Mallory O'Meara > Quotes

“Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to. Women have to endure it, fight it, survive it—in the movies and in real life. They are at risk of attack from real-life monsters. In America, a woman is assaulted every nine seconds.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Monster stories are powerful. They explore prejudice, rejection, anger and every imaginable negative aspect of living in society. However, only half of society is reflected in the ranks of the people who create these monsters. Almost every single iconic monster in film is male and was designed by a man: the Wolfman, Frankenstein, Dracula, King Kong. The emotions and problems that all of them represent are also experienced by women, but women are more likely to see themselves as merely the victims of these monsters. Women rarely get to explore on-screen what it's like to be a giant pissed-off creature. Those emotions are written off. If a woman is angry or upset, she'll be considered hysterical and too emotional. One of the hardest things about misogyny in the film industry isn't facing it directly, it's having to tamp down your anger about it so that when you speak about the problem, you'll be taken seriously. Women don't get to stomp around like Godzilla. Someone will just ask if you're on your period.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Women don't need an idol to worship. We need a beacon to walk toward.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“To the privileged, equality feels like oppression”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“The best monster films don't just parade some sort of terrifying beast in front of your eyes. They pull at a hidden element of your mind, a part that feels ugly, or afraid, or lonely. They give it flesh and blood, and sometimes sharp teeth.

The power of a monster movie is in seeing that dark part of you running around on-screen. You get to watch it wreak the havoc and devastation you should never effect in real life. It's cathartic to see what happens if you let that part of yourself loose instead of shunning it and banishing it to its own Black Lagoon.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Women have always been the most important part of monster movies. As I walked home one night, I realized why. Making my way down dark city streets to my apartment in Brooklyn, I was alert and on edge. I was looking for suspicious figures, men that could be rapists, muggers or killers. I felt like Laurie Strode in Halloween. Horror is a pressure valve for society's fears and worries: monsters seeking to control our bodies, villains trying to assail us in the darkness, disease and terror resulting from the consequences of active sexuality, death. These themes are the staple of horror films.

There are people who witness these problems only in scary movies. But for much of the population, what is on the screen is merely an exaggerated version of their everyday lives. These are forces women grapple with daily. Watching Nancy Thompson escape Freddy Krueger's perverted attacks reminds me of how I daily fend off creeps asking me to smile for them on the subway. Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to. Women have to endure it, fight it, survive it — in the movies and in real life. They are at risk of attack from real-life monsters. In America, a woman is assaulted every nine seconds.

Horror films help explore these fears and imagine what it would be like to conquer them. Women need to see themselves fighting monsters. That’s part of how we figure out our stories. But we also need to see ourselves behind-the-scenes, creating and writing and directing. We need to tell our stories, too.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“But, surprise folks, women get mad about things that don't have to do with men. Women feel anger and isolation just as intensely as men. Women have desires for power – destructive desires – that aren't satisfied with mean-spirited gossip and a bold lip color. Women need to be able to see themselves reflected in the monsters playing out these emotions on the big screen. Our only options shouldn't be either banishment to a shack in the woods or growing fangs and becoming part of a bloodthirsty sister-wife troupe. Women rarely get to weigh in on monster designs, but when she got the chance to, Millicent made it count.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Even when everyone is being respectful and polite, if you are the only woman in the room it's impossible not to be acutely, uncomfortably aware of it. This feeling only intensifies if you are a marginalized woman.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“After my initial disappointment, I realized that Milicent being a normal, non-royal was more important to her position as a role model. It was more inspirational. She didn't have superpowers or a magic wand. She was simply intelligent and savvy and good at what she did. We need women to be allowed to be simply good at what they do. We need them on set, in meetings, behind cameras and pens and paintbrushes. We need them to be themselves, to be human: ordinary and flawed. That way, more girls can see them and think "I can do that." That way, no one can look at them and say " She got that job because she's beautiful. She got that gig because she slept with someone."

Actually, she got hired because she was damn good.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“The beauty of Milicent's life and work was, like that of many other women, purposefully hidden to rob her of her power and her influence. Milicent Patrick is the lady from the black lagoon and she's not alone. She's raised out of it now, but there are so many women – in every industry, living and dead – who are still in there. So many other stories are sunken in the depths of history and so many women are still shouldering the burden of harassment and abuse while trying to create. Thanks to technology and the bravery of countless women, the tides are finally changing.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Women don't get to be colossal monsters. Women don't get to fuck shit up.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“At what point are women forgiven for not being supernaturally resilient Amazons who spend all their waking hours fighting injustice?”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“It's commonplace today to make fun of women-centric book clubs, where there's more wine drinking than book discussion, but for hundreds of years, the only place women could gather, drink, relax and socialize was in a neighbor's kitchen, surrounded by other wives and mothers. There is a long-standing tradition of driving women to some sort of behavior, then mocking them for it. (Sort of like making beauty a women's most powerful and important currency, then laughing about how long it takes her to get ready.)”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“In both England and America, women were expected to be the angels of the home. Not only were they to practice strict moderation for themselves but they were also responsible for the moderation of everyone in the house. Victorian ideals created an impossible situation for women: have none of the power, yet all of the responsibility.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“Why would you let a woman have a drink? She might start the apocalypse or something!”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“Millicent was holding a door open for me I never realized I had considered closed”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“By the time the Victorian era began in 1837, women enjoying almost anything at all was associated with sinfulness. They were seen as the weaker sex who were more prey to temptation, so it was better for everyone involved if they just stayed at home. Maybe even closed inside a stockings drawer or hatbox. Just in case.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“In the 1940s, getting a Westmore brother for your studio makeup department was like getting a Lamborghini (a very expensive status symbol that definitely performed well, but was still sort of douchey).”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“One hundred percent of the top American films of 1954, the year Creature from the Black Lagoon was released, were directed by men. Ninety-six percent of the top American films for 2016, the year I started writing this book, were directed by men. In sixty-two years, we have improved gender equality in American film directing by four percent. At this rate, we'll be colonizing Mars before we see an qual number of female directors.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“No matter what you're having, you can toast knowing that women had a part in its it's history. Saying that some types of alcohol are better, more noble, more masculine to drink than others is just outright silly. . . . All drinks are girly drinks.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“Well into the 1960s, the supposed threat of B-girls was used to justify excluding women from bars. Better ban an entire gender to protect those fragile male egos! Better to deny women access to a public space than have a man realize that the only way a woman would listen to his stupid work stories is if she's being paid!”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“In recent years, an interesting ideal has developed, probably in response to centuries of straight whiskey being considered a man's drink: the whiskey-drinking woman. . . . many women bought into this idea, that cool drinks and girly drinks were mutually exclusive categories of beverages. She's not like other girls because she drinks whiskey. And yes, whiskey is cool. Whiskey is awesome. But drinking it doesn't make you cooler or more awesome than someone who drinks wine or beer or, yes, even vodka. Don't let the patriarchy influence you drink choices. Drink what you want!”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“Boys will be boys, yet girls partying like boys might bring down all of society.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“No matter what you're having, you can toast knowing that women had a part in its history. Saying that some types of alcohol are better, more noble, more masculine to drink than others is just outright silly. . . . All drinks are girly drinks.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“. . . Hoffman-La Roche [the manufacturer of Rohypnol] declared that alcohol was the number one date-rape drug. . . . they put the onus on women to protect their own drinks and avoid assault. There was an air of 'Well, if you left your drink unattended. . .' or 'Well, if you didn't go out drinking. . .' as if sexual assault was not an intentional crime but rather some kind of arbitrary force of nature, like a heavy rain, that could be avoided with good planning. Spiking someone's drink sounds innocuous, but it is nothing short of evil.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“They made at least eight different styles of brew from barley, eight from wheat and three more from mixes of different grains.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“So many names and stories have been lost to time. Having a legacy is a privilege afforded only to a few. Often, it's about class. . . . sometimes it's just about when and were you were born.”
― Mallory O'Meara, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

“Women need to see themselves fighting monsters.”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick

“Having a new tattoo really sucks,”
― Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick