Lilis #GirlBoss of the month: Caitlin Stasey

Taken from Caitlins website herself(.)com

„People think that beauty opens doors; but it opens doors to cliff edges.“

A very happy Sunday Funday to all of you 🙂

Let me introduce you to a brand new „Sunday Funday“ category on this blog: Each month one of us chooses a woman or a girl that inspired us, changed something in society or spoke up about an important issue, to be our #GirlBoss of the month. We hope in return that you feel empowered to be the best selves you can be, after reading about the amazing women we chose.

This April it was my turn to choose a #GirlBoss and I decided on the Australian actress Caitlin Stasey.
To me it’s always a big question what my childhood heroes grow up to be, whether they’re still as inspirational as I thought they were when I was a kid and of course if they’re still acting.
Some of you may know Caitlin Stasey as this childhood hero from her part as Frankie in the Australian kids series „The Sleepover Club“, maybe you’ve also seen her on „Neighbours“ or „Reign“. But for me she’s always been the self confident Frankie from „The Sleepover Club“, I always wanted to be like. So naturally I wanted to see what she’s doing now and I was honestly pretty overwhelmed.
There was one YouTube Video in particular that stood out to me and that actually made me think about creating a post like this. The video was on a channel called StyleLikeUs, which was created by a mother daughter duo, who in their own words are „leading a movement that empowers people to accept and express their true selves“. The channel on its own is worth checking out!
Caitlin Staseys video deals with the challenges young actresses that arrive in Hollywood have to deal with.

As for me, I never felt the trouble of not feeling represented in the media, as an average white girl and therefore probably had it easier coming to terms with who I am. Still, Caitlin talks about the problem of type casting young girls to play the sexy, pretty girl next door, all the boys want.
We are represented as white women, there is no doubt in that and it is also not arguable that there needs to be a bigger variety of ethnicities and all kinds of shapes people come in in movies.
But we also have to consider that these changes that need to be made start with women not being sexualized in the media anymore, as this sexualization just sends the wrong image to young girls. And to me that is a huge problem and I love that Caitlin is talking this openly about it.
She even mentions that when Jessica Biel addressed the problem she had of only being cast as the beautiful woman, no one in the public eye took her seriously and shrugged it off as some luxurious problem. Cases like these led to women and girls in the same position being afraid of asking for more or asking for a different part because they didn’t feel entitled to do so, because they were afraid of coming across as arrogant.
After all, there are more important problems in the world than actresses being type cast.
And yes, maybe there are bigger problems, but as Caitlin mentions and also in my opinion it is part of a bigger problem. The problem being, putting labels on people, which is still a huge issue in our society.

But back to Caitlin Stasey; she points out that she often feels like a variation of a theme of the same girl every casting she goes to. She even has to go onto shopping trips with her manager or send her manager pictures of her outfit she plans on wearing in public so that casting directors don’t get the idea she’s not sexy enough or not chill or cool enough.
One casting director actually thought she was incredibly boring just because she was wearing High Waisted jeans, he judged her based on her clothes.
To me this really proves the cliche of these old white men writing movies and TV shows for young girls although they really don’t have a clue what young girls need to see or hear. Of course it’s easier to just objectify women, it has worked for years in the movie industry but just because this is the case doesn’t mean that it should go on like this. There needs to be brave new directors, producers and screenwriters and more strong and beautiful young actresses like Caitlin Stasey who speak up about the topic without being afraid of the reactions they might get from casting directors. Maybe in a few years every girl can feel like they’re good enough and their type of person can be found in popular movies. In the end, only then we can tackle the problem of labeling people and objectifying women.
In case you want to see the whole interview of Caitlin, just click the link 🙂 Caitlin also launched a website called „herself“ so if you’re over 18 feel free to check that one out as well 🙂

I really hope you enjoyed learning about my #GirlBoss of the month Caitlin Stasey and you feel inspired or maybe just happy that people like her exist in our (sometimes brainwashed) society.
I’ll also link Caitlins social media down below!

Have a wonderful day you magnificent human bean reading this.
Loads of love,
Lili xx

Where to find Caitlin:
Caitlins Twitter: @caitlinstasey
Caitlins Instagram: @caitlinjstasey

Where to find Castaway Minds online:
Twitter: @castaway_minds
Instagram: @CastawayMinds