Bella: An American Tall Tale
The Wild West is an iconic American place and time, and the tall tale is a uniquely American storytelling device so, naturally, playwright Kirsten Childs uses both to tell an American story that is conspicuously absent from American lore. Bella: An American Tall Tale was inspired by some street gawking Childs witnessed. As she describes in the program notes, she was walking down the street behind an African-American couple, and every man that passed took time to look (stare? leer?) at the woman's ample behind. (She notes that the men were "so spellbound they'd even forgotten to catcall.) Rather than seeing this as blatant street harassment or objectification of women, Childs saw an African beauty ideal being worshiped. A Euro-centric beauty ideal pervades society. Pretty much since Twiggy, magazines have been covered with white (often blonde) women who have waif-like bodies: skinny, straight, and with "normal" size features (noses, lips, etc.). In recent...