2.2 A Radical Act of Resistance
With Lucy Ansell
In this episode Lucy Ansell and Bronte Charlotte discuss Australia's ongoing racism, colourism and texturism by delving into a piece Lucy wrote for the publication Hair (curated by Sabina McKenna of @whereareyoufrom__) in which she reveals her relationship with her textured hair growing up in predominantly white spaces in Australia. We chat about how you can never stop learning, working in professional environments after graduating drama school, the assortment of professional jobs Lucy has picked up, including the biggest stage production currently in Australia, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Lucy explains tokenism in casting, how institutions seek to look diverse but don’t seek to support any true diversity, and her joy working with Chanella Macri in her piece for She is Vigilante.
During this episode we discuss:
[05:27] Lucys list of credits from her first year out of drama school, joining the magical world of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and how masks have soothed our hayfever.
[13:56] Hair - a Zine curated by Sabina McKenna about textured hair, an excerpt from Lucys article, and Lucy speaks to texturism, colorism and racism in relation to hair.
[22:21] Theatre as a reflection of life, tokenism in casting, and some examples of works that have been done sensitively, honouring the voices that need to be honoured and amplified.
[27:11] Being a political act just by taking up space, truly diversifying spaces, and growing up in predominantly white spaces.
[34:19] Our lack of education and ignorance around true Australian history, the importance of allyship, and how important our early education is for building values and shaping us as humans.
[37:59] The weight of the Black Lives Matter movement on the shoulders of the BIPOC community, the Movement building in the midst of the global pandemic, and the system that keeps the oppressed, oppressed.
[43:30] “I’m just as white as you,” the generalisations and assumptions around blackness, and building honest and true representation from the ground up, starting with who is in the room behind the camera.
[49:58] The scoop and weigh section, daily naps, isolation crafts, defining who you are, the messy characters that bring an actor joy, and working with Chanella Macri in She is Vigilante.
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Bronte:
Welcome back to the Chats with Creative's podcast. I'm a Bronte Charlotte, an actor currently living in Naarm, Melbourne. Just before we begin, I want to acknowledge that every episode I record, I record on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. If there are any First Nations people listening today, thank you so much for being here. This is Radical Acts of Resistance with Lucy Ansell. Lucy is a powerhouse of a woman. She received a Green Room award for Best Performance in She is Vigilante. She's currently ensemble in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and she is an absolute hero of mine when it comes to standing up for yourself and being clear on your values. Lucy is one of those incredible, incredible women who is so strong and settled and grounded and has just this calm and gentle aura about her. She makes everyone around her feel so supported and loved and valued. And I really, really, really, really respect that about her. I look up to her in so many ways and I am so, so proud of the work that she has done, particularly since leaving VCA. But also in VCA, if any of you saw any of the work from the time that we were in VCA together... Oh, my God, she is a wonder human. The way that she expresses and describes her experience as a woman of colour, the way that she articulates prejudice and racism and colorism and tokenism and all of those things is so, so intelligent and so fascinating and so open and honest. These conversations that I have with Lucy about race and casting and theatre are some of my favourite conversations that I have with another creative human being. She is beautiful. Heart and soul and love and generosity. And I am so excited for you to hear this discussion that we have today. Lucy Goosey.
Lucy:
My dear.
Bronte:
How are you?
Lucy:
I'm well, I'm here. I was smiling the whole way here, but no one could tell because I had a mask on. Just the weird one on the tram.
Bronte:
I've been enjoying... I know this is a weird thing to say... My hayfever this year has been like so much better because I've been wearing a mask outside.
Lucy:
Oh my God talk to me. Not even, you don't even have like that stream down, just out of the eyes.
Bronte:
I've had like, super itchy eyes every so often. And then I had a few too many red wines one night and I got like hives all over my face.
Lucy:
Oh. Oh!?
Bronte:
Yeah, I know. It was like...
Lucy:
I was about to be like, it do be like that? But, not always.
Bronte:
I had a hive reaction and I was like no!! Then I started taking like antihistamines, which I wasn't doing prior to that because I was going OK due to the mask. The antihistamines helped. The hives went away. It took about eight or nine days to go down to go down and I was like, "what have I done to myself?" And I havent had wine since.
Lucy:
Well welcome back to non-hive land.
Bronte:
It's good to be here. How's your morning been?
Lucy:
Good. I feel like strangely still and centered. I think it's because my shower heads broken and I've been like having to have lots of baths.
Bronte:
Oh. How pleasant.
Lucy:
Yeah. It's been really nice. Really nice. I would recommend if you've got any sort of tub.
Bronte:
I don't.
Lucy:
You could get a little kiddie pool?
Bronte:
I don't think... Oh my God... When you said kiddie pool. I literally thought you meant kittie pool for my cats and I was like, "I think they'd like that. They don't love the water." And then I was like, no, Bronte. That's not what that is. It's for kids.
Lucy:
I mean you do you.
Bronte:
I've considered it. Do you know what I did do this morning, though? I don't know if people are going to think I'm crazy, but I'll tell you because you deserve this.
Lucy:
Thank God no one's listening to this.
Bronte:
Leigh and I woke up and we were like, "oh, my God, the suns out. Oh, my God, we have nothing on today. Let's go to the beach." And it's like, I don't know what the temperature is, but it's so cold. I was like in a bikini and a summer dress.
Lucy:
Wait, you went?
Bronte:
Yes!
Lucy:
Oh my gosh, yeah.
Bronte:
We went. We went down to Elwood and we got out and it was so cold. Literally everyone on the beach... There's like one other person, just like sitting on the sand, in a puffer jacket and like big boots. And everyone walking along the beach was in like puffer jackets and jeans. And I was like in a dress like, "oh my God, the beach." We both just forgot we were in Melbourne.
Lucy:
I went for a dip in a lake yesterday.
Bronte:
Really?
Lucy:
Yep. Didn't have a towel, still... I'm actually still damp.
Bronte:
It doesn't come out. Where's this lake?
Lucy:
It's called Plenty Gorge. Have you heard of it?
Bronte:
Yes, I have heard of it, but only in the last week.
Lucy:
Oh, true. Yeah. Yeah, there's plenty of it. Plenty of it.
Bronte:
Desk hand sanitiser coming out.OK...
Lucy:
It's getting real.
Bronte:
How did we meet?
Lucy:
Tinder? That's a joke. That's not funny. I had the absolute pleasure -.
Bronte:
An honour.
Lucy:
Pleasure of colliding worlds with you at uni. What an absolute time.
Bronte:
What a journey.
Lucy:
It is a pivotal time. Honestly, it's like... It's like my birth. Rode a bike. School. Meeting Bronte. It's death, really.
Bronte:
Death is next. Yes. So we did, we did go to the VCA together. It's becoming a bit of a trend, isn't it? People I chat to are all like VCA grads. All like, "we met at school." Listeners are getting bored. They're like, "fucking hell." Give us a little rundown of who you are and your history in the creative industries.
Lucy:
Who I am?
Bronte:
You know, just like your birth story.
Lucy:
You know what this is reminding me of. You know how we have to write our own bios, but we pretend... We do it in third person. We pretend it's not us. Oh god, a history of who - what was it, who I am and my birth?
Bronte:
Yeah, like who you are. Like, I want you're identifying like internal features. Like whether that be a liver or like you eat cashews. I'm kidding.
Lucy:
I've got a few organs.
Bronte:
Great. How did Lucy come to find acting?
Lucy:
For me, I was always that annoying kid. Oh I feel like it's quite normal for little kids to make up little plays. You know, instead of buying your parents an actual present, you just sort of do a little weird dance for them on Mother's Day and stuff.
Bronte:
But like, you're so proud of it as well. And you're like, "This is your gift. It's me! Doing a dance!"
Lucy:
You are welcome. I just feel like I never stopped doing that. And it was, like it just wasn't cute anymore. Like I've just, I've just never really stopped to be honest. But I still like, it took me a really long time to like legitimise that. It was always just like a hobby or like something I knew I really enjoyed doing. But I was always like, I just sort of bought into the narrative that it wasn't like a quote unquote "real job" or it wasn't like feasible. And so I'm still sort of working away at that to try and, like, validate that just within myself. But only really the last sort of few years, I reckon, since uni, I don't even know. I think I was still sort of plugging away at it during uni, but kind of since uni having to sort of reprogramme what that means to me. And and so it does still feel very new. I still feel like a little sponge baby swimming around.
Bronte:
It's so interesting to hear you say it's a very, like new thing because looking at what you've done, like this base that you have of your career, that's going to extend like for many, many years. This base you've created is amazing. I had like a big moment of like, "oh, my fucking God, Lucy!" And I read, I read your bio, but like, honestly, I know the work that you've done since leaving VCA, but this is mildly ridiculous. So your first year out of drama school, you booked a highly renowned agent, you've booked guest roles in different series on network television and ABC TV and all sorts of things. You received a fucking Green Room award for the Best Performer in individual theatre for your role in Vigilante at Theatre Works, which was gorgeous. And you also had a few weeks on stage doing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. You're a swing in Cursed Child, which is amazing. And so you had a few weeks performing in the Cursed Child before Melbourne went into lockdown, due to the global pandemic.
Lucy:
TM
Bronte:
What is that like? I've just like read out your first year out of drama school to you. Does that, like, feel weird? Like does it feel like a natural progression to have leapt onto all these, like, amazing things? Or does it feel like... Was it unexpected or challenging or did it just feel like a smooth ride? Tell me about it.
Lucy:
Oh, my gosh. Oh, God. Closed captions - I'm almost sobbing. You know, it's like it's so bizarre. I never, ever, ever, ever expected to be able to do what I have been so lucky to be able to do. I even... I forgot about some of the things you spoke about. It's just been such a whirlwind of a year. But I think it's super, super heartening that there is so much, I feel like obviously everything's sort of been suspended and everything's on hold at the moment. But there's just so many beautiful, incredible pieces of work being made right now and I feel like the last few years there's been sort of a momentum building and.. with sort of really starting to re-shift our focus on what stories are being told and who's telling them and trying to sort of, we're just sort of working out how to do that sensitively now. I think there's so much focus on like, on representation, but it does need to be more than that. Representation is not enough. We need reform. We need restructure. And I think sort of just before all of this huge, like global holt happened, I think it was really cool to see sort of, some of the changes starting to happen. And I feel ridiculously lucky to have had a little part in that.
Bronte:
All those, the things that you've already been a part of, is there something that kind of stands out as like, that surely, has happened for a reason? Or it led you on to something else? Or is there something like that stands out for you?
Lucy:
Oh, I mean, I would just, I would genuinely say all of it, to be honest. So many of the sort of opportunities I landed myself in, like I feel like just the day before I almost quit, to be honest. You know, it's just that's so the works of the industry. So I still, like I'm still... I pinch myself for absolutely everything you listed just then. I think for like a little eight year old me like being part of the world of Harry Potter is still like probably the most ridiculous thing I will ever be a part of, honestly. And just like learning the machine of, like, such a massive commercial production... Seeing kind of the ins and outs of it is just like, the biggest of privileges. Honestly, I just, I have such a newfound appreciation for the craft and for that specific side of the craft, I suppose.
Bronte:
It's cool that, I was thinking about this the other day, like, how Cursed Child - obviously a huge piece like that, and we both have people that we know in it and now you know everyone in the cast... I feel like it almost must function as a musical. It's different to, you know, an indie theatre piece going on like 45 Downstairs or even Malthouse, like it's a scale that is so large. I can't imagine the inner workings that you're talking about. It must have been so, so crazy to witness them, especially on something magical like Harry Potter when you have like a connection to it from childhood.
Lucy:
Yeah, totally. I think the bizarre thing for me is like doing three years of training and then kind of throwing it out the window. And I know that's not true because it's definitely informing absolutely everything I do with it. But it just sort of occupies or requires like, just a different part of the brain. And it's, I have so much admiration for people who can sort of extend themselves and show up every single day for such an extended long period of time and just give it their absolute all and put it all on the line night after night after night. Like that kind of rigour is so incredibly admirable. I've heard this a little bit, in terms of like comparing it to a musical. And I think there's definitely some, like overlaps in sort of the structure of it for sure. I think it's so like technically sound and so like specific and challenging in the way that a musical is. But at the same time it has... You can see glimpses of like the, I suppose, like a Malthouse formula. Like it's a kind of conglomerate of like types of performance, I suppose, which is really cool and like... Yeah, I think it's definitely like a really awesome experience and like teaching lesson for an actor to sort of work in that. It's like the whole... I'm just, I'm genuinely just learning the whole time. I'm just like... I think, you know, I could do it for a year and still be learning new things after shows.
Bronte:
There is a Zine... There's like a magazine... Is it a Zine or a Zine.
Lucy:
It goes back to the gif or gif debate.
Bronte:
What do you say? I say gif.
Lucy:
I know it's gif but I so want it to be gif.
Bronte:
Is it official? Is it gif?
Lucy:
I mean, I think so - I know anything?!
Bronte:
It's such a bad word -gif. I'm going to say Zine, because it's a magazine. Why isn't it a magazine? Ok, so there is this is beautiful Zine by where are you from. Did it start as an Instagram page? Or did it start as a Zine?
Lucy:
It's a bit of both. It's been curated by @art_workr, or Sabina McKenna. And it's essentially, I think it started as am Instagram, but it was also... It was curated in galleries, basically. So they had like an online platform. I think there's a website as well linked up to it, but it's also one of its children.
Bronte:
Yeah, right. OK, so I have before me Hair, which is a Zine. My understanding was that it was the second publication, like hold in your hand book, I could be wrong. It's such a beautiful, beautiful creation. I fucking love it. Even the photos by Shannon May Powell are like stunning. Everyone is so stunning. It's just different people who have these incredible relationships to textured hair and it's so beautiful. And I'm going to read a section of Lucy's, which is on the first page. Do you know what, Lucy? I mean, I'll let the listeners listen in a moment. It is so poetic and you've articulated so beautifully your experience with, you know, that you've had, your relationship with your hair and... Oh, my God, it's honestly...... OK. So this is right towards the end of Lucy's except: "In high school, internalised thinking and general apathy towards my "troublesome" (in inverted commas) coils led me to take a vow of hair abstinence. For five years, I locked it away in a despondent bun. The more men reached out to stroke it, the more I tried to keep it from their grasp. I lessened and minimised myself until I didn't take up any space at all. I wethered myself down so much my identity was collaterally sanitised. For black and brown femmes, our market viably rests on how well we hide and contort our hair - with those of us whose texture closely neighbours the fringes of whiteness, working notably less hard than the rest. Texturism lurks in the shadow of its unfavourable colleague colorism. The loose pattern of my curl makes my brown more palatable. I've been told I have the good kind of black hair, a compliment that works harder to insult us all. Truth be told, my hair has never felt exclusively mine. Rather a public site I've been hired to maintain. It is perpetually policed, controlled, surveilled, fetishised, co-opted, violated and exoticised without my consent. Leaving it in its most natural, unadulterated form still feels a radical act of resistance, a carousel that orbits blessing and burden. For now, I'm still ambivalent. I no longer collapse all my worth with my hair, but there is still so much unlearning to do. Oh, my God, cy.
Lucy:
it's so nice to hear you say it.
Bronte:
OK, that's only, that's literally three paragraphs of what you've written and there's so much in there. There's so much in there about like, how racism and colorism is connected to someone's hair. It's like... It's so infuriating and so upsetting to me that people have this experience because - I mean, I'm blonde. I am the appearance of that kind of like straight blonde hair that so many people in this publication have talked about wanting or feeling like that's the only acceptable way to have hair. And I've never had the experience of being in your shoes or a person with textured hairs shoes where, you want that straight silky look. It just like it blows my mind that that - it's so linked to, you know, I mean, like anything in our appearance can be so linked to our self-worth, but it's so layered and complicated when someone has textured hair because it's also linked in with colorism and racism and identity and history. Reading these things was so eye-opening and so intimate. It felt really intimate that I had spent three years with you at VCA and I didn't know that this was the relationship that you had had with your hair. I mean, it's not like that you talk about on the daily. It's just something that you experience internally so often. And it's yeah, it's almost like because you're living in this society that comments on, or tries to touch a part of your body, it's silenced. Like your experience of it is silenced. And I just wanted to acknowledge that and be like, I don't understand this experience because I don't have textured hair. But these writings and your writing in particular because I know you, they were just very eye-opening and very upsetting to read. To kind of hear from so many different people, their experiences and how closely linked they all were. And it was something I literally had never thought of. I didn't know. I didn't know it was a thing that existed. I only found out recently about the natural hair movement. I honestly didn't know it existed. And I feel really naive and that's my problem. But like, thank you so much for writing this and for being so honest. Now, I know I've talked.
Lucy:
Oh, no, totally. It's super, super, super heartening for me to also flick through and to see myself in all of those stories, because I definitely didn't see it growing up. And I think I would minimise it because I kind of did feel like I was kind of an outlier in that - because I didn't see that other people were feeling that way I didn't know that it was a systemic issue rather than my issue. And I remember, you know, it's kind of written from the lens of like a four year old me who had already, like, successfully downloaded my own implicit bias. And I remember it started with a conversation my mom I remember having when I was three - three! And I asked her why I had to have brown skin as if it was some kind of hindrance. I asked her why I had to have this hair, why I couldn't have the other hair. It was the "other hair." And it's amazing to me now because we look at three year olds and we think that, you know, the only thing in their mind is, is snacks and playgrounds. But we are not ever immune from structural racism. And it starts from a very, very... It starts after we exit the womb. And it's, it is ongoing. It is relentless and it's cyclical. And I think it's... I didn't really speak about it growing up. It's interesting you say I didn't speak about it at VCA, and I think it's because a part of me was still ashamed for sure. Still ashamed because hair feels so... I feel like hair is linked to vanity, but it is also a signifier for so many complex issues. And for instance, I think my hair is the first thing that outs me as a person of colour rather than my actual skin colour. And I know this because I've experienced someone yelling something at me from 30 metres away, from only seeing the back of my head. And I think I've learnt to kind of weaponize that. I do know that if I tie my hair up in a certain way, if I sort of slick it back, especially if I'm feeling slightly more, if I wake up feeling a bit more vulnerable and I'm just like "not today, like not any day, but especially not today." I've kind of learnt how to navigate that world because I often, you know, often my experiences start with walking in the room and it might be just like a casual comment on my hair...
Bronte:
Like I did when you entered. Lucy's had a fresh cut and it's gorgeous.
Lucy:
You know, it's very different, the context is so different coming from such like a dear friend, as opposed to walking into a room and being reduced down solely to my phenotype.
Bronte:
Yeah. Does it ever, does it ever translate into things that happen within the creative industries?
Lucy:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, the creative industries are just mirrors. If anything they're, I think they're actually a bit behind. I think it's a really tough thing, at the moment I feel like I'm straddling, or not straddling... Kind of vacillating between tokenism and erasure. So it's like I can either, I can say no to the few projects that come up if they're tokenistic. But the alternative is not getting work. And I think that's what we're really starting to put money behind works that are neither of them. That are sensitive, that are, you know, written from a lens and through a canon that hasn't gotten a lot of airtime. And it's just a very it's a very odd thing to kind of, and I feel like sometimes still just because it's like it's just the way of where we're at, it's like I still will accept some works that I feel slightly compromised on just because we're still not yet at a place where all of the work is being done sensitively and honouring the voices that deserve to be honoured and amplified.
Bronte:
Is there an example of work that you feel like is a great example of amplifying those voices?
Lucy:
Yeah, sure. I mean, I think last year was a very exciting year, especially for for main stages. It's invigorating to see it happening on our stages. And I think Golden Shield for me last year at MTC was a big one. It was, it covered so many complexities and densities and there was so much nuance and things that I'm still understanding today, even like a year on, I'm still like... Still sort of chipping away at little bit of it because it was just so, so well done. And I want more. I want more. And it's happening, it's happening... Slowly, not quickly enough, obviously. Like there's still been, even just recently with the Robert Guest Endowment, like there's clearly so much progress that is still yet to be made. It comes back to that quote of "when you're so accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." And I feel like there are still some gatekeepers in this industry who are, you know, trying their hardest to keep the door closed to sort of... Just for their own interest, really. What about you? Is there any works recently that you've been excited about or you feel is kind of the way forward?
Bronte:
Yes. Yeah. I keep thinking about Wake in Fright at Malthouse. That was a one woman show, Zahra Newman. Which from my understanding was a book. Yeah. Originally a book. And it was kind of like this Australian story, but she'd like taken it and messed with it and it was just her on stage playing all these different parts and doing a fucking incredible job. And I was like, yeah, so that's right. Like, why shouldn't people of colour or women be on our main stages doing a one woman show about, you know, whatever the fuck they want, but also like, representing an Australian story or like whatever it may be. There's many, but that one's like coming to mind.
Lucy:
Absolutely. It's such a like, God! It shouldn't be as political as it is. But for a woman of colour to take up space on a stage and hold an audience captive for an hour and 40 minutes...
Bronte:
And my God. She holds you captive as well, like she's such an incredible actor.
Lucy:
That is such a seldom like... We don't see that!
Bronte:
Because I think in a way, we don't allow it. I think the industry like, yeah, it still is not at of place yet where they're allowing that sort of thing to happen. And it's taken Zahra, like however many years since she started in the industry, 10 plus years, for her to get to that point of being like, "no, this is... I'm going to fucking do this one woman show and I don't need anyone else to be on stage to kind of like lessen the impact I have. I'm - this is all we need." And I just find that, especially as a woman, to watch that and just like, "fuck, yes." Thank you so much. But also then just to add to that, another minority of being a woman of colour. And it just, I loved seeing that. And I also think in the same year I went to Sydney and saw her in and STC production, and she was the lead and she fucking stole the show.
Lucy:
She would have. That's the thing, right? It's like, it's no longer just a question of letting people into the room. It's what is the room? You know, it's like to me, there's no point in diversifying spaces if you're not interested in actually diversifying the space. People and institutions specifically are so interested in looking culturally diverse. But yeah, zero interest in actually being it. And that means attending to the health and well-being of the people you're letting into the space. It's like, if a flower is wilting or dying, you don't blame the flower. Like you look at the environment. You're like, "OK, well, what's wrong with... What's happening with the soil? What's happening with the sun?" And I don't think... I think it's a really dangerous thing to bring people into unsafe spaces. And you would not plant a flower if you knew that that soil was poisonous. And so I think that's something I think we really need to start to add into our praxis.
Bronte:
That's a really powerful metaphor. Yeah. It's interesting you say that Zahra Newman just being on stage and taking up space is a political act. It's mentioned in nearly every piece in Hair, that wearing textured hair naturally is a political act, even though it's literally just wearing your hair naturally.
Lucy:
How dare you!
Bronte:
Yeah, how dare you? Oh, my gosh. It's so wonderful that all these people are coming to this point where they're like, "fuck this. I'm going to wear my hair naturally." But the fact that that is political is just... It's just such a clear representation of how systemic racism and colorism is. It's fucked that is a political act because it shouldn't be.
Lucy:
It's literally like, just existing as yourself... You don't owe anyone anything. Like my hair existing in its sphere is not like colonising other people's real estate. Like this is just my hair. And yet it's so much more.
Bronte:
Have you ever had a role or even a job, where you've been told to kind of change it? To slick it back or straighten it or anything? A situation where someone has kind of implied or said that you have to...
Lucy:
Not necessarily in this industry. I feel like it's kind of a... Going back to talking about how I said I feel like I can weaponize it now... Because unfortunately, it is kind of exoticised often without my consent, it is sort of... I feel I can benefit from other people's glamorisation of it. It's context dependent again. But it definitely came up in school quite a bit. I remember almost getting detentions because it was unruly or, you know, I remember having braids and that was an issue. It was unprofessional, like it was damaging the image. And I was like, "what image?" And I remember being so stressed as like a ten year old, when my mom used to braid my hair in the most beautiful braids. And of course, I would like get to school and wait for her car to drive away and then just like rip it into a side fringe. And sometimes that meant my hair would like unravel and I didn't know how to plait my own hair. And so I'd be like stuck in the school playground, like they're going to know! That I have hair! And not knowing what to do. And I remember, like, just thinking I was going to be in trouble because of that. Because it is like, time and time again, like either through words or through actions, we are told that it is less professional. We're told that it is doing yourself a disservice to wear it naturally. And to me, that is just so bizarre because... I straightened my hair for like four or five years and that damaged my hair. It was such a dichotomy of that, like the contradiction... I remember feeling so confused because I was like, "OK, but that is better. But it's worse for my hair."
Bronte:
Which again, is something that is a part of your body. And obviously you don't want to be damaging your body or like doing something for you that's not healthy or whatever it may be. Yeah, it's very conflicting. And correct me if I'm wrong, but you went to a predominantly white school?
Lucy:
Yeah. I mean, I've grown up in predominantly white spaces in general. Yeah. And I, you know, very, very privileged spaces for sure. But it did sort of act as like a faux bubble I suppose. And at the end of the day it can't protect me from everything. But I had to learn that.
Bronte:
It would be so hard to grow up in a space where your hair is othered. And to also not have people that look like you or people that have textured hair on our screens, on our stages or like around you. If you're in a predominantly white space or suburb or school or whatever it is, to not kind of have someone around you that you could look up to, or see style in a certain way, or, you know, just wear their natural hair proudly or whatever it may be. Because, you know, me growing up as a white woman in Australia, I had that. I had fucking... the white washed American TV or TV shows or movies coming our way and my school, I think we've spoken about this before... My school was predominantly white. At a high school of about 600 students, there was no one that was not white at my school when I was there, no one. And in my primary school there was one indigenous family. That's it. So my experience of different cultures and people coming from different places and different hair textures, I didn't experience that until I moved to Melbourne when I was 18. And yeah - fucked. Fucked, Lucy! And I'm furious about that. And that's me in a space where I'm the norm, essentially. I can't imagine what it's like for you to grow up in spaces where there's an issue with your hair. That's ridiculous. And also so unfair. Even just by reading the Zine, Hair, it's essentially a normal experience for people with textured hair, which is really upsetting.
Lucy:
Yes. I'm just nodding, by the way. Furiously, just furiously nodding.
Bronte:
I don't know. It's a weird thing to think about. Again, I think we've talked about it before that, well, number one, I feel like the education in the Australian education system is just like horrifyingly uneducating. It's like, it's not honest or true to any extent. I think in primary school I had maybe three or four weeks on Indigenous history and the rest of the year was, you know, old mate, Christopher, dude... I don't even know his name.
Lucy:
Are you talking about Christopher Columbus?
Bronte:
Yeah, the rest of my high school year was like...
Lucy:
Or like, Captain Cook? They're all awful!
Bronte:
See, my fucking education is like so, so fucking lax and I'm furious about it. And get me onto a fucking topic of sexual education. And I'm just as fiery about it. Our education is so lax and it's just... It infuriates me. And I'm also very confused because it's not my place to kind of be angry about... I don't know. I don't know if it's my place to be angry about how you were treated in your childhood or your upbringing in regards to your hair or your race or whatever it may be. I get confused about if that's appropriate for me as a white woman to be this passionate about it.
Lucy:
I think it's... We need your anger. We need your anger as well, because we need your anger to open up spaces for us. We need your anger to hold spaces for us. We need it to excavate and bulldoze doors and walls down. And, you know, it's like stories are being democratised. But you're right. It comes back to like, I think we have a real cultural amnesia in this country. And it's... There's so much talk around stories. And yet we're still ignoring our history. We have such a whitewashed, ridiculous, insipid view of our history. And so how could we possibly reconcile for that when there's just, when we're up against ignorance?
Bronte:
That's it's, it's just ignorance. Like, I think something that makes me so furious is the ignorance of like, if people as children are not being educated, that then grows into young adulthood, adulthood, and then the next generation comes along and it's like they're not being educated. Our history, the true, honest history of Australia and colonisation in this country is being disintegrated. It's being hidden. I feel like it's being hidden, especially in our education. It's being hidden from us as children. And so then, from my experience, I get to eighteen and I move to a city like Melbourne, which is beautifully multicultural. It's my first experience of understanding that so many more people share this land than what I had thought in my tiny little whitewashed high school in Brisbane. I think you're right, our history has been whitewashed completely.
Lucy:
And it's no wonder that it is still so devalued if we we grow up that way. That's why I think teachers have such an important job, because they shape us as individuals. Like we learn what we learn from those ages and no degree of protectionism is at all helpful.
Bronte:
Can you imagine if in your schooling, if your head was celebrated by your teachers and your peers. How that would change you and your relationship with your hair?
Lucy:
Totally. And kids are so impressionable, I remember hanging on to every single tick I got, or little sticker. And it's like, we teach value early. We teach and we learn value so early. And worth.
Bronte:
Which then translates into self-worth, which then also translates into how we treat others, how we treat ourselves. And if we, you know, respect ourselves or others enough to self educate, if we haven't been educated properly. If we're kind of taught from a really young age that it's not needed or it's not necessary or you don't really need to learn about that, it's like, well, when does that view - that value - change and how does it change?
Lucy:
It's a real active thing. We need to activate our aesthetics. Like it takes actual, physical, tangible work. And we're all at different points with it. And it's ongoing. That's the thing. It never ends. The work has not finished because we retweeted a hashtag, you know, like it's "yes, and!" what's next?
Bronte:
I remember we had a conversation mildly recently, on our socially distanced walk about the Black Lives Matter movement and how that kind of... It took a toll on people of colour at that time because it was kind of like, "oh, wow. And thank you. You're only realising now that we need a bit of awareness or representation or acknowledgement?" And that took quite a toll on people of colour around the world being like, how is this only happening now? And also, it's your job as a privileged white person to fucking educate yourself on these issues.
Lucy:
And I think one step further is, it is not up to black and indigenous folx to dismantle the systems that oppress them.
Bronte:
Absolutely not. How can they? They aren't the system. How could they possibly dismantle it when they are literally, they're not allowed in the door of the system.
Lucy:
And like, this has been said a hundred times, you know, nothing that's being said is new. They're just finding new ways of saying it. But, you know, people keep saying that, "we need to fix this broken system." But the system is not broken. It is working exactly how it was designed to work. It is like thriving. The system was built on the backs of BIPOC and it is no wonder why it is so hard to dismantle it, because it's...
Bronte:
It's been made really well.
Lucy:
Just incredibly well made. And we're still fighting and working against the vestiges of colonisation. It is ongoing regardless of how much people try to downplay that. Yeah, I think it's been a really heavy year, especially for black people. And I think, as you say, for myself, I've always sort of like fed into model minority complexes. And I've always felt like I need to be sort of like, at the front line all the time. And I think I kind of learnt, especially in light of the George Floyd killing and the, I suppose, the revolt after that and the anti-blackness renaissance, which was sort of the aftermath of that, I actually kind of had to unplug a little bit. I was you know... I turned up when I could. But for the most part, I think, and having spoken to a few black friends and friends of colour who were, you know, experiencing and feeling very, very similar things of sort of feeling a bit despondent or tired, because it was a time of mourning for sure. I think for a lot of us, we just kind of had to focus on regulating, I think, and just turn up when we could turn up.
Bronte:
Which is, I think, probably really hard to do and really hard to set those boundaries when I'm sure that there were so many people who weren't familiar with these experiences, maybe like coming to you for answers or just in general like, asking the black community what they could do. Which is, again, I'm sure it comes from a place of like, "what can I do? How can I help you through this time?" Or "what can I do to change what's happening right now?" But but yeah, I can see how that would be just too much and poorly timed with everything that was going on at that particular time. Yeah. And also a little bit upsetting and and disheartening that it had happened then. That it hadn't happened like before. That people weren't coming to you before being like, "hey, what can I, what can I do today?" Or like whatever it may be.
Lucy:
I think for sure that was something I grappled with, was mourning the absence of friends up until then, in terms of showing up for things that sort of revolved around, or oscillated around, race. And yeah, I think it's definitely, I have a little, especially as a lighter skinned black person of colour, like mixed race, I also I feel a certain responsibility, though, to sort of play middleman or middle-person in that environment, because I feel that I do definitely benefit off my my lighter skinned privilege. And I have more, because of my proximity to whiteness, I'm definitely more a watered down and more palatable version. And so I feel like for me, I did actually really want to take on... I wanted to take on more work so that darker skinned people didn't have to because I also benefit in such a discreet but very obvious... It's such a contradiction. But is... colorism is so rife. It's so real. And so I definitely spent a lot of time trying to work out how to navigate that, I suppose. And I'm still working it out because I know that everyone needs to start somewhere with their anti-racism practise and praxis. I'm personally OK, I feel OK with the emotional labor - demand - a lot of the time. I'm very open to sort of chatting, especially to close friends, about things, because I think it is important for growth and for learning. But I don't ever think it should... I don't think it should ever be expected.
Bronte:
Do you know what, something I have always remembered you saying to me... I've just been thinking about it a lot... You once said to me that you were just as white as me.
Lucy:
What does that mean?
Bronte:
I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you if it was... I wonder if that's something that was like maybe a protective agent or like a self-preservation thing to kind of - Racism is so rife in our in our society that it's like, you have to do whatever you can to kind of protect yourself and and stay safe. And so I wonder if that comment kind of comes from a place of trying to save yourself from racist comments or differing opinions, dehumanising comments, like whatever it may be. And I also wonder if it comes from a place of saying that to someone who isn't as accepting as they should be? Or at the time, maybe I wasn't as open or... I don't know, like I honestly don't know. I can't remember what the context was, but I just... It's really stuck with me, as you can see.
Lucy:
I mean, like I don't actually remember saying that either, but it doesn't surprise me that I did. I think, if I can try and tap into the mindset of what that would mean to me now, is that having, as we said, grown up in predominantly white spaces and PWI's (Predominantly White Institutions as I think, people call them.) I actually really do believe that the only thing that really does separate us is phenotype. Because I would have eaten the same things as you growing up. I would have had my Wednesday lasagnes or whatever! You know, we went to similar kinds of schools, went to the same uni and have more or less similar experiences traversing the world up until now, more or less. I am a person of colour, but I am very, very, very disconnected from the place that has melanated me. Apart from, you know, having like an incredible black mother who gails me of beautiful stories of Trinidad and Tobago, which is where her family are from. I've never been, I was never taught about it at school. I would love to reconnect with that culture. But at the same time, my circumstance was that it was so far removed growing up. And it's like, whilst I felt like displaced from that, it's not necessarily inaccessible and it's not too late. But that's, I think that's what I would have meant by "I'm just as white as you." Because I have had a Western education. I am so, so, so privileged to have received a tertiary education, in a city with clean sanitation and a roof over my head in Melbourne or Naarm.
Bronte:
I do sometimes worry that it came out of me asking you a question or saying something a little bit stupid and you being like, "Nah, dude, like, no, I'm just as white as you." I don't know.
Lucy:
Sure! Maybe I think I get a lot of people who have different levels of... Ideas of what blackness is or what you know... And this is not you, this is just like people in general... a lot of people will say to me, "oh, I dance like a white person" or something. And I'm like, "I am just as lanky as you!"
Bronte:
What you just said there, you changed that "white" to "lanky."
Lucy:
Because that's what I assume...
Bronte:
The word is wrongly placed, I think. That comment of like, you know, "I dance like a white person." Or "I rap like a white person," or whatever it is. I think that's wrongly placed. And again, it's an example of our systemic racism.
Lucy:
Totally. And it rests on the assumption of... It rests on assumption. But we know it's like, just a complete generalisation, which has been just blow out of proportion. But the same is said, as you said, for black people. Because it's like... I was expected to kind of perform blackness growing up and I did. I didn't even really know what that meant. But I was like, "OK, I'm saying, like, you know, I know the rap!" You know, like I had friends who, you know, would time and time again be like, "say it again. Say 'hell no' again."
Bronte:
Oh, my God.
Lucy:
We have such a myopic view of what blackness is. And it's so... It's reduced down to like the most bizarre things. And as you say, like we all kind of know what those generalisations are like. I know the connotation when people say "I don't like a white person." I know what is woven in between those words.
Bronte:
I wonder if these, kind of, assumptions and generalisations... I mean, I don't wonder, like, I know that they are in the industry that, you know, characters can be sweeping generalisations of a race or a mental health issue or whatever it may be. How can you kind of separate the sweeping generalisation from a really true representation of race?
Lucy:
First of all, it's not so much about bringing bodies of colour into spaces. It's like, well, who's behind the lens? Who's behind the camera? Who is offstage? And what I'm personally saying quite a lot is there's not really being much, there's not a lot of change happening behind the camera or off stage. The stories are still being puppeteered by whiteness. And so how could it possibly be an accurate and sensitive representation? We can see, it reads is not truthful. And very often that's because there's a lag and a disconnect between the producers and the production. We need to really look at the actual how of how these stories are being told, and it needs to be reflected in our audiences as well. And, you know, it's all well and good, like having incredible productions like Golden Shield. But if the audience, if it's still an inaccessible production to the audiences it is targeted for, then we need to look at the bigger picture. We need to look at the larger structure of things. I think for a lot of actors of colour in this industry, we are constantly shifting, it's a big cognitive dissonance in trying to work out what is truthful and what is not. Because there's a lot of things which might present as that but they're actually quite disingenuous. And I think it starts with the producers and the writers. It starts with the environment.
Bronte:
Bronte got tired so we have snacks.
Lucy:
We have acquired nuts.
Bronte:
Many, many a nut.
Lucy:
Still thinking about the scoop and weigh section, but it's just not a thing during COVID. Of course it's not. Thank god it's not. But I was just thinking, when will it return?
Bronte:
I wonder if they'll keep the scoop and weigh section as pre-bagged. I mean, it kind of like really kind of ruins the point of it.Like just package it anyway. You know what I mean. It's not even a scoop and weigh anymore.
Lucy:
It's like how much agency do you have? Like how involved are you in the process? Like I scooped all of these almond's myself. That's how I feel when I do it. And yet I just know that it's had like five people's hands in it. It's like, you know when people talk about like resuming normality after COVID? And everyone is like "why would you want to return to a capitalist thing?" And I'm just thinking about, when will we return to scoop and weigh section.
Bronte:
I keep thinking about the fact that, like, when people walked past me, I'm literally now, I'm always just like, "mate, you are too close to me. Can you fucking take a step back? Like, don't rub your shoulder against me." And I just, I can't see that changing. I'm now settled into this thing where if someone like runs past me grunting, I'm like, "Mate, can you like not grunt on me." Or like...
Lucy:
I sneezed, under my mask, no one's around me but it felt like a crime. I was like, I deserve nothing.
Bronte:
As two young youths with hay fever, what else can you possibly do?
Lucy:
What else could you possibly do?
Bronte:
If you need to sneeze, you need to sneeze. Mayhem!
Lucy:
That's so real!
Bronte:
Ok.
Lucy:
OK Google.
Bronte:
Quick fire questions. Do you have something in your day that you just have to do and if you don't do it, you don't feel right?
Lucy:
Oh nap. Need a nap.
Bronte:
Oh my God. I wasn't going to go here, but the amount of times that we've been like chatting or something, it's like five o'clock in the afternoon and we're like having a little message and then I don't get any response until like 9pm. And Lucy's just like, "oh sorry, I just dozed off." Like a five till nine nap. And then you're just like, up for the rest of your evening having dinner and like whatever!
Lucy:
Just low iron things things.
Bronte:
Would you actually say that you have a daily nap?
Lucy:
I do, yeah. Regardless of how much I've slept.
Bronte:
Will you do a nap straight after breakfast, ever?
Lucy:
I have. Especially like now I've got nothing to do. Like, I will literally get up to eat and go back to sleep.
Bronte:
I wonder if it's like, if you're getting up to eat breakfast and then going back to sleep. Is it a nap or is it continued evening sleep?
Lucy:
That's true. And when does a nap become a sleep?
Bronte:
I would be close to saying that you're like five PM naps that go into the evening are sleep.
Lucy:
I don't trust, like, the 15 minute nap thing. I don't understand. I need at least four cycles of REM. Remember me by it.
Bronte:
"This is my final sleep." On your grave. Just like... No more wake interrupting this.
Lucy:
That is so good.
Bronte:
Do you have a daily practise?
Lucy:
No, because I just so different on different days. I need different things, on different days. I've definitely got things I rely on or little quick go to shortcuts. Depends on what I... what my body is feeling. Yeah. It's more honestly like, it takes very little for me to self soothe. I will do the bare minimum and be like "I deserve... I deserve to lie down."
Bronte:
That's kind of great.
Lucy:
Like I'm walking home on from the shops and I'm like, "I deserve this hot chocolate," like "I deserve it."
Bronte:
Meanwhile there's me, just like at the door of the cafe, like "aarghh." I've already had three today.
Lucy:
I've passed you.
Bronte:
I've had three chocolates. Can I have another? Lucy's like, "I deserve this!"
Lucy:
I'm just out there bathing in Nesquik.
Bronte:
Do you feel like you have a good relationship with yourself as an actor... Like as a human, but also...
Lucy:
No, I hear you. I feel I'm kinder to myself as a human and more forgiving of myself as a human and less so as an actor. Oh. Is that even true?
Bronte:
I don't know. Expand!
Lucy:
Actually... I'm going to backtrack on that a little bit and say... I'd say that sometimes it's the opposite as well. Sometimes I'm more forgiving of myself as an actor and less forgiving of myself as a human. And I think it's like, it's definitely like this kind of weird, like reciprocal inhibition in terms of like... they're not mutually exclusive. I think I have... I'm getting better at trying to separate myself as an actor and as a person. It's really hard when they are the same person. Through like... Using acting is like a conduit or a vehicle, I feel like it's an opportunity to look at things from a different perspective and then be more forgiving of yourself in real life. So convoluted. But basically, like, I think it's something I will always be working at. I don't think I'll ever achieve or reach a destination with that.
Bronte:
What's your favourite thing to do creatively?
Lucy:
This one is ever changing because I go through phases of obsession and then I kind of lose interest and then I'll come back to it. At the moment, what I'm finding most joy in is like tiny little crafts. I'm ticking off all of the isolation bingo things. Like I'm on the clays, I'm on the paints, I'm having a draw, having a little write. I'm sort of OK, just like consuming almost trash right now because I don't want to, like, be on and thinking all the time. And I think, to just kind of sit in yourself right now and just be still and content with that... and that's the thing. I'm realising now how much of our life is just distraction, how much we've overcomplicated absolutely everything. We just live from like distraction to... Like even work is a distraction.
Bronte:
Essentially, yeah. But it's also like what is a distraction and what is a defining part of who you are?
Lucy:
Aww! Retweet!
Bronte:
You can borrow it but don't take it. Yeah. Like, I mean for me, I'm really questioning like going to theatre every week or a few times a week... I don't know if that was a distraction or if that was literally something that defined me. I don't think it's a bad thing if it's a distraction, but then if it was a defining thing and now that it's not there, like, I'm struggling to define who I am without having these things or possibly these distractions around me to distract me from who I am. I've been in this kind of like loop of like what am I?
Lucy:
Well I mean, like this is getting so existential. The only thing that we have to do is survive. To be honest, everything else we fabricated, you know, like, all we have to do is exist.
Bronte:
What brings you joy, creativity?
Lucy:
Something that scares the shit out of me. Oh my gosh. Not always. It doesn't like... That's not to say that, like, I'm enjoying every minute of it, but I like things that terrify me. I really do. It's like it's probably unhealthy. I've always enjoyed uglier messier characters. Messier projects, you know... Safely! But I think, I'm creatively excited and invigorated by projects and people who are unafraid to just put it all out there. And whatever that is like, that'll shift right... But I am so attracted to such fierce passion, I suppose. And it's contagious, right? It's like at the moment, I'm definitely most excited by up and coming works made by and for Black Indigenous People of Colour. And I'm excited to hear and see more stories from more points of view.
Bronte:
Is there a project that you're really proud of being part of, or proud of the work that you did?
Lucy:
I think... This is such a diplomatic answer, but I've taken so much away from so many projects and I learn so many different things from so many incredible creative human beings. Definitely working with Chanella, Chanella Macri, who wrote our piece for She Is Vigilante. The piece was called You May Not Rest Now There Are Monsters Nearby, and it was written by Chanella Macri, and directed by Bridget Balodis and Krystalla Pearce. It just, it was kind of one of the first times I felt properly, properly seen. And I mean that on and off stage. It was such a learning process for all of us. We had some people of colour in that space, but it was definitely like a collaboration with people who hadn't lived that experience as well. And it was definitely a huge learning point for myself, working out where I belonged in that space and how much agency and responsibility I had within it.
Bronte:
Thanks, Lucy.
Lucy:
Thank you, oh my lord.
Bronte:
Thanks for being here and being so open and honest with me and sharing your stories.
Lucy:
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I am forever in awe and inspired by you.
Bronte:
So that was my chat with Lucy. I hope you enjoyed it just as much as I did. Chatting with Lucy is such a treat. Anything that we discussed, I'll pop in the show notes for you to have a look at if you're interested. Otherwise, check us a line and we can chat about it together. All of the music for Chats with Creatives was created by Rick Scully, who was a musical genius. And everything else is me. Hello, Bronte, your host. It's a fun time and I fucking love it. Let me know if you do too. And I'll see you next week for a killer chat with the gorgeous Olivia Satchell. I can not wait, get excited. She is such an inspiration. But until then, my friends, stay creative.
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Head over to the @chats.w.creatives instagram page to stay up to date with episodes and guests we have coming up!
Follow our host Bronte Charlotte on Instagram @bronteandsunshine
Follow this week's guest Lucy Ansell on Instagram @thouis.leroux
RESOURCES
Hair by Where Are You From__
Curated by Sabina McKenna
The horrific display of racism by the Robert Guest Endowment in 2020
Zahra Newman ‘breaks’ the Australian classic Wake in Fright
You May Not Rest Now There Are Monsters Nearby by Chanella Macri for She is Vigilante
