Bryony Kimmings has set out to do what many angry feminists on the internet have been pining for. She wants to create a new kind of role model for someone like her niece to look up to who isn't busy trying to be an oversexualized pop star.
Sitting in a completely full house at the Soho Theatre in Central London and watching Kimmings and her 9 year old niece, Taylor, find out what has been happening to the youth of the world and how much they are susceptible to is shocking. They make fabulous points of trying to fight against the badness, to block out the filth, and to mute the sounds of horrible things no child should hear. But how much can you actually keep your kid safe from seeing and hearing these things? You can't really. Our culture is so inundated with information of all sorts that it becomes nearly impossible to keep the bad stuff away, short of blinding and deafening them (a great allusion made in the show). So what to do? Create a character that can be a good role model, that incorporates everything that a nine year old girl would find appealing in a pop star, and have them sing about not only things that are positive and empowering, but things that young girls want to listen to. When put together Kimmings and Taylor came up with a fictional "tuna-pasta-eating paleontologist" named Cathrine Bennett.
This show was so beautifully executed and so profoundly poignant it made me tear up to think of how far we have to go to create something that young kids can look up to. We need positive influences in young people's lives. Having spent three summers working with 5-12 year olds and listening to them talk about TV shows and movies they see as well as the music they listen to, it's staggering and at times sickening. I believe so much in what Byrony Kimmings is doing that it makes me well up to think about it. We need positive role models, those knights in shining armor. In a world where information is literally a click away, we need something bright and real to come out of the plastic and dingy world of celebrity. See this show. Take your daughters* to see this show. Take your mothers, your wives, your sisters, brothers, husbands, anyone who wants to see change in the world.
*they suggest that it is not a show suitable for children under 16 (I think 16 is the perfect age to understand the context, anything before that may be lost, possibly)
Book Tickets and find out more about the show
More on the Catherine Bennett Project
More on Byrony Kimmings
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