Rock the Damn Boat

I’m not sure exactly when I became a woman fueled by gumption, but that’s the word my friend used to describe me this week as I stepped into a whole new chapter: podcasting. I haven’t been this flattered since a business client said, “I applaud your tenacity.” 

For me, the word brings to mind Kathy Bates as The Unsinkable Molly Brown in Titanic. Knowing little about the real life Mrs. Brown, my brief internet search piqued my interest. She was a wealthy socialite, philanthropist and suffragette. In other words, my new role model.

Coincidentally (or maybe fated), I watched Fried Green Tomatoes over the weekend. It struck me as I typed this morning: the meek woman who learns to break free from others’ expectations is played by none other than the unsinkable Kathy Bates.

I’d been wanting to rewatch the 1992 film for several weeks. I didn’t recall much about it, but I’ve learned to heed the call when an old movie comes to mind. Most of them, like How to Make an American Quilt, have personal growth themes that were lost on me as a teenager.

Fried Green Tomatoes follows two different plot lines. In the present day, Kathy Bates' character is an overweight and unhappy empty nester. She befriends a woman in a nursing home who regales her with stories of two women who went against the grain in 1940’s Alabama. Their spunk inspires Bates’ character, who begins to stand up for herself in all aspects of her life. Her self-worth grows along with her gumption.

The most famous scene from the movie is one where two young women steal her parking space. She revs the engine and rams their tiny convertible. She rolls down the window and, in response to their insult that they were younger and faster, says, “Face it girls, I’m older and I have more insurance.”

Woven into the movie are other themes still relevant today, like menopause and systemic racism. Thankfully as a society, we talk about hormones more openly these days. I wish I had better news about the latter.

As far as inspiring gumption, Bates’ character adopts a phrase that her role model in the story, Idgie Threadgood, would yell out as she did something brave: Tawanda!

Starting a podcast, something I said I would never do, is me shouting “Tawanda!” to the world. My new show, “Rock the Damn Boat”, is a love letter to recovering people pleasers. It is a way to weave my own story into big topics that Southern Christian good girls historically do not discuss.

This is the standard of beauty you should attain.

This is what success means.

This is the American dream.

This is what good girls do.

Don’t rock the boat.

Well, face it friends, I’m older and I have more insurance. I have found my voice and have zero ability (or desire) to put her back in the box. I thought Lois Smith from How to Make an American Quilt was my future self, but apparently, it’s Kathy Bates, whose transformation from mousy Evelyn Couch to the Unsinkable Molly Brown is the same path my heart is ready to take.