Student Blog: Crying In JAGGED LITTLE PILL

About three weeks ago, Diablo Cody’s jukebox musical Jagged Little Pill, featuring the musical catalog of Alanis Morissette, came to the Straz Center and I had the pleasure of seeing it. I knew it was a musical that painted an honest picture of a modern family who is forced to confront the difficulties of life and the truths behind its harsh reality, but I had no idea that one of the main characters was a transracial adoptee or that the confessional swing set scene would conjure a rainstorm in my eyes. 

When I was 10 months old, I was adopted from China and brought to America and was raised by my mom, who is half Chinese, and my Caucasian dad. Growing up, the idea of a transracial adoptee being featured on screen, let alone as a main character in a musical, was foreign to me. Being a transracial adoptive family felt like a secret characteristic that was unique to my family. Saying that, “I was adopted from China,” always earned ‘Oohs and Aahs’ and the assertion that I should be grateful and that my adoption is a blessing. While I am grateful, adoption is a double-sided coin but only one side receives polish. Adoption is not only a new start and the formation of a family, but adoption holds the background of loss and even abandonment. In transracial adoption, adoptees not only lose the physical reflection of having biological parents, but they often lose the culture associated with their ethnic identity. Jagged Little Pill’s Frankie is a character who explores the many feelings that transracial adoptees are pushed to lock away. The oxymoron of feeling like you are part of the family while your physical appearance says otherwise– To be seen as a daughter and to be seen as a woman of color. 

Although my adoptive mom is half-Chinese, I grew up with limited exposure to Chinese culture. I never learned Chinese, Lunar New Year was moreso acknowledged than celebrated, and the fact that Asians are people of color was not conceded by my mom till I told her about a BIPOC scholarship I was applying to. 

Leading up to the song “That I Would Be Good” (the tear-jerker), sung by Frankie, Phoenix, and Jo, Frankie and Phoenix slip away from a high school party and share an intimate moment on a swing set, revealing their insecurities and empathizing about their lives at home. Simultaneously, Jo is at home being scolded by thier mother for their masculine attire. The entire scene sheds light on the rift that forms between parents and their children– the often opposing pressures of wanting to please your parents, but also staying true to who you are and who you want to be. 

As the song played, tears started to run down my face. I don’t usually cry during musicals– not in movies either. But this cry was a strong and silent cascade. A cry that flows with the music and has no interval for wiping away the stream. My heavy tears ran till the audience’s applause ceased. I could feel what the characters were going through and recognize the fears they confessed: The cultural identity confusion that transracial adoptees face. The battle to supress the pain without anyone noticing you carried it in the first place. The difficulty of figuring out and embracing who you are without dissappointing anyone. 

As you get older, you begin to lose that childish part of yourself that made you feel so sure of who you are and you look for pieces to replace it. You are exposed to new emotions you never had to confront, emotions your parents never thought you would confront. Emotions that boil at the surface and splash and burn everyone around you. But you don’t know how to handle it, you can’t find the knob to turn down the heat and reduce to a simmer. 

A few nights after my swing set tears I had a breakdown over my college transition and ended up boiling over and splashing my mom. When I went to apologize, my mom told me, “I don’t know how to deal with you anymore,” since I keep ‘acting out.’ At this response, I felt torn. I felt guilty and regretful. What good does 'sorry' do if it has to be repeated?

That night I listened to “That I Would Be Good” over and over, trying to figure out the regret I harbor and unearth the trail that leads to my ‘acting out.’ 

How is my mom supposed to deal with me when I can’t even deal with myself? You can’t always swallow it down, can you?

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