How I Got Radicalized
‘Funny Girl’ Made Me Rethink What It Means to Be a Leading Lady
I never thought I could be the star. Barbra and Fanny showed me the way.
Welcome to “How I Got Radicalized,” a series from GEN that tells the story of a cultural moment that made you drastically rethink how society works.
There is something both horrifying and awe-inducing about the chorus girl. As a young girl, I was enraptured by this sort of pageantry, from the serene statues of the Ziegfeld Follies to the army of women in Busby Berkeley musicals. I loved the way the chorus girls, like rows of soldiers, swiveled and kicked in unison. I admired their commitment to bold lips, lashes, and pearls. They were glamorous and cool, with long legs and finger-curled hair — and yet somehow they were unbearable to watch, no better than pattern makers, metal casts of the same MGM Studios-manufactured woman.
Back then, musicals were my primary means for interpreting the world, and the women I saw in musicals were prim, controlled, and entirely unoriginal. They were sweet and unassuming, with singing voices that blended together to make just the slightest hum despite belonging to a chorus of hundreds. They seemed like the ideal woman. And for some reason I couldn’t fully grasp, I knew I’d…
