We were lucky to catch up with Mel House recently and have shared our conversation below.
Mel, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
In 2017, I started writing to save my life… I know, that sounds dramatic. I wasn’t in danger of dying a literal death, but I felt a deep stirring that demanded my attention. Something I could no longer ignore.
For context, I’m a middle-aged actress in an industry that values youth and beauty. I’m a white mom raising a black son. And I grew up in a home shaped by sexual violence. So when our nation elected a president who bragged about grabbing women by the genitals, the Weinstein scandal exposed the depth of harm being done to women throughout the entertainment industry, and the frequency of police brutality streaming into our homes hit a new high, I felt unsafe in my body, powerless to protect my family, and overwhelming RAGE!
My rage scared me.
I was taught that good people suppress anger, because it’s ugly and destructive. But if you ignore anger, it doesn’t go away, and it can build into RAGE. But my anger felt sane, even healthy, and I became curious: What does healthy anger look like? Why has our culture gendered biological emotional states? And how does repressing or expressing these emotions shape identity?
I read a lot about anger, practiced somatic body work to change my relationship with my experience of anger, and performed Stand-up comedy as a character called Hot Angry Mom. What I’ve learned is that many people think about anger in ways that I believe cause harm to ourselves and others. But what if healthy anger can actually make us more whole? What if anger is a superpower?
In 2020, I wrote an explosive dark comedy series called HOT ANGRY MOM that uses comedy to make female anger visible. Set in 2018, the day after Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about being sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the story centers a people-pleasing NYC mom who has an epic meltdown. Her teenage son films it, thinks it’s funny and puts it on YouTube. That video goes viral on a day that his middle-aged actress mom is auditioning for a play that explores power and the relationship between artists and the work we make. Of course, the video turns mom’s world upside-down and creates comedy and chaos. But it also allows her to face her anger, which will become a doorway for transformation.
In 2021, I raised the funds to produce HOT ANGRY MOM independently as a digital series. And by 2023, we toured HOT ANGRY MOM at 23 film festivals worldwide. We were nominated for 51 awards, and won 20, placing #2 in the U.S.A. and #5 in the world in the Web Series World Cup.
HOT ANGRY MOM is my love letter to moms, theatre nerds, those impacted by #MeToo and anyone who has ever struggled with their rage. WATCH & SHARE: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfdz7pBYzqKkLHT4u3yzrb5tFfCdJBjwJ
Mel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m an actress, voice teacher and the writer/creator behind the award-winning series HOT ANGRY MOM—a dark comedy about a people-pleasing mom who discovers that anger is her superpower, streaming on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfdz7pBYzqKkLHT4u3yzrb5tFfCdJBjwJ). Recently, I guest starred on “FBI: Most Wanted” as Leah Wilson, played Heidi in “What the Constitution Means to Me” at Syracuse Stage, and toured internationally in Rome, Cagliari, Belgrade, Dublin, and NYC with “The Baby Monitor.” I’ve played iconic roles from Shakespeare to Ibsen, working Off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally, as well as originating roles for the web, film, and TV. I tell stories, make jokes, and take on projects that highlight queer and female stories, while promoting conversations around gender, power and sexuality. I’m a guest teacher for the Mason Gross School of Arts at Rutgers University, the Fitzmaurice Institute, and Lincoln Center Theatre. And a proud member of the Actors Center Company, Literature to Life, NYWIFT, VASTA, SAG/AFTRA, AEA, and a Certified Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®. You can find out more about my work as a voice coach and book an appointment at www.melhouse.com.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
After screening world-wide at 23 festivals, including the Oscar-qualifying Cleveland International Film Festival, Hollyshorts Film Festival, and Dances with Films: New York and Los Angeles Film Festivals, where the digital series has been nominated for 51 awards, and won 20, including Best Dark Comedy, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Ensemble Cast, and an award for Representation of Women in Film, I have a fierce new mission: make HOT ANGRY MOM free and accessible to 1,000,000 moms!
Given its connection to the story, and the fact that digital content has become for many mothers a lifeline to the world beyond motherhood, I decided that the best way to reach as many mothers as possible is to make HOT ANGRY MOM free and accessible by streaming it on YouTube. Moms worldwide can watch ‘HOT ANGRY MOM’ on our YouTube Channel and even get their own HOT ANGRY MOM Merch.
Moms need a series that rethinks rage as a source of empowerment. The protagonist of ‘HOT ANGRY MOM’ is a people-pleasing mom, who shows us the cost of destructive anger myths that disconnect us from important information our bodies want us to know. Women have been enculturated to cut off our anger. We have been taught that it is ugly and destructive. But anger doesn’t just go away because we try to avoid or suppress it. It turns inward, making us sick, or we explode in ways that are unhealthy.
‘HOT ANGRY MOM’ was inspired by my real life family, and role as a mom and middle-aged actress, and my journey to renegotiate my relationship with my own rage. Moms do so much invisible unpaid labor. They sacrifice their bodies, professional opportunities, and wealth to care for others. This isn’t noble, it’s unfair. There are big systemic changes that our country needs to make to fairly support caretakers. We want to amplify the conversation around the ways that healthy anger can make us more authentic, help keep us safe, and become a source of transformational power. Though we can’t give mothers what we all need–equal pay, affordable childcare, reproductive freedom or quality education for our kids in safe schools–through ‘HOT ANGRY MOM,’ we can certainly empower each other to demand the societal changes we so deserve.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I cringe when I look back at my first YouTube videos!
My idea was to create a channel for HOT ANGRY MOM, the character in the series that I’m writing and developing. But I didn’t want people to think it was fiction, I wanted them to think it was real. Like the “Blair Witch Project” of Mom Rage. My hope was to build an audience that would attract collaborators and allow me to develop my idea into a web series, TV pilot and eventually a TV series. But YouTube was not an organic platform for me. I worked really hard. I made a new video every week from September of 2019 to January of 2020: ideating, shooting, editing, publishing, promoting. They’re pretty cringy. You can see some of them on our channel. And I will release more in the Fall with context.
I wish I had known about batching. Meaning, I wish I’d come up with a concept that is SIMPLE, and spent 1-2 days shooting. Then edited that into months worth of content. Using a scheduler like Metricool, you can spend a day or two organizing the content to publish it. I did try to work with a younger person, a director, to help me shape my ideas, but she wasn’t experienced on the platform either and ultimately didn’t know how to help make my vision more successful. That said, I learned a lot by just doing it. Failing Forward. I used mailchimp to send out emails to my friends, family and growing email list, announcing when those videos were published. I bought a domain name, and got the @hotangrymom handle on IG, FB and YouTube. We’ve only just recently added TikTok.
Perhaps all of these efforts contributed to my success when I began crowdfunding using Seed&Spark. I was able to raise $35,000 to go into production of the digital series. With 500+ backers on the platform, I was able to show grant makers that I had an audience and worked hard to raise the funds to support the project. Then, I was further gifted with Panavision’s New Filmmaker Grant and funds for post-production from NYSCA, BAC, and other New York State agencies that support artists. Between 2021 and 2022, we filmed and edited the series, before releasing it on the festival circuit in 2023.
We recently launched on YouTube with an event called the MILLION MOM WATCH PARTY, a livestream event with house parties across the country. As of writing this, we’re at 1060 subscribers and have 120K+ views across the channel. Our ambitious goal is to reach 1,000,000 moms by December 2024. You can help us, by watching, subscribing, and sharing with everyone that might enjoy HOT ANGRY MOM!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hotangrymom.com
- Instagram: @hotangrymom / https://www.instagram.com/hotangrymom/
- Facebook: @hotangrymom / https://www.facebook.com/hotangrymom
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mel-house/
- Twitter: @hotangrymom / https://twitter.com/hotangrymom
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfdz7pBYzqKkLHT4u3yzrb5tFfCdJBjwJ
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21349980/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt
https://linktr.ee/hotangrymom
https://hotangrymom.myshopify.com/
Image Credits
copyright HOT ANGRY MOM @2021 – Director of Photography: Niav Conty