Cecily Chapman had a prom night she wanted to forget. So she did. Until a decade later when she shared it with a room full of strangers at a live storytelling show.
Cecily Chapman had a prom night she wanted to forget. So she did. Until a decade later when she shared it with a room full of strangers at a live storytelling show.
The Chapman Family is Cecily Alexandria Chapman, Ruth Chapman, and Khalil Chapman.
Cecily is the author of Vagina Strong: Faith, sex and life through the journey of a virgin. (Amazon)
Rashomon is produced and hosted by Hillary Rea.
You can learn more about the show on our website: http://rashomonpodcast.com.
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Music in this episode by Jahzzar, and Ryan Cullinane (courtesy of the Free Music Archive).
Thank you to Thom Lessner for our amazing podcast art.
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Hillary [00:00:04] I was a 17 year old nerd with bright orange hair who could not wait till prom. I wanted the school dances that I saw on Saved by the Bell and Beverly Hills 90210. I pictured myself performing the interpretive dance scene from Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. I joined prom committee just to campaign for Time After Time to be our prom theme song. When it was time to vote, I stood on stage in front of 500 seniors and delivered a rousing speech. I lost to a late 90s Dru Hill slow jam. You can't grind to Cyndi Lauper. While all the other girls went to prom in Jessica McClintock. I wore out a skirt made of canvas. It was painted with abstract shapes and neon colors and it glowed in the dark. The top was a sleeveless turtleneck made out of hot pink foam rubber. I wore matching studded bracelets on my wrist. I went to prom with my best friend Cesar, and we walked there because the hotel was two blocks from my house.
Hillary [00:01:13] At 17, Cecily Chapman's idea of prom was Wonder Years style slow dancing.
Cecily at TMAS [00:01:19] My senior year we had senior prom and up till then I've been really kind of straight and narrow. So I like never went to any dances. Like none.
Hillary [00:01:37] This is Cecily and mid performance at Tell Me A Story. It's a live storytelling show that I produce.
Cecily at TMAS [00:01:42] I walked around the perimeter of the dance floor just to see what prom and like a dance situation is like. I saw some people from my class doing things I didn't know, like it was like pre twerking, but it was twerking.
Cecily [00:02:06] I have a lot of sort of memories of school, but that was the first time I told that story in public.
Hillary [00:02:15] Cecily is a stand up comedian. She waited 10 years to bring this story into her act.
Cecily [00:02:20] There's some storytelling elements to my style of stand up, and it's mostly about my life and my own experiences. So whatever dumb things happen, usually it's not funny when it's happening, but then given a day or a month or a year, it's funny like being overweight and race. That's a hot topic right now. Not that it never was, but it is more now. So, yeah, I enjoy talking about those things and kind of making people think, but also letting them laugh.
Hillary [00:03:08] You're listening to Rashomon, a podcast where one family tells every side of the same story. I'm Hillary Rea, your host. In this episode we revisit Cecily's prom. You'll also hear from her mom and brother.
Cecily [00:03:25] My mom and I had moved to South Carolina from Ohio, but in South Carolina, I spent my last two years of high school. And just being from like a more conservative Christian background, I had never gone to any school dances. So the one dance that I really wanted to go to was the prom. At some point during the year. It was kind of a discussion of everybody was like, oh, who are you going to prom with? And all those things. It was before prom-posals and all of that, which is I don't even know what that is like why is that a thing?
Cecily at TMAS [00:04:11] So there was this one guy who had been interested in me since I got there. He had expressed that he wanted to date me, but he also expressed that he wanted to take me to prom. We were in a math class together and at some point during math class, prom had come up in conversation. And so he told our little group of people that he wanted to take me to prom and what he wanted to do after. So, yeah, it ended up being that one of the girls that was in this little group had announced to the whole class what he had said. And basically he was going to get a hotel room and we're going to have sex on the beach. I don't. Yeah, well, first of all, like sex on the beach I've heard, is not as exciting as it sounds.
Cecily [00:05:23] Apparently people do stuff after prom, which I come from a conservative Christian background, so I wasn't one that was going to do those things.
Ruth [00:05:35] Leading up to the senior prom, to me, it was a little exciting, but not quite the excitement that I anticipated that it would be because I think Cecily was a little apprehensive.
Hillary [00:05:49] This is Ruth Chapman, Cecily's mom.
Ruth [00:05:52] She ended up deciding that she would go, but she wanted to invite her brother to be her date.
Cecily [00:05:59] My mom was like, well, your brother lives a couple hours away.
Cecily at TMAS [00:06:04] He was a senior in college. So from my perspective, I thought he was cool. So.
Cecily [00:06:14] She was like, you should just ask him, my brother is pretty cool in general, I always thought he was cool and I asked him and he was like, yeah, I'll I'm down for that.
Hillary [00:06:26] At the time, Cecily's brother Khalil was at college in Myrtle Beach. He lives further away now, so we spoke on Skype.
Khalil [00:06:32] I mean, it was it was I didn't really I didn't hesitate to go. It was an awkward sort of scenario together, you know, I'm not going to say I was super super comfortable. But whatever, I guess if that's what she needed that's what a big brother does - step up and just do what you need to do to take care of your family.
Ruth [00:06:54] I think that for Cecily to invite her brother and mostly for him to accept, it just shows the bond between them. I mean, he just gladly rented a tux and drove the distance and took her. And I think that was very meaningful.
Hillary [00:07:14] Khalil rents a tux, Cecily buys her dress, she gets her hair and makeup done. He drives the few hours to Hilton Head and then everyone heads to the pre-prom festivities.
Cecily at TMAS [00:07:25] We went out to eat with my mom, her friend, and me and my brother like a family outing, not necessarily a prom outing, but...
Cecily [00:07:37] We were going to go out to like the Westin Hotel, where they have like an extensive buffet, like one of those fancy, like, hotel buffet things. There is some seafood. We lived close to the beach, so they always had decent seafood in that area.
Ruth [00:08:00] And it was kind of a big deal, you know, because we normally wouldn't eat at the Westin. After dinner, I went back home, Cecily and Khalil went to the prom, and I anticipated that it would just be a great time.
Khalil [00:08:40] So anyways, we go to prom and we are just hanging out. I get to meet all of her friends and everything, and then she's trying to get me to go out there and dance and, you know, I kind of stayed to myself and smiled and kind of did my own thing.
Cecily [00:09:01] Then my brother, he's more outgoing. And so he was like, you should, you know, like, at least go into the dance area and see what prom is since you've never been to any dance like it might be different than the movies.
Cecily at TMAS [00:09:19] So we had walked around and I had to go to the bathroom
Khalil [00:09:27] All of a sudden she she said she had to go to the bathroom and she ran off.
Cecily at TMAS [00:09:32] So I went into this hotel bathroom. There's like, you know, prom girls. Doing prom things.
Cecily [00:09:42] And there is like a bunch of skinny white girls talking a lot about people and trying to figure out their makeup and their hair and like all the things that you do in front of a mirror.
Cecily at TMAS [00:09:56] And I went into a stall and I was like, oh, no, there's too much going on under this dress. I cannot possibly, like, make this happen and everything turn out OK.
Cecily [00:10:11] I've always been overweight, so I need like the Spanx and the control tops, three or four things like holding me in.
Cecily at TMAS [00:10:22] It was before Spanx. So there was like a lot of a lot of stuff going on under and very difficult to get that stuff off once you get it on like body suits... anyway.
Cecily [00:10:38] So I'm in the stall and I'm like, if I actually try to remove my clothes like the undergarments, I'm never going to get them back on. You don't ever put them back on once you've taken them off. I don't know. I just saw aFriends episode of Ross who couldn't get his pants back on. But so I left the bathroom and I went to my brother and I was like, I need to leave and I think we should leave now. And he was like, OK, what's going on? I was like, I just I'm not OK.
Khalil [00:11:20] I didn't know exactly what happened at the time, but I it really just kind of my heart sank. And I know, you know, this is a big night for her and it already was the way that she probably dreamed of it for her whole life or whatever.
Cecily [00:11:33] We were leaving and the principal of the school was standing at the door doing her job. And she was like, if you leave, you can't come back. My brother was like, are you sure you want to leave? Because she's saying, we can't come back. And I was like, no, we really need to leave. Like, at this point, I knew we needed to leave right then.
Cecily at TMAS [00:11:58] We left, get in the car, windows down like this is a real emergency situation.
Hillary [00:12:07] Cecily was ill and she thought maybe it had to do with the seafood buffet.
Cecily [00:12:12] We had to roll down all the windows because there's gas. And it was coming out of my body and I cannot prevent it from doing so. We had to drive maybe twenty minutes to get to the house. And I don't know how my brother was able to even drive because I know it was bad. We lived in a condo like thing, but it didn't have an elevator. So we had to walk up the three flights of stairs. It felt like I was crawling up the stairs like I was just trying to pull myself up the stairs.
Ruth [00:12:54] I just had a relaxing evening. I don't remember doing anything in particular. But then long before the prom should have been over, they were back and Cecily was rushing to the bathroom. And I'm like, what's going on? What happened? Khaleel is kind of low keyed. So he's like, well, she's not feeling well.
Cecily at TMAS [00:13:16] So my mom's like, why are you here? And I was like, I'm about to explode. So I, like, ran to the bathroom and literally everything came out of me from every single direction. Like, I don't even like maybe my ears, like it was so bad.
Cecily [00:13:41] I guess my body was like, oh, we're safe now. So it just let go. And then I'm crying and I'm sweating like all the things because this is the terrible mess.
Ruth [00:13:57] And I'm at the bathroom door, you know, Cec, Cec are you okay Cecily? And she's crying. And, you know, it was just for me, a very emotional time.
Cecily at TMAS [00:14:11] I don't know how I got everything off. I don't know. It was like a war zone.
Ruth [00:14:18] Well, I just thought that she, for whatever reason, had panicked. I thought it was more like maybe somebody said something, maybe something went wrong at the prom. I didn't know what to think.
Khalil [00:14:32] Yeah, from my perspective it was super tragic. She's at a newer school, she wasn't very popular, you know, she was trying to make some lemonade out of lemons there, and then it just went tragically, tragically, even worse than what was alreadt set up. You know you don't want to have to take your brother to prom and then you finally get there and you're out there having a good time and then you, you crap your pants. So...
Cecily at TMAS [00:15:30] After I've kind of come back to my senses, my mom's like, all right, take a shower, I'm going to wash your dress and your clothes and you're going to get back. You're going to get back out there. Because I still hadn't seen, like, two of my friends.
Ruth [00:15:58] So she handed me the dress. I had to ball it up because it was a mess. I think I went to my bathroom and ran some water and washed the dress and dried the dress and said to her, here's your dress, put it back on and you go back to the prom and enjoy.
Cecily [00:16:23] I guess at some point I had told her I only got to see my one friend and there was like two or three other people that I wanted to see. I think a part of it was just my social shyness was kind of like, I just wanted people to know that I was there, like I was at least cool enough to show up to this prom. So by the time we got back there, prom was basically over.
Cecily at TMAS [00:16:52] So we just basically went back in the car, drove around the parking lot. And like I waved at my friends. I mean, they saw me, so I had been there.
Cecily [00:17:11] So I pretty much accomplished what I was supposed to accomplish and my friends were like, oh, we didn't see you inside. And I was like, I was there.
Khalil [00:17:24] We went somewhere, I guess maybe like an after party or an after event. And I don't think we stayed very, very long. But we made it back out and hung out for a few minutes and then went back.
Hillary [00:17:35] After that night, the Chapmans never talked about what happened. Even though it was a big deal at the time, there wasn't any reason to bring it up again. Cecily was so embarrassed that it pretty much took the whole decade to get over it.
Cecily [00:17:51] As a 17 year old, I was like, this is the most important day, aside from maybe graduation, but even graduation is kind of like we do that for the parents, but prom is for us. I don't know exactly what I expected like when I think about when I actually think about it, it's just a dance. It's like, where do you get the most dressed up and you're around all these people who have never seen you the most dressed up. It's kind of like in some ways trying to be popular, trying to be cool, trying to fit in somewhere and then just like these amazing decorations. And then there's always like the prom king and queen are never who it's supposed to be. And there is like some kind of drama. And so I don't even know if I even thought that I would be the queen like but how amazing would that be if there's no named girl who just started going to the school like a year and a half ago would become prom queen who like nobody has ever like she she hardly talks, so.
Khalil [00:19:39] It was one of those things that as a bigger brother you definitely didn't want things to happen that way. You know for your sister to be super sad and it wasn't as as comic as she makes it, you know, because she's a comedian, obviously. And in my memory was very pretty, pretty tragic. I was it made me sad. Obviosuly if you can't laugh at yourself and your downfalls then you can't laugh at all. So...
Cecily at TMAS [00:20:08] To this day, like my brother, every single time I have seafood, he is like, oh, no like, are you sure you can have seafood? Like, are you. I thought you were allergic like... He I think he has PTSD from that experience.
Hillary [00:20:28] When I first heard Cecily's story when she was telling it at the live show, I remember her set up and thinking, oh, this is going to be a story about the ridicule of going to prom with your brother. I imagined a circle of bullies or the pig's blood from Carrie, but it turns out no one cared.
Khalil [00:20:46] She had a path. She kind of knew that she wasn't the star cheerleader. She wasn't this person or that person. She I think she's, you know, understood what it was, accepted it and said, I'm going to still go to this event whether I have a date or not. So I'm just going to take my brother.
Ruth [00:21:06] And she was kind of excited about seeing her small group of friends. Her brother is a handsome guy. So she was excited about them you know, seeing her with her handsome brother.
Cecily [00:21:20] I actually thought I was cool. My brother's really cool. He's in college like that must make me cool that my older brother's taking me to prom. But then, like, in hindsight, like, it seems kind of lame because it's like you couldn't find a prom date? So you took your brother to prom? I mean, now I still would take my brother the prom because he's cool,
Hillary [00:21:50] Whether it was a night to remember or a night to forget, there's a hard piece of evidence that tells a whole other side of the story.
Ruth [00:21:57] They have beautiful prom pictures. So when you look at the picture, you never know that it was such an exciting, eventful evening.
Cecily at TMAS [00:22:05] I still have photos from that night. So if anybody would like a prom photo, you can have some. Thank you, guys.
Cecily [00:22:19] I have one left, I think, and we just look like brother and sister at prom.
Hillary [00:22:35] Big thank you to the Chapman family, Ruth Khalil and Cecily, thank you. Cecily is actually a published author. You can buy her book on Amazon. It's called Vagina Strong. I highly recommend you check it out. Huge thank you to the Center for Documentary Studies and John Bewin and Audrey Quinn for helping me finish this episode. And to Sarah Holtz for helping me with the mixing. Music in this episode was courtesy of Jazzar, and our theme song is by Ryan Cullinane. The amazing podcast artwork is by Thom Lessner. Please visit his website: https://thomlessner.com. And be sure to follow us on social media at Twitter and Instagram. And we have a website as well, https://rashomonpodcast.com. More episodes coming your way. So please subscribe. Tell your friends. And thank you so much for listening.