Encouragement

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What’s going on

Right now, I am 21 posts (this is number 21) into a 32 topic series based on a list of 100 wisest words from a teacher.  Why not 100?  Well, some of them…while definitely wise…didn’t lend themselves to a blog I could tie to either VO or acting.  So, I culled it down to the 32 I thought best fit.  Yeah, it started as 38…but well…I culled again.  Anyway, if you want to see the earlier posts, head over to the blog archive page and have a look around.

Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Don’t boo. Even the ref is somebody’s son”.

Why do we boo?

I mean, I think we all know what booing IS, but why are some people compelled to do it?  According to Wikipedia we boo to “…show[ing] displeasure for someone or something, generally in response to an entertainer, by loudly yelling, “Boo!” and sustaining the “oo” sound by holding it out”.

It’s KIND OF Universal

While the idea of booing is pretty universal, in other words the idea of using a verbal gesture or sound to show displeasure is universal, the actual word “boo” is really only an English phenomenon.  In other country’s people will whistle, or sometimes hiss to show displeasure.  In some places, it’s just “ooooo” without the B.

Booing at Halloween is OK, though

Not all boos are bad!  We also use the boo sound to denote ghosts.  If your little one, or even you, are dressed as a ghost, boo to your hearts content.  Also, if your spouse or significant other should be slightly distracted when entering a room…yelling boo is acceptable.  Well, except to them.  If you don’t mind ticking off your partner, go ahead and yell boo when they walk around the corner.  Oh, but make sure you videotape it with your phone so we can all laugh at you when you get your butt kicked.

It’s been around a while

Booing is not a new idea.  The first record of booing comes from ancient Greece at the annual Festival of Dionysia in Athens where playwrights competed to determine whose tragedy was the best. The audience applauded to show approval, and booed or whistled to show displeasure.

Ancient Rome

In ancient Rome during gladiatorial games, audience members (and the emperor if he was there) used applause and booing…along with either a thumbs up or thumbs down…to signal whether or not the gladiator (performer) should be fed to a lion or live to fight another day.   I’ll just note that I’m pretty glad lions are not a part of performances today.

In both of these cases

For both the Greek and Roman performances, audience participation in this way was not only expected, but required.  Applause or boos determined who “won” the competition.  It was kind of like a real-time Rotten Tomatoes.  But a low score (in the csse of Romans at least) could be pretty detrimental to the performer.

Modern booing

The practice of booing continues today.  Thankfully, booing at stage plays and musical performances are rare, but in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries not only might you get booed, but people would also throw rotten fruit and vegetables at the stage.  As I think about that, I consider the amount of planning that had to go into it.  First, you had to buy fruit & vegetables, then let them rot, then remember to bring them with you to the theater.  Seems like too much work to me.

Today

If you are going to hear booing at a public event these days, most likely you are at a sporting event.  Fans tend to boo THEIR team when they make a mistake or a bad play and tend to boo the OPPOSING team when they make a good play.  Most often though, fans boo the ref when they make a call that the fans don’t agree with.  Personally, I’m not sure why anyone would want to officiate a sporting event. No matter WHAT they do, someone is going to be unhappy.

Critics

Everyone’s a critic.  Just take a look at Amazon and read some of the reviews.  I swear there are people out there whose goal in life is to complain about everything. An “official” critic, one who writes critical performance reviews for a magazine or newspaper, are what I call “Professional Booers”.  Man, a bad review can really sting!

Performers

Whether you are a commercial VO artist, an audio book narrator, or a stage/screen actor, a bad review can set you back pretty hard.  Sometimes it feels like just not getting selected for the job is a form of bad review, although that’s not necessarily so.  Since performers are typically in the public eye, a bad review is ALSO public and can be, at best, embarrassing and, at worst, humiliating.

At work

At my day job, which for 41 years was with the US Navy (20 active, 21 as a Federal employee) our motto was: Praise in public, punish in private.  Calling someone out publicly for bad performance was not something you wanted to do because it was bad for morale.  Public praise served two purposes: Building up the good performer and encouraging the rest of the team.

As a performer

In this industry it seems the motto is: Praise in public, punish in public.  You really have to have a thick skin to be in the performance industry!  We’re taught, and we tell ourselves and others all the time, to ignore reviews altogether.  It’s great in theory, but very difficult to put into practice.  We performers tend to look for validation of our work, and reviews are the way we get that.  Sure, box office numbers and show ratings help, but we really would like to hear that all that hard work preparing for and performing a role was appreciated.

So, we read them

We really can’t help it.  We can tell a fellow actor to not pay attention to reviews in the morning and be agonizing over a bad review by lunch.  I think it’s human nature.  Anyone who has gotten a bad review will know that feeling of being stabbed in the heart.  Bad reviews, getting publicly booed, just don’t feel very good.  It can affect your performance going forward which just make the whole thing like a self-licking lollipop;  bad review, decrease in performance because of it, leading to more bad reviews…etc, etc…

It CAN backfire though

Sometimes, particularly in sporting events, getting booed (especially by the opposing team’s fans) can harden a player to perform even better…but honestly, that’s rare.  Typically getting booed makes you self-conscious and reduces performance.

Ever been booed?

Or had a bad review, or been called out for poor performance at work?  How did that make you feel?  Probably not very good!  My mother used to say, “If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, don’t say anything at all”.   And of course my dad who said: “Never treat anyone in a way that you wouldn’t want to be treated”.  Both pieces of good advice.

Next time…

The next time you are feeling inclined to send out a resounding Booooooooo!, or to write someone a critical review, stop for a moment and think about how what you are about to do would make YOU feel if you were in their shoes.  And remember:  Don’t boo. Even the ref is somebody’s son.

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Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Forgive yourself for your mistakes”.

Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes.  It’s just a simple fact of life; humans are not infallible.  So when you DO make a mistake, the first thing to know…I mean REALLY know…is that you are not alone.  Some mistakes are worse than others, but it’s safe to say that no matter how big of a mistake it is, there’s a good chance someone else has made the same mistake!

It’s encouraging

While it’s encouraging to know that not only does everyone make mistakes, but people have also made the same mistake you did.  Unfortunately, for most of us, it doesn’t make it any easier to forgive ourselves for those mistakes and move on.

Of course, it depends

Some things are easier to move past than others.  A typo in a paper for college that gets you a slightly lower grade?  Meh, no big deal.  Send a text meant for your spouse to your boss accidently?  A little harder to get beyond.  Betray a trust in your marriage and lose your spouse?  Not so easy.  My guess is there are a lot of people sitting in prison right now who made mistakes that ruined their lives who are having a tough time forgiving themselves.

Guilt and shame

The problem is how these mistakes make us feel.  Of course, mistakes don’t make us feel good.  Generally, we feel either guilt, shame, or a combination of the two.  It’s important to know that guilt and shame are different, and to understand those difference.  These feelings can be useful, but also detrimental depending on what we do with them.

Guilt

Guilt is how we feel when we regret what we’ve done.  It’s good because it reminds us of our mistakes and causes us to act more intentionally in the future.  It reminds us not to make the same mistakes over and over again.  Guilt is our “conscience” if you will, and it helps us remember what went wrong leading to one of my favorite things: experience.  My dad used to say, “Experience is the thing you get just AFTER you needed it”.

Shame

Shame on the other hand is not quite as useful.  While it CAN help guide future actions, problems arise when the shame we feel makes us feel unworthy, deficient, or hopeless.  Feeling shame makes correcting behavior more difficult.  Shame can lead to what actors call the “impostor syndrome” where we feel as though we are not good enough.  When we feel that way, we are less likely to keep trying, assuming we’ll never be good enough.  Shame is typically “secret” and leads us to feel isolated and alone.

Mistakes can lead to growth

I’ve written about this before.  Mistakes, or failures if you will, help us to grow.  Both personally and professionally.  Mistakes show us what DOESN’T work, so we can ultimately learn what DOES. Success is built one mistake at a time.

To make things easier

For the purpose of this post, and honestly every post from now on, I’m going to lump stage, screen and voice actors together and just call them “actors”. These types of acting have a lot in common and what I write about for sure applies to all three. This should make things a little easier and less wordy.  Well, easier for me to write about anyway!

Actors are unique animals

Actors are unique in that what they do is very public.  One would think that we are arrogant, or at least very confident, and LOVE being the center of attention.  But for many, if not most actors, that is very far from the truth.  A lot of actors, and I am talking about actors whose names you (and most everyone else) know, feel they don’t deserve the attention they get.  I know it’s hard to believe, but it is absolutely true.

Not to mention

On top of that, a lot of these actors have made some pretty serious mistakes, both on and off stage.  It’s tough when mistakes have a severe impact on your career, but it is imperative to forgive yourself for making them.  It can take some time to repair the damage, but one thing to keep in mind is:  Other people are going to forgive you (probably long) before you forgive yourself.

How do you manage to forgive yourself?

Forgiving yourself for minor screw-ups is fairly easy.  It’s the bigger mistakes that take some time, and thoughtful action, to overcome.  There are some steps you can take to help make it a bit easier though.

Set reasonable expectations

The first thing everyone needs to do is make sure your expectations are reasonable.  You aren’t going to be the starting quarterback at the Super Bowl, or even make the team, when you first start out.  Trying to be perfect or achieve well above your level of talent and experience, is a recipe for disaster and is likely to lead to some pretty monumental mistakes.  I like to say, if you set your expectations low, it’s tough to be disappointed

Be Aware

Setting reasonable expectations BEFORE you make a mistake will go a long way to helping you avoid them, but what happens AFTER you ‘ve made a mistake?   The first thing to do is to reasonably assess the severity of the mistake.  Odds are you think the mistake is bigger than it really is.  Make sure you are unemotionally assessing what happened to know how to react.  Blow an audition?  It feels crushing, but overall it’s not really a big deal at all, and the casting director is not going to remember you forever.

Remember you are not alone

When we are learning to walk, we continually fall and get back up. The same is true throughout life – we “fall” and to move forward we have to get back up.  Remember that this is true for EVERYONE, even people who seem to have their entire life together.  The secret is:  They don’t.  No one does.  Be realistic – You are GOING to make mistakes.  Failing to forgive yourself makes you stagnate and keeps you from success.

Give yourself a break

You’re not perfect.  Think about what happened and ask yourself this: If it was someone else, would you forgive THEM?  Probably.  So why wouldn’t you forgive yourself?  Chances are other people have already forgiven you, so give yourself a break and understand that it is OK to forgive yourself.

Take positive steps

Think about what happened.  Is there something that you could or should have done differently? Is there anything you need to do now to rectify the mistake?  Now that you’ve forgiven yourself it’s time to take some positive steps toward either making amends or correcting behavior.  It is now that you should begin making sure you don’t make the same mistakes again.

At the end of the day

Mistakes are going to happen, some big and some small.  Those mistakes are only really an issue if you park there and agonize over them or when they make you feel unworthy or less valuable.  We all make mistakes, the key is to forgive yourself and move on, learning from them to help prevent yourself from making the same mistake repeatedly.  So from now on, work hard to learn how to Forgive Yourself For Your Mistakes!

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Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Never be the last one in the pool”.

Why do I do this to myself?

This week’s topic is a doozy.  I’m not really sure what I was thinking when I picked this list of things to write about, or why I thought I could punch out 1500-ish words about being the last one in the pool.  It occurs to me that I could just skip this topic and no one would be the wiser because:

1. None of you can see my list
2. Even though I mentioned 38 topics when I started, I’m pretty sure no one is keeping track…and
3. I’m not completely sure anyone reads these posts anyway

Two truths and a lie

Ever play that game?  I have.  Anyway, that last item on the above list isn’t true.  I know SOME people read this because occasionally they comment.  And that makes me happy.  So, if, despite this week’s topic if you’d like to make me smile, go ahead and leave a comment.  And you folks advertising Viagra and porn sites, disregard that last comment and don’t bother.  Comments are moderated so they won’t get published anyway.

So, what is a pool?

Most people, me included, think of that backyard body of water when someone mentions the word pool.  Interestingly, it occurs to me that a pool could be one of several things.  It CAN be that small body of water in your backyard that requires massive maintenance and expense (have you figured out how I feel about owning a pool?), it could be billiards and it could be a group of people.  I’m pretty sure we’re not talking about billiards since you can hardly be “in” a pool table. Therefore, we’ll just ignore that one.

What does “last one in” refer to?

It also occurs to me that the original author could have meant a couple different things when referring to being the “last one in” as well.  Do they mean never be the last one to ENTER a pool? Or, perhaps, they mean never be the last one REMAINING in the pool.  So many choices, but let’s tackle each one separately.

Last one entering the body of water

Hey, everyone else is in the pool splashing around and having a great time.  Why are you standing around waiting?  Have fun, get in the water.  No one likes to be “on the outside looking in” when everyone is having a great time, besides, if you are standing on the edge of the pool you’ll be the one who has to constantly run around retrieving balls and frisbees from the yard.  Unless you’re like me and want to cannonball everyone else, don’t delay, get in the water!

Last one leaving the body of water

When it’s time to get out, don’t linger.  You may turn into a prune, and you’re also likely going to get the dregs of the food after everyone else has eaten. And if the owners of the pool have all gone to bed for the night and you are still languishing in their pool then it is a pretty safe bet that you’ve overstayed your welcome.

The pool as a group of people

In my 61 trips around the sun (WOW, I am OLD now!) I’ve been in a lot of pools.  Every fall, here in the US, there is a tradition of Football pools.  We Americans do love our football…which is what the rest of the world calls soccer BTW…and there is always someone putting together a weekly football pool to see if you can predict winners and losers and maybe make a little cash.  Apparently, we also love gambling.

Other pools

While there are unlimited things we could bet on in a pool, one of my all-time favorites is an anchor pool.  In the Navy, after a deployment, we almost always try to predict the minute we are officially “home”.  In other words, exactly what time will we drop anchor (of course, sometimes an anchor pool predicts when the ship is moored, but we still call it an anchor pool).  I never won one of those, but I ALWAYS enjoyed coming home and returning is a win all by itself!

Last one to enter

If you are the last one to enter these pools, you won’t be left with many choices and your odds of winning the pool go down dramatically.  Since it costs money to enter, never be the last one!

Last to leave

Let’s face it, once you’ve paid your money and made your selection, there is no getting out.  So, this can’t be what they are referring to.

A euphemism

It’s pretty clear to me that we’re not really talking about getting into or out of these types of pools.  Probably not talking about a pool at all!  Here’s the thing, it’s not really a good idea to be last at anything, at least not consistently.  For the sake of the rest of this discussion we are going to concentrate on being the last person to enter the pool, since the last person to exit the pool usually gets the job or promotion.

Work

For those of you who have day jobs (thankfully, I do NOT), there is probably that one person at work who is ALWAYS the last one to show up for work.  Probably late a lot too.  How do you view them? Odds are it’s not favorable, and it’s likely that management feels the same way.  If that person is you here’s a piece of advice: Stop that! In the military we say, “If you’re 15 minutes early, you’re late!”.  I understand that everyone is late sometimes, what I’m talking about it being consistently late.

The entertainment industry

While being a performer isn’t really a steady “day job” type of job, this principle holds true in this industry as well.  A production is usually a huge project with a lot of moving parts.  Any one of those parts being late throws off the whole production.  And that means money.  It costs an awful lot to put together a radio spot, TV commercial, film or TV show, and delays are very expensive.  If you want to keep working, show up on time and be ready to do your part.

Even before you get the job

Believe it or not, there is an awful lot of work that needs to be done BEFORE you even get the job.  As a freelance performer it’s part of your job to look for and find opportunities.  If you’re the last person to find an opportunity it’s quite possible that before you are even aware of it, someone has already been cast.  You’ll miss an awful lot of opportunities if you are not “Johnny on the spot” in seeking and finding them.

Auditions

This is where I believe a lot of performers miss the mark.  Most opportunities, whether they be for voice over, theater or screen acting, come with a deadline.  You submit, get asked for an audition and are given a date/time by which to have your audition recorded and submitted. If you are consistently submitting auditions at the last minute, chances are you are not booking very many jobs.

The early bird gets the worm

In this case, the early bird gets the work!  If you’re familiar with freelance performing, you already know that, as Michael Kostroff points out in his Audition Psych 101 webinar,  odds are you’re not getting the job you audition for, even if you are early AND the best person for the job.  And BTW, if you have anxiety or nerves about auditions at all…this is an awesome course for you! In VO the average booking rate is between 2-5% of the jobs we audition for.  If you’re always the last person to submit, that average is lower.

Think about it

Have you ever lost your wallet (or purse for you ladies or guys who use a purse)?  Once you find it, do you keep looking?  No?  Of course not.  If you consider that a casting director gets, say, a hundred submissions for each role, when they find a good fit on the 40^th submission, how closely do they watch or listen to the remaining 60?  Probably not very closely.  You want…no, you NEED…to be in that first group to have a fighting chance.  It’s already difficult enough to get booked, being last torpedoes your chances.

Of course

If you happen to be lucky enough to be the last person to get OUT of the pool, in this instance, it means you got the job…so congratulations!

So, remember

Remember that in life, and especially in freelance performing, Never be the last person in the pool!

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Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Never Gloat”.

What is gloating?

It’s a word almost all of us are familiar with, but do we really know what it means?  Many of us (myself included until just a few minutes ago) think of gloating as bragging about accomplishments or “lording” successes over someone.  So much so, that googling “Why do people gloat?” results in the first page of results being all about bragging, and actual discussions of gloating are few and far between.

Websters

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines gloat as:

• to observe or think about something with triumphant and often malicious satisfaction, gratification, or delight (italics mine)

Note the italicized word “malicious”. This is what sets gloating apart from bragging.

Bragging

Yeah, bragging is not cool either. It’s related to gloating, I suppose, but bragging is not malicious.  Bragging is you tooting your own horn, and boastfully proclaiming your accomplishments or successes.  Nobody like a braggart either, but their one saving grace is a lack of malice.  Brag if you must (hey we all do from time to time I suppose) and people will get tired of hearing you, but they are not likely to despise you for it.

Gloating is not bragging

Gloating is taking pleasure from others mistakes or problems.  You can dress it up like bragging if what happened makes you “right” while they were “wrong”, but it’s not bragging at all.  In German, the word for gloating is schadenfreude.  This is a compound word made up of two German words.  Schaden which means “damage” or “harm,” and Freude, meaning “joy”.  Literally, schadenfreude means joy over some harm or misfortune suffered by another.  Again, Merriam-Webster defines schadenfreude as:

• enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.

Envy

What does envy have to do with gloating?  It is the other side of the same coin.  Envy is feeling bad when someone does well, where gloating is feeling good when someone does poorly.  The emotion of envy is parallel to the emotion of gloating.

Compassion

Interestingly, we tend to feel compassion for people who are unfortunate and have issues due to circumstances out of their control.  We gloat when we feel that the person has some responsibility in their problems.  We especially gloat when a person brags about what they’ve done, and it ends in a bad result.  We enjoy seeing someone who is “too big for their britches” get “knocked down a peg” or who are “put in their place”, especially if it makes them look silly or dumb.

It’s happened to everyone

Or nearly everyone I believe.  We’ve pretty much all been in a position where we did something others warned us against, thinking we could make it work, and ultimately realized it was a mistake.  We’ve all had that “I told you so” discussion with friends or family (ESPECIALLY parents), and it is not fun.

Bad enough

It’s bad enough that we failed, it compounds the issue when people around you, especially people who purport to care about you, rub it in and are happy that things didn’t work out.  If you can remember how those made you feel, you may be less likely to make someone else feel that way.

Gloating at work

Work MAY be the place that most gloating occurs!  Ever had a colleague who took credit for your ideas, who was later embarrassed when found out?  Feel happy about that?  That’s gloating.  Had a supervisor who wanted to try something you told them wasn’t going to work that later failed just like you told them it would?  Also gloating.

In some ways, it’s understandable

It’s pretty natural to feel vindicated when things like this happen. After all, you TRIED to warn them!  But here’s the thing:  They already feel bad (or stupid) abut the failure.  We are our own worst critics after all.  Constant reminders and jokes about the failure are just not helpful.

A side effect of gloating

Gloating makes you look petty.  It leads to other people around you not trusting you and assuming you will stab them in the back given an opportunity.  Gloating, rather than making you look smart, tends to isolate you when you do it often enough.  In this age of CORONA, where we are all pretty isolated already, that’s the last thing anyone needs.

The antidote to gloating

How do you stop yourself from feeling joy at other people’s troubles?  Empathy and compassion.  Instead of celebrating a failure, take some time to listen and understand what led to the failure.  What were they thinking?  Why did they feel whatever they did would work?  Listen until you can empathically understand what led to the mistake, but don’t try to “fix it” …just listen.  Try to remember how YOU felt when you made a big blunder, and understand they probably feel the same way.  Along the way, let them know they still have value, even if it doesn’t feel that way to them in the moment.

The entertainment industry

In this industry, there are myriad opportunities for gloating.  In an industry with so much rejection and where performers are almost constantly told to “make bold choices” it’s inevitable.  Two people audition for the same casting, one makes a very bold choice and the other gets the role.  It’s easy to say “Why did you do it that way?” and “Look my way got me the part”.

Even worse

An even worse situation, and we see it played out in entertainment news and awards shows all the time, someone GOT the part but played it in a way that did not resonate.  “What were they thinking” headlines are everywhere, and it cannot feel good to the performer to be called out in front of the entire world.

Here’s the thing

You never really know why you didn’t get cast.  Sure, it COULD be your performance, but it is just as likely that:

1. You were too tall
2. You were too short
3. You were too fat
4. You were too thin
5. Your voice was too deep
6. Your voice was too high
7. Your hair was too short
8. Your hair was too long (although this can be changed)
9. You had a beard
10. You didn’t have a beard

Truth is

The truth is, aside from a bad performance, there are 1000 reasons why you may not have been selected for a job.  Odds are you just didn’t fit whatever the casting director, producer or director envisioned for the part.  Gloating when you get it is unproductive, and MAY cause hard feelings that affect you later in your career.

My navy boss used to say

I’ll never forget what one of my Chief’s in the navy used to say: “Be careful what toes you step on while climbing the ladder.  They may be attached to the a** you have to kiss in the future”.  That was true then, and it’s true now.  Gloating, taking pleasure in other’s failures, creates enemies out of the very people you may be relying on for future work.

It’s about relationship

Look, I get it.  No one likes a braggart or someone who is arrogant or pompous.  It’s almost natural to celebrate when people like this fail.  But here’s the thing: while no one likes a braggart, everyone despises someone who gloats.  In an industry that relies so heavily on relationship to succeed, it is against your best interest to gloat, even if you secretly think they “got what they deserved”.  One day, you’ll get what YOU deserve, and you just won’t want other people gloating about it.

Celebrate

Instead of feeling superior and celebrating other people’s failures, how about celebrating their wins instead?  Personally, if I am competing with another person for a VO or Acting gig and they get it, I am genuinely happy for them.  I understand this is a process of selection, not rejection, and there is another gig around the corner I may be perfect for.  Don’t be the guy celebrating peoples failures…NEVER GLOAT!

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Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Under no circumstances should you ask a woman if she’s pregnant”.

Common sense?

I saw this topic on my list and said to myself: “Self, this is going to be a very short post”.  Why, you ask?  Well, it seems to me that the idea of not asking a woman if she’s pregnant is just common sense!  Apparently, I was wrong since a simple Google Search for that phrase, which I assumed would return meager if any results, returned 283 MILLION hits.  For those of you paying attention, that’s a lot.

Not so common.

Way back in 1996 when my youngest son Alex was just eight years old, he asked me “Dad, why do they call it COMMON sense?”.  Yeah, he was a pretty smart kid back then although that may be when he peaked, but those are stories for another day.  I told him it was satire.  Not really, but it was a fun conversation and I’m happy to be reminded of it.

Turns out…

He asked a pretty good question after all.  Because apparently common sense is not really very common at all.  I could probably write an entire blog just about common sense, but I’ll have to save it for later because this post is not about common sense, it’s about WHY you should never ask a woman if she’s pregnant.

It’s shocking

The first thing that struck me as I researched this topic, and while it may not seem like it, I DO research my topics, was the number of those Google hits that were written by bloggers writing about how often this has happened to them and how it made them feel.  The second thing that struck me about this was their descriptions of how it made them feel!  The third thing, go figure, is that in the vast majority of these stories it was a man who asked the question.

Full confession

I identify as a man (he/him) so I can almost understand why men are the biggest offenders.  To be fair, we can’t ever be pregnant so we can’t possibly know how it feels to nurture a human being in our bodies for nine months, nor the emotions attached to that.  On top of that we do not live in a word that tries to tell us what our “ideal body” should be.  Sure, there are SOME body expectations for men, but not only are they also imposed by other men they are not NEARLY as pervasive or have the same perceived importance in society.

Perceptions

We’ve all heard the saying that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.  While it’s true, when the “beholder” is the owner of the body often times we feel as though we don’t “measure up” to some pre-prescribed notion of beauty.  Studies show that most often our perception is that we are not thin enough.  This is true for both men AND women BTW, but it is far more common for a woman to believe that her ideal body shape is thinner than her perceived actual body shape.  Just so we are clear here:  Women – you are beautiful.  Tall, short, fat thin…all of you are marvelous and beautiful.

In other words

It’s a lot more common for a woman to look at herself in the mirror, and no matter what body type she has, think “I’m fat”, than it is for a man to think that.  This is thanks in large part to the way the media portrays women.  Runway models are mostly too thin to be healthy.  Movies and TV shows depict mostly thin girls/women.  Let’s face it, media is trying to sell us on the idea that THEIR product is going to give us the body we want, which infers we now have the body we (and ostensibly everyone else) don’t want.

Research

The majority of research into the topic of body self-image has been conducted on women until relatively recently.  Recent studies indicate that women are more likely than men to have a negative self-image of their bodies.  Studies show that most of a woman’s dissatisfaction with her body centers around their weight.  Bear in mind this is on average, or a generalization.  All you have to do is look around a bit to see this is true.  Most weight loss programs highlight women who have lost weight, most not all.  Notice that most beauty products are also targeted at women.

Competition

Why is this so?  Well, guys, do you think your wife/GF/SO gets all dolled up for you?  Think again.  Studies ALSO show that the primary, if unconscious, reason women work hard to look younger and slimmer is to compete with other women!  You see, men are visual creatures and women are more focused on things other than looks, such as confidence, humor, success etc.  The perception is that if a woman is “attractive” then she will find it easier to attract a mate.  It’s evolution on display.

All that to say…

There are some pretty good, even if not emotionally healthy, reasons why you should never ask a woman if she’s pregnant.  Think about it.  A pregnant woman is carrying around an 8-10 pound human in their midsection.  Generally speaking, this young human makes their belly bulge noticeably, at least in the last trimester of the pregnancy.  When you ask a woman if she’s pregnant, you are saying “I see a large bulge in your belly”.  If she’s not actually pregnant you are essentially saying “You look fat”.

Bad things can happen

There are several negative consequences to asking this question.  Perhaps she was pregnant and recently lost a child.  This is traumatic in and of itself, and then to be randomly reminded of it just rips the scab off the wound…if it has even scabbed over yet.  It can trash someone’s self-esteem, lower their confidence and could lead to depression or even fuel eating disorders and other mental health issues.

Self-esteem

Low self esteem can affect many areas of someone’s life.  It reduces confidence and may keep them from doing things they truly love, or prevent them from trying something new that could change their life.  Everything I’ve read indicates that a woman is already far more likely to have a low self-image and probably reduced confidence all on their own.  Inadvertently calling someone fat by asking if they’re pregnant only makes this worse.

To be honest…

These sort of negative consequences happen in men as well, although less frequently, but no one is going to ask a man if he’s pregnant so we focused on the repercussions for women here.  But guys, how would you feel if someone walked up to you and said “Hey, you look fat”?  Probably not great.

Truth is…

It’s probably none of your business anyway.  If a woman IS pregnant, and she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.

How does this relate to voice over or acting?

Well, it doesn’t really…not directly anyway.  But self-esteem and confidence in this industry are really quite important.  The industry is already rife with rejection, and the last thing we need is for anyone to add to the stress of it by randomly critiquing what we do or how we look.

You may think actors are confident…

And some may be.  After all, what we do is out there in front of the whole world to see.  But many performers struggle with imposter syndrome, constantly critique our performances and believe we could do better.  We are our own worst critics.  We don’t do this work because we think we are awesome, we do it because we love it and HOPE other people think we’re awesome.

At the end of the day…

None of us (well, MOST of us anyway) want to crush someone’s self-esteem or make them feel bad about themselves.  We want to build one another up, not tear each other down…even with an “innocent” question.  Asking someone if they’re pregnant MAY not be so innocent, so: Under no circumstances should you ask a woman if she’s pregnant.

P.S.

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