Fatty, Fatty

Last week, I went for a short run and when I was done, I started to stretch. (To be clear, I’m a person with sneakers whose only goal is not to collapse at the end of two miles and am not an actual runner.)

The place I stopped is just above Brooklyn Bridge park. It’s an old playground that has a ramp up to the main street area. I was stretching facing this ramp.

As I attempt to not rip a ligament, I hear a young man yell out “Ooo, can I stretch with you?”. Now, I’m a New Yorker, raised in the Bronx, so I do what any smart New Yorker does, I just ignore him. His friend starts giggling as I continue to stretch. They continue coming down the ramp. The first guy yells out to me, “Stretching girl, you got some fat there, fatty, fatty.” I continue to ignore him as he continues his fatty, fatty chant. He suddenly runs and stands next to me. (I can see him out of the corner of my eye.) He starts stretching in this mocking fashion. His friend is across the playground, laughing. I ignore them. I pick up my water bottle and walk away. Exit without saying a word.

Why? Because I honestly don’t care what he thinks and I wanted to go somewhere and stretch in peace and quiet. He has a right to his opinion, the right to voice it and I (along with my fat) have a right to ignore it. Period. He’s not someone I will likely ever see again. He’s certainly not a friend. Who cares? Moving on…in this case, to the DMV, and as I wait in the first line, I check my email…

I discover a rejection note in my inbox. It was a rejection from a film festival, a big, well-known film festival, that had requested to see my most recent feature film based on the trailer. I didn’t even have to pay a submission fee. This is a very low-budget film made during COVID shelter in place as a way to keep working and do something creative. Anyway, I would never have thought to submit it there. I was thrilled they just wanted to see my work and I knew it would likely get rejected merely based on the budget level, lack of A-list names and general weirdness. Yet, I was disappointed when it received the rejection note. I had that momentary feeling of “I suck” and “my film sucks” and “maybe I should just shove my head in a wall and leave it there for the next century”. And then I thought about the guy calling me fatty and I started to laugh. Just like him, whoever watched the film is just a person. A person I don’t know at all and will probably never meet. His or her opinion doesn’t matter. Not really. Not in my day to day life.  The screener is just like the guy calling me fatty except not as brutally honest. Unlike the person behind me in line who is wondering why the F*** I have not moved to the next chair. (Yes, the DMV has you rotate chairs rather than standing in line. It sounds nice but it’s more like some twisted version of musical chairs mixed with Simon Says. Put your coat on the back of your chair, put your stuff down, sit down, take a breath and then hurry up and gather it all up and move two feet before the person behind you gives you an alternative to where you can go if the next chair doesn’t suit you.)

Anyway, I settle into my next seat and ponder the careful wording of my rejection email. The email message informing me my film would not be playing at the festival used many kind adjectives, consoling phrases and words of encouragement. This is supposed to lessen the pain. I find it condescending. I decide I’d rather hear what the screener thought. “Your film has issues and I’m concerned for your psychological state. Thank you for your patronage.” That would be nice. I’d share it on Facebook and give whomever wrote it a big thumbs up. And then, a bell goes off and it’s time to move again. (I’m now wondering if the DMV wants to be the new Vegas. A bell goes off and the person at the front of the line has to figure out which of the 45 windows is lit up to see if they won the big prize and have actually filled out all their archaic forms right and can go to the next phase of the competition and have their photo taken or if they have failed at answering one of the 100 questions correctly and have to start all over with a blank form. This occurs while the rest of us move to our next seat noting that our impending failure is getting closer and closer.)

Yes, we are rejected in our daily lives all the time and we commit the sin of rejection ourselves on a regular basis. You go to a clothing store, try something on, don’t like the way it looks, and you don’t buy it. You have in essence rejected that designer’s work. Yes! You are the rejector! You look at the avocados at your local market and determine they are all rotten. They are beneath your standards. Rejected! You race for the subway and the conductor shuts the doors right before you are about to step through them. Barred from entry! The DMV employee doesn’t like that you used a red pen to fill out your form and you wonder why they can’t move past 1990 and go paperless while you start all over again. The road of life is paved with tons of rejections and fine print.

Though all of the above can be frustrating, these incidents do not (I hope) ruin our lives. There may be moments of “Why me?” and thoughts like “The DMV is like purgatory and I’ll never get out of here.” Sure. There is no avoiding it. The DMV will continue to run even after the apocalypse. I truly believe it. In fact, if Sartre knew of the DMV, he would have placed his characters in NO EXIT there. I’m sure of it. However, my point is, there are tons of clothing stores, subways come every six to twelve minutes and Uber might be a better option, anyway. Most important to note is that there are many, many film festivals.

In the end the people who screen your films don’t matter in your day to day life. Some of them will love your work and some will not. And none of them will have the guts to tell you why. That’s okay. We all have our shortcomings. Focus on the people who are fans and like your work and ignore the others. It’s hard. We all tend to focus on the negative more than the positive but I encourage you to let “fatty, fatty, fatty” fade out…and bravo, bravo, bravo fade in. Kudos to you, you made a film and it hopefully didn’t involved renewing your driver’s license. If it did, I am truly sorry for you. I’m sitting in section D in case you need a friend…