The Required Narcissism of a GIRLBOSS
You see it all over social media: women promoting themselves and their companies. Instead of supporting them, we call them narcissists.
Welcome back to The FACTory! I’m Dr. Nutmeg, a LatinasinTech.org mentor and FILMpreneur with a mission to glorify chingonas like us on big and small screens. Before we get into today’s topic about the psychology of many GIRLBOSSes, we’d like to say:
Happy Birthday, Josephine Baker!
Born today, June 3, 1906, this amazingly talented dancer, singer, and actress became so much more throughout her 68 years on this planet — entrepreneur, humanitarian, pilot, undercover agent for the Allied forces in WWII, mother to 12 adopted children from all over the world, and a warrior who fought racial discrimination and segregation throughout the 1920s until she died April 12, 1975.
“Josephine Baker’s “heinie” moved at incredible speeds and seemed to take on a life of its own in her dancing. She handled it as though it were an instrument, a rattle, something apart from herself that she could shake.”
— “Jazz Cleopatra” by Phyllis Rose
Similarly, my bisabuela Maria La Gata, shook her nalgas on stage at incredible bomba y plena speeds, which is how she met La Josephine in my novel THE NINE LIVES OF MARIA LA GATA.
If you have been subscribing since we started this workshop in February, you prolly noticed Maria La Gata took a break in May. For the month of June, look out for a series of interviews with the women who inspired her entrepreneurial journey from dancer to gangster:
June 6: Josephine Baker, dancer, singer and actress
June 13: Cleo Lythgoe, aka the Queen of Rum Row
June 20: Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan, New York’s most famous female speakeasy owner
June 27: Angelina Rivera, Boricua jazz violinist
And now…
The Required Narcissism of a GIRLBOSS
Welcome back to The FACTory! I’m Dr. Nutmeg, and I’ve been accused in the past of being a self-centered narcissist. Why?
If you’ve seen GIRLBOSS, the main character is clearly a narcissist at the beginning of her journey. The pains of becoming an entrepreneur transform her into a more self-aware person, especially as she confronts the baggage from her parents, and conquers them with behaviors that help her grow, both as an entrepreneur and a human being.
There is one scene that makes me cry — como una noña — every time I watch it. (Yes, I replay specific scenes frequently on my Netflix account as a way to amp myself up for a day of being “The Creative Director.”)
The scene is in episode four, “Ladyshopper99.” GIRLBOSS gets black-out drunk and shares her sad family dynamic with some new friends: Mom left when she was young and her Dad doesn’t believe in her at all. In other words, GIRLBOSS has something to prove: Get rich, buy shit, and SHOW Daddy he’s WRONG!
As viewers, we are understanding a typical GIRLBOSS’s motivations for succeeding. No one is taking care of her and no one will take care of her unless she learns how to take care of herself or ask someone else for help, both actions that get misinterpreted as narcissistic because women are supposed to take care of others. Not themselves. Go figure.
What’s the point of this? Latinas trying to build their own thing have to understand their motivations for succeeding. If we don’t think about WHO or WHAT is pushing us, self-sabotage OFTEN ensues. I know this from too much experience.
Like Girlboss, I ALWAYS had something to prove.
My constant need for approval and validation came from feeling invisible in my own family. Even though I was smart when I was young does not mean I grew up to be anything more than “a female,” especially in Dad’s eyes.
If you read the last newsletter about “Mal de Ojo,” I describe the way I ran away to different cities looking for…. I don’t have to mansplain it for you.
I also received more than a fair share of validation in the respective cities I lived in and studied and worked, but then I sabotaged myself because I feared the idea of “working all the time.” Like, hey, I really just want my own family to look out for me. Isn’t that more of what life is about?
Coming up for Dr. Nutmeg next month…
Now that we’ve done hella self-education in Q1 and a fair amount of market research in Q2, we are pivoting yet again, salseras! Step-ball-change, one, step-ball-change, two...
Instead of trying to pitch this whole “Latinas in Tech TV show” IDEA to the VIPs at streaming platforms, the new goal is to submit a well-written, well-produced 20-minute animation to the Brouhaha Film & Video Showcase, a presentation of the Florida Film Festival and Enzian Theater and sponsored by Full Sail University.
The deadline is September 30, 2024, so me and The Femmebots are going silent in Q3 to re-write the script, animate, and edit until we produce a funny, but poignant story, about a Latina trying to bring her ideas to the tech market.
We need help!
Video editor
Animator
Audio Editor