed into obsession. In all of my years of religious education, in many different religions, I've found a loving God, a God that's a good parent, patient and kind, who tells me, "be not afraid." Couldn't we find a way to teach people to love, to accept, and to help so that perhaps they would seek out goodness and integrity on their own? 

As Oscar Hammerstein wrote, "You've got to be carefully taught, you've got to be taught to be afraid." When I went back to Google Trends, searches for fear, afraid, phobia and terrorism, while understandably less concrete than searching for sex, pornography or abortion, are conducted most in the English Language. Here's one sad instance where indoctrination has worked. Despite our country's motto being, "In God We Trust," we, the American people, are being successfully taught to fear. Perhaps we could remember, especially during the holiday season, that there is still so much to have faith in. 

Violence on Modern Family ?

Violence on Modern Family ?

03/06/2012 06:05 pm ET Updated May 06, 2012

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I love you, Modern Family. I’ve always been a serial monogamist when it comes to TV shows. In chronologically descending order, my partners have been Six Feet Under, Beverly Hills 90210, Laverne & Shirley and 321 Contact. Modern Family is my current main squeeze — the only show I watch regularly. I might even venture to say that I’ve finally found my soulmate — the perfect balance of smart and funny.

I had my first date with Modern Family in October 2009 on a flight from JFK to LAX. I had such an instant love affair with the show that when I landed I had already decided to introduce it to my then-nine-year-old son. As a single mother, that was a big deal. Prior to seeing the pilot episode I had been reading up on attachment theory and had decided that I needed to find something that my son and I both liked — something that we could do together. The books said doing that would remedy some of our struggles. Watching Modern Family became that thing. And it worked. We fought less. We laughed more. We had inside jokes. He’d put his hands, claw-like, on an invisible piano and I’d say, “Casablanca.”

Alas, as with all relationships, we occasionally get disappointed. That’s okay. Relationships, like we see episode after episode on the show, are a series of ruptures and repairs. But then, after we’ve been with someone for a while (almost three seasons in this case), sometimes we see unacceptable patterns emerging and we have to speak up before we’re left with only one option: a breakup.

Modern Family, I must tell you that the violence from women towards men that’s become customary in Season 3 isn’t funny. I get that we grew up on this. I get that it’s been the sitcom way. Women nag. Criticize. Belittle. And, yes, sometimes beat our men on TV. But you’ve evolved beyond that, haven’t you? What makes you brilliant and innovative is the fact that you resuscitated and reinvented one of America’s favorite forms of entertainment: the primetime network sitcom. As a writer I appreciate this (after Modern Family many more scripted shows got picked up). And as a mother, I really appreciate this. You got families off their individual viewing devices and brought them back into the living room where they laughed. And cried. Together. And when you get people laughing, they learn. From you, we’ve learned about family and humanity, acceptance, imperfection, growing up and growing closer. You’ve sent so many important messages. Please don’t send this archaic one, one that says it’s acceptable, funny even, for women to be violent towards men.

In this past week’s episode, Gloria slugged the captain of the boat Mitch hired out. His crime? Calling Jay “Grandpa.” Earlier in the season, when Cam and Mitchell were given the wrong Prius at a valet, they decided that they’d deliver it to the home of its rightful owner. When they arrived they were greeted not by the owner but by his scorned wife, who began to beat the car with a baseball bat. When Mitch and Cam drove away they encountered the husband who said, “I see you’ve met my wife.” Cue canned laughter. And Claire and Gloria have both hit their husbands in response to what they considered unacceptable behavior. Consider if these acts of aggression were perpetrated against the women or children on the show or even against Stella, the Pritchett’s dog. Would we accept it, laugh at it? Probably not. But men are supposed to be able to take it. Hitting, shoving, or punching men isn’t acceptable. Just like it isn’t acceptable for them to treat us that way. Period.

Are women angry at men? At times, yes. And for some good reasons. We earn less than them. We’re often left with the responsibility of children with too little or no child support at all. We’re objectified by men, causing us to enter into patterns of self-destruction. Just look at Angelina Jolie at the Oscars. A headline in The Onion might’ve read “Angelina’s Lip Officially Weighs More Than Her Leg.” Everyone on Facebook was guessing what her leg was trying to say. How about, “Gosh, I’ve fed all these hungry kids, doesn’t anyone see that I’m starving?” So, are we angry? Without a doubt. But violence isn’t the answer.

And can women’s behavior be confusing at times? Absolutely. But we’re amazingly complex creatures. We’re the only gender that grows an organ after we’re born: the placenta. A miraculous, complex system that allows us to have a different blood type than the children we carry. It takes the food we eat, transforms it into something a fetus can digest, and delivers it through a feeding tube called the umbilical cord. We make milk. We multitask. And if you liked The Davinci Code, you might even believe that women, when respected and cherished, can be a portal to the divine.

So yes, women’s behavior can be confusing and it deserves to be poked fun at. Modern Family, you did this perfectly in this past week’s episode in the way you depicted a house full of menstruating females. But as you see in the scene by the dock, we just want to be understood. And we’re so grateful when we are understood by men. If you truly understand women then you know that confusing is one thing but that when intensity becomes violence it’s not characteristic of being female; it’s no longer passionate, it’s actually pathological.

I beg you, Modern Family, please stop the hitting. I bet any man who’s getting hit at home doesn’t find it funny. And yet, if they speak up about it, they’re told to shut up and man up. I also think it sends the wrong message to women about appropriate ways to express our anger and frustration, even when that anger is justified. I want my son to grow up in a world where he ‘gets’ women’s complexities but doesn’t come to believe that crazy, abusive behavior is a normal part of being female. So normal that he must tolerate and even accept it. Millions are tuning in. And with power comes responsibility. I love you Modern Family but I need you to stop with the violence. My son is watching. The violence isn’t funny. And quite frankly, other sitcoms needed that kind of humor to get by but you’re better than that.