Black & Brown Fat Women and Femmes Are Not The Punchline For Your Art. We Deserve Humanity & Nuance In TV & Film.
Rashida KhanBey Miller
Emmy Winning Sensual Movement Artist Featured on LIZZO’s WOFTBG and Author of “A Return To Pleasure”
Original Post Published: June 2018
Update Post Published: March 2020
Update Post Published: August 2020
Updated Post Published: December 2021
Updated Post Published: March 2022
Updated Post Published: September 2022
I come to you …. 4 years after I began writing this piece with an update. I am part of the EMMY WINNING Cast of Watch Out For The Big Grrrls on Amazon Prime. Check out Episode 3 “Curves and Confidence”.
I’m still in a place. Waking up as part of an Emmy winning cast of women that look like me…my heart is open, bursting, proud and excited.
For every lie we’ve endured that there wasn’t space for us
For every rejection because we didn’t “fit the mold”
For every passive aggressive comment
For every time we’ve been looked over
For every time we’ve been told we could everything but the star
Let this be the reminder that the story has shifted.
I thank God, my benevolent and right minded ancestors, I thank my warriors and my spirit guides for all the winding paths that you guided me through to get to this moment.
Black Fat Women have never been the punchline. Glad the world is finally catching up.
Sex Is A God Thing, Short Film Installation, 2019 | @ThankYouMiller and @RashidaKhanBeyMiller
Many things can happen when you are persistent and unwilling to accept less than what you believe and know is possible.
-Rashida KhanBey Miller
Who knew in June 2018 (scroll to bottom for original post) as I was furiously writing this original letter to you all, all the beautiful things that would occur thereafter. Over the last four years I’ve been busy, pushing past my own fears of performance and putting myself into the very industry that I thought had no room for me. In the summer of 2019, we released the third Installation of “Sex Is A God Thing” in partnership with the Gene Siskel Film Center and Black Harvest Film Festival. The film went on to receive several laurels while working the festival circuit. ClexaCon Film Festival, New York LGBTQ Film Fest and more.
In that same year I had the opportunity to attend OTV x Sundance Institute in Chicago where we celebrated new films from indie Chicago filmmakers and discussed some of the challenges we were experiencing in bringing our creative works to life. I was so nervous to attend the weekend training institute but I’m grateful I did.
If you all don’t remember that was the same year that I went to Los Angeles to audition for Coachella with the one and only Lizzo. I unfortunately, didn’t make the cut and I was wrecked. It took me months to really get back on my feet after that blow. I kept asking myself, why was it so important to me other than the obvious validation of being a booked artist working for a global superstar (duh!). It was that AND something else. As I sat with the disappointment and talked to my closest people around me, I realized I was craving to reshape my career towards film and tv even though it looked very dim from where I stood. The audition, all that we sacrificed to make getting to the audition possible felt like the investment of a lifetime and at the time (2019) to have nothing to show for it upon coming home felt like I’d make a mistake.
So funny, I am obssessed with Encanto. The movie is just truly a little bible of stories. One moment that landed pretty hard for me was Mirabel seeing her cousin Antonio receive his gift and she finally says aloud that she isn’t happy standing on the side watching everyone else shine. She was frustrated and rightfully so. She wails in the song “I am searching for a miracle, am I too late for a miracle” and the next thing that happens in the script, the house starts to crack, something breaks.
She asked for a miracle and something broke.
Some times there’s a break before a …..
Okay ya’ll get it.
Well, 2021 I was offered the opportunity of a lifetimeI began a new journey into Film/TV working as The Body Movement Expert for Lizzo’s new reality TV Show Watch Out For The Big Grrrls coming to Prime Video March 25, 2022! It’s the way my heart swells with pride and joy knowing that I am apart of this vision and this very necessary disruption to the entertainment industry. It’s the way y’all about to get into this healing as we unlock the door to this type of size inclusion and holistic storytelling. I cannot wait for y’all to experience this magic.Part of our final push for The Black Harvest Festival in 2019 was this concept of Fat Black and Brown Women not being the punchline to your art. It was truly eye opening to see the stories of pain and confusion of not seeing ourselves represented well. We said enough was enough.
We all know that Queen Lizzo has truly stood at the forefront of the entertainment industry to say “I am here and I am not hiding”. While we see the flawless execution and mastery of her performing skills, she is not shy of reminding us of the immeasurable pain she has shouldered being disregarded and dehumanized at times being in the spotlight as a Fat Black Woman. In this Good Morning America interview below (along with many others) she highlights the viscious cycle that larger body entertainers are faced with in the industry. No agent, no jobs. No jobs, no agent. We have been pushed aside and systemically ignored for so long many people at the heads of these very tables don’t even question the lack of nuance, inclusion or culture, it has become the norm to make us invisible but extract nurturing, confidence and hope from these same bodies when it’s convenient or timely. The dancers on this show are truly phenomenal, every single one. And don’t get me started on the executive producing team. A team of Black Feminine-Spectrum Executives ushering this vision to life: Makiah Green, Myeia Coy along with award winning director Nneka Onourah. There is so much to gush about and so many stories to share. I can’t wait to soak up every single moment with you.
Learn More: Set Safety & Inclusion Training For Film & TV
Over the last (eight) years since the release of our microfilm we have been working on developing Sex Is A God Thing (feature film.)
SEX IS A GOD THING (2020) explores the ways in which sexual shame can disrupt our spiritual development, our faith, our sex lives, our perceptions of our bodies; taking us away from what Esther Perel calls our “Erotic Innocence,” a place where we can experience pleasure, play and openness without the stigma of being a “bad girl” for wanting to feel good. In the series, two sisters, come together in the face of grief and decide enough is enough. They want their lives back: in their careers, respective romantic partnerships, maternal bonds, and especially their sexual bliss. The tug between their Christian upbringing and their hunger for sexual autonomy, leave them asking: can I have pleasure and a relationship with God? Check out the trailer below.
Trailer Music Feature: I Put A Spell on You (Cover) x Camila Isabel
If you want to see more stories featuring Black Women in multidimensional, joyful,complex and vibrant roles in digital media and tv I would love for you to follow our journey in creating Sex Is A God Thing.
Learn more and explore the film here
Original Post Begins Here: June 2018
When I was in college studying for my Bachelors in Theatre Performance I felt inundated with messages that Black,Fat/Plus Size, Dark Skin Women and Femmes (and Young women in particular) were not going to get work in the industry. I was crushed for a lot of reasons but mainly because acting had become like my second skin.
I grew up training pre-pro in dance and felt isolated from that community because of my weight as a young girl. To fight to push through my own fears around performance after shifting away from my intensive dance training to acting only to get another message that the world was not accepting or desiring of Black,Plus Size, Dark Skin Girls in multidimensional roles was infuriating.
I was being told I’d never be Juliet, I’d never be the love interest, I’d probably never be seen in a dynamic role and not because I couldn’t do the work but simply because the narrative of a Black,Larger Body Women and Femmes existing in the world as happy,carefree, desirable, ambitious and all the emotional spectrum was apparently too complicated for people too image. I was being sold that I was limited to being the butt of the joke, the victim for trauma porn or the nanny or whatever extra role made me tolerable but didn’t take up too much space in this very thin, very able-bodied, very white or white passing industry (which obviously does not reflect our actual world). And I got tired and quite honestly defeated.
Hearing all this, I took the pain and disappointment I felt and started building #reclaimingyoursexy a sensual moving meditation practice designed to help women and people on the feminine spectrum release, reconnect and embody vibrancy through dance. I wanted to create a safe space for Women and Femme identified folks, especially those that looked like me, to feel sexy, desirable and uninhibited in their bodies. I wanted us to know that we could take up space in the world unapologetically without question. I knew I wanted to perform but I couldn't stomach more of the same mistreatment that I had already experienced as a fat kid in dance for over 10 years at that point.
I used the beginning building of #reclaimingyoursexy to heal my body image and build my courage. And as I rebuilt the way I saw myself I started to feel this courage to not only teach femme identified people how to feel sexy but to create narratives around our bodies through film that actually reflected our whole story.
In 2014 I went to my friends Zarinah Ali (Director) and Chanel Glover (Screenwriter) and said I need to create a film showing a Women of Size feeling confident, sexy and desirable and specifically for it to be a story about two Black Queer People reclaiming the passion in their relationship. And thus Sex Is A God Thing - The 2014 Microfilm was born in a matter of two weeks on less than a $500 budget.
Over the years I have witnessed women like Jennifer Hudson, Viola Davis, Gabourey Sidibe, Danielle Brooks, Lizzo, Chika, Octavia Spencer, Chandra Wilson and many more show up and show the fuck out in the world in roles that I was told would never exist. From Dreamgirls to Orange Is The New Black to Hidden Figures and Rocking The Music Festival Stages these Temptresses have been being bold, audacious, vibrant and unapologetic. These women have become guiding lights for me in knowing that it IS possible to be seen in our full spectrum of experiences. I knew I needed to keep going because this work, this mission of changing the narrative in media of Black Larger Body Women and Femme Identified people, was bigger than me. It’s for all is us who are tired of being marginalized, forgotten and cast aside. It’s for the little girls behind us who need to know that their bodies are worthy,valid and beautiful in all shapes and sizes. It’s for us - so we know that we can fully take up space in this world without apology.
In 2014 I shared my first microfilm with my community and we reached so many women who said they needed to see a Plus Size women being more than the old storylines we were use to and they appreciated that presence on screen. Then in 2017 our film resurfaced exploding from 25k views to over 22 Million viewers on various social platforms. Beyond the numbers,the most impactful part of this experience has been, meeting women and femme folks from all over the world in the #reclaimingyoursexy and #messymovementseries class who are DONE accepting people in their life treating them as optional, throwaway, replaceable or moveable parts because our bodies do not live up to this unnecessary standard of appeal.
We are clapping back and saying F*** that I deserve to be here, I deserve love, I deserve adoration, I deserve to be desired, I deserve to be seen fully, I deserve to be more than your quiet side chick, I deserve to be more than the shoulder people cry on, I deserve to be amplified and elevated and loved on and a whole snack in this world that continuously tries to tell us (in words and actions) otherwise. Enough is enough. Seeing these powerhouses in class is one of the many reasons I have continued to push this story forward.