Author: Dellany Peace

People, I may be late to the prison party and I know Orange is the New Black premiered in 2013, but the relevance of this show is still so on-point in 2018, I just couldn’t stay silent. About four years ago I overheard someone I considered a friend talking enthusiastically about the show and how amazing it was. At the time many people were talking about this ground-breaking series. Because I valued this friend’s opinion, I asked this friend if they thought I would like it. This person paused and then adamantly told me, “No, you wouldn’t like it. Don’t…

Like those crazy cool kids from Stranger Things I grew up in the 80s! Not with the Demogorgen or The Upside Down (to my knowledge), but you can bet your sweet Space Invaders that I was a leg-warmers wearing, jelly-bracelets up to my elbows and lace ribbons in my hair, 80’s kid… And I was in love with the movies The Goonies (1985), E.T. (1982), and Ghostbusters (1984)! At that same time, there were also the movies Caddyshack (1980), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), and Animal House (1978) – still being upheld and enthusiastically referred to all through my…

***As I’m writing this, I’ve had countless debates with many people over social media, a few people have unfriended me and I’ve watched fatphobia clinch its hateful grip on a subconsciously-biased culture over a show that no one has watched yet but has sparked a lot of controversy in just 1 minute and 51 seconds. Scratch that – in just the first 30 seconds – see for yourself*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-81WVD8xTs Since its release, the Insatiable trailer has triggered enough people to create a petition that has been circulating online with hundreds of thousands of people saying not only were they outraged…

I went to see a body image themed play the other night. It was a great reminder for me to pull myself out of my own little bubble when I’m constantly raging against a bigger toxic bubble. Kate Huffman is a creator/writer/actress and she has a dark comedy one-woman-show called I’M TOO FAT FOR THIS SHOW. Recently I met Kate when we were on the same panel at a screening for a brilliant documentary, Fattitude. I’ll be honest. When I met her my first thought was, “She’s not fat, why did she describe herself like this for her show??”. My…

“But you have such a pretty face!” “Why would you write about being fat and being in this business? That sounds miserable.” “If you make content for fat people, aren’t you promoting obesity?” “You’re such a good dancer!” These comments have been made to me in the last week alone. These are just the comments at the forefront of my brain, not all the comments that are actually made on a regular basis.  Women in general get judgy comments made about their looks and bodies quite often; women who don’t meet societal body standards get comments made every. Single. Day.…

It ^^^ really did. Casting a larger lead character thin for the big screen adaption altered how I saw The Girl On The Train… and ultimately squashed the story’s underlying themes of self acceptance, appearances, discrimination and bias. In the best-selling novel, “The Girl” on the train is Rachel Watson. She is the lead character and has clearly been written by the author as overweight. With descriptors such as “heavyset’, ‘fat’ and ‘fat arsed’ (among others), Rachel is without a doubt a plus-size woman who also happens to be ‘average looking’. With no other notable or distinctive feature used to…

eq·ui·ty – ˈekwədē/ (noun) the quality of being fair and impartial. the value of the shares issued by a company. Now substitute the word equity for greed, and this iconic Wall Street speech becomes: “Equity— for lack of a better word— is good. Equity is right. Equity works. Equity clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” It’s exhilarating to watch Meera Menon’s financial-crisis drama Equity go toe to toe with the patriarchal ghosts of Gordon Gekko and The Wolf Of Wall Street — by not only flipping the script, but by rewiring its molecules on a…

Within about five minutes of meeting me you can learn quite a lot: I’m very personable – I have freakish energizer-bunny level energy – I say “ya’ll” ad nauseum – and I love hard on my dog-daughter Elphaba, who I named after the musical Wicked… PAUSE:  outing myself as a super-duper-musical-theatre NERD; technically the name “Elphaba” was inspiration for the book – which of course inspired the musical. The author of Wicked had come up with the phonetic pronunciation of the initials of L. Frank Baum, the writer of Wizard Of Oz:  El Pha Ba… we now return you to…

In our modern era, cameras and videos are EVERYWHERE. You would be hard pressed to find any public area without seeing someone’s head tuned down, deep into their cell phones. I’ve even witnessed people in church shamelessly pull out their cell phones when they are supposed to be PRAYING (I say this without judgment ya’ll!). Many of us like to whip out a camera at any given moment to either boldly take a selfie or record something that we deem “share worthy” on Facebook. We cannot live without our phones, afraid we are going to miss a second of something.…

Finally! Having been entrenched in a male-dominated industry since the first movie image was committed to celluloid, thwarted female filmmakers everywhere have grown tired of “Play by MAN’s-rules and maybe you will break into the big leagues” and are instead embracing the attitude of “Eff the institutionalized patriarchal system — I’m going to make my art regardless!” Dismantling the boys club is no easy feat, but one way to get there more quickly is to search out and meet like minded artists… and RUN towards the big C-word: COLLABORATE. I am doing just that and let me tell you –…

UPDATE: If you have been following my journey, you now know I had kept an idea to myself for a couple years now. When I finally decided to ‘let go’ and announce that I was creating a body positive superhero, I imagined that I was confiding to my most intimate cyber world school chums at a sleepover full of giggles and anticipation over who was going to sleep first and risk having their hand put in warm water when sleeping. BEST THING I COULD HAVE EVER DONE. Some enthusiastic readers privately messaged me to express their first impressions on not…

Raise your hand if you’ve had the BEST most original idea EVER?! It’s never been done, it’s got a HOOK that so many people will love, and it’s truly going to knock the viewers socks off once they see it. You are confident that you will go down in industry-history as the original creator of your one-of-a-kind IP (intellectual property, baby!). Now raise your hand if you: GOOGLED your “unique” idea to see no less than 3,681,479 results come up HAVE BEEN shut down by a friend, co-worker or peer who tells you it’s been done before WOKE UP one…

You know when you have that “banging your head up against a brick wall” moment, otherwise known as “Why the heck does what I’m trying to do sometimes feel hopeless?!” When you are an independent artist working and creating by yourself 99% of the time, you will find that you have these moments more often than not. Sometimes you have to force yourself to come up with new ways to stay focused, driven and not wanting to just scream at your artist-self for being so difficult. More times than I’d like to admit, I have been so close to having…

“In The Beginning…” (Let’s take it by the decades) 0-10 years old: One thing I knew coming right out of the womb was– I was born to entertain! Mama Peace told me that ever since I was a baby I was jonesing to talk–  even though I didn’t know any words; I was always LOUD no matter what emotion I was feeling. I was fearless and would often climb up trees to perform, then sometimes I’d start taking my clothes off until someone would come to get me down (toddler’s version of a stripping pole?). When visitors came over I…