This is an info packet I made for Big Tits 69, a one-person show written by and starring force of nature Dean Grosbard. Grosbard and I met to discuss our collaboration in January of 2019, with plans for the show to be submitted to the Son of Semele Solo Creation Festival that May. Grosbard wanted their show to be “equal parts one-person show and TED Talk,” so oodles of in- depth research on a wide array of topics was vital. Despite being just a year older than me, Dean Grosbard’s life has run circles around my own. Big Tits 69 discusses their discomfort in their size H breasts and their journey to getting top surgery - a journey which included growing up in the elite Pasadena, CA private school system, working as a cam girl to earn money, addiction to marijuana, contracting herpes, and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Hope came to Grosbard when they studied Theatre of the Oppressed, and the influence of Augosto Boal is prevalent in their work today. At the time of this writing, Big Tits 69 is currently performing at the Asheville Fringe Festival in North Carolina. Big Tits 69 Written by & starring Dean Grosbard Dramaturgical research by Mimi RuthStiver Table of contents Breasts: a (sexual?) history 4 Let’s Talk Gender 18 Bipolar Disorder 27 Camming 31 Herpes 35 Marijuana 37 Pasadena, California 40 Theatre of the Oppressed 43 Breasts: a (sexual?) history Goddesses & The Bible Until the invention of pasteurized milk in the late 19th century, a mother’s breastmilk meant life or death. Our ancestors worshipped fertility goddesses, motherhood goddesses, and nursing goddesses. The breast was often emphasized in statuettes, with the goddesses’ hands placed on their bosoms or their bellies as if to say that “the womanly powers of procreation and lactation were worthy of veneration.” (Yalom, 1997). During the 8th-6th centuries, B.C.E., in what is now Israel, almost all clay idols from the biblical period were females. When the biblical Israelites came to Canaan, they tried to eliminate these idols so that Jahweh, the (male) god of war, would be the only god. It is likely that many Israelites continued to worship these goddesses in secrecy. At the same time, Egyptians were worshipping the goddess Isis. Isis was associated with the milk-giving cow, the Tree of Life, and the throne of the Pharaohs. Those who were to ascend the throne sat on her lap as infants - “to suckle from her breast was to receive divine nourishment that would give the king qualities of kinship.” (Yalom, 1997). Astarte, the Phoenician goddess of love and fertility. Pharaohs were nursed by Isis at birth, at their coronation, or at death - key moments in life that required smooth transitions. The suckling at Isis’s breast was assumed to give them immortality. In 1500 B.C.E. Greece, there was a strong association between the female body and Nature. Since women had breasts and the ability to provide milk for their young, they were seen as being closer to nature than men. Greek goddesses were the most powerful deities imaginable - until they were knocked out of that spot by younger Hellenic deities. Zeus took over Mt. Olympus from Gaia Olympia (the oldest Greek deity who was known as “the Deep-Breasted one”). The goddesses became “Olympianized,” and were reduced to less-powerful deities with specified, limited abilities. During the Olympianization, Amazon warriors were still holding strong. Amazons cut off their right breast for greater ease in drawing a bow. The Greeks HATED the Amazons, seeing them as what happened when women abandoned their role as nurturers. Men were afraid of Amazons, but other genders admired them. They saw Amazons as being able to engage in socially unacceptable behavior that we often repress; “by a willful act of breast removal, women became transformed into powerful creatures commanding fear and respect.” (Yalom, 1997). We have early Christian theology to thank for breasts becoming signs of Jean Fouquet’s The Melun Diptych corruption and lewdness. Flesh - particularly flesh on a feminine body - was seen as a threat to spirituality because it lured human beings to engage in sinful behaviors and distracted them from God. In a lot of early Christian art, male devils can be seen sporting long, pendulous breasts, symbolizing their tainted nature. But while the breast was seen as an unclean thing, breast milk was heralded as being almost holy. During the Middle Ages, both breast milk and blood were believed to carry mystical connotations. Mary’s milk was 2nd in holiness only to Christ’s blood, with vials of “Mary’s milk” being displayed in churches as relics. Supposedly, this milk could cure blindness, cancer, and other maladies. 15th Century: The Breast Becomes Sexual The breast changed artistic form in 15th century Europe with Jean Fouquet’s painting The Melun Diptych. The painting is of Agnés Sorel, the mistress to the King of France. Her breast is shaped not unlike a globe and is bursting out of her bodice, served up like a piece of fruit for the observer and not for the baby sitting in her lap. According to historian Anne Hollander, this was the moment where the breast became sexual: “Stripped of its relation to the sacred, the breast became the uncontested playground for male desire.” (Yalom, 1997). From this point on, the breast began to belong less and less to the baby, and more to artists, poets, and eventually consumers. Lots of men in the Middle Ages and continuing into the Renaissance wrote about their ideal breasts. The general consensus was that breasts should be small, firm, wide apart, pale, and “round like apples.” (The comparing of breasts to fruit begins here and continues into present day). To the disgrace of the church, bodices became highlighted in medieval fashion. As laced- up bodices came in style, Bishop Jean Jouven de Ursins called them symbols of “whoredom and ribaldry and all other sins.” During the Italian Renaissance, people grew more comfortable revealing their bodies (with sex workers walking around more or less uncovered), and the nude bust was frequently depicted in art. Toplessness was not uncommon; showing legs and ankles was far more scandalous. Lots of poets (almost all of them men) were fantasizing about, writing about, or generally having opinions on breasts. Jean Cousin’s Eva prima Pandora. A telling painting from this era is Jean Cousin’s Eva prima Pandora. The subject has the ideal female form of the time - long body, small head, round breasts. She’s a passive figure, a woman simply meant to be consumed. The name gives the message of the painting away - Eve brought the first act of disobedience towards God, and Pandora let both good and evil into the world. Art only continued to get more erotic. According to Marilyn Yalom, author of A History of the Breast (1997): “The breast became yet one more object to be conquered by enterprising men, one more object to be wrestled from the hands of priests and preachers, not to mention women and babies. Kings, courtiers, painters, poets, explorers, and photographers - all believed they had a claim to the breast. Each thought of himself, in some way, as its owner. Women’s breasts, shorn of their religious associations, became blatant emblems of male desire.” Breasts Become Political 1858 saw the first breast revealed in public for a political purpose. Sojourner Truth, a former slave and antislavery advocate, was speaking in front of a mostly-white audience when a proslavery advocate began to heckle Truth and challenge whether or not she was actually a woman. As printed in the October 15, 1858 issue of The Liberator: “Sojourner told them that her breasts had suckled many a white babe to the exclusion of her own offspring; that some of those white babies had grow to man’s estate; that, although they had suckled her colored breasts, they were, in her estimation, far more manly than [her persecutors] appeared to be; and she quietly asked them as she disrobed her bosom if they, too, wished to suck! In vindication of her truthfulness, she told them that she would show her whole breast to the congregation; that it was not to her shame that she uncovered her breast before them, but to their shame.” In America during the first World War, uncovered breasts were used in propaganda, with ads and posters showing women being victimized by the enemy or protected by American men. WWII saw the rise of pin-up models: busty women in skimpy, curve- highlighting attire. Cutouts and postcards of pin-up models gave soldiers a token to hold close to them while fighting, a reminder of what they were fighting for, a nurturing bosom to counteract what the enemy wanted to take away from them. Pin-up modeling boosted the careers of many prolific Hollywood actresses, including Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. When pin-up clippings began to die out, banknotes with busty women filled the void. Since banknotes are seen all over the world, a country’s icon is carefully selected. The Bank of England chose the goddess Britannia (image circa 1694) while France chose Delacroix Liberty. When France was a colonial power in Indonesia, West Africa, and New Caledonia, the banknotes of these regions showed dark-skinned, topless women. These notes have been found to be racist and exploitive, suggesting a primitive way of life. The Pop Culture Breast The post-WWII era reinforced the soldiers’ love for the pin-up by showing busty actresses onscreen A banknote from New Caledonia.