Whenever you talk about a famous old work of art, it’s almost certain that someone will feel the need to qualify it by saying, “It actually works.” As if to say that it cuts, or somehow becomes insignificant, and cannot stand as it should as a pop culture document of its era.
But this thought came to mind while watching Judy Bloom Forever, a new documentary examining the life and social impact of young adult authors, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
While directors Davina Pardo and Lia Walchok explored the film, Bloom rose to fame with the seminal 1970 book Is There a God? It’s me, Margaret. This is a coming-of-age story of a girl, almost her 12 years old, fascinated by her changing bodies, friends, boys, gender, faith and menarche.
It’s written in the first person, and the title character speaks straight to an equally young and curious reader, asking the same burning, seemingly rhetorical questions that are on their minds. , was one of the few books of its kind in which children were confronted with things they weren’t allowed to think, or even say out loud.
Parents and other adults forbade it. Disputing and Banning Books several years after its publication. But even though Margaret was 32 at the time, her children needed close dialogue with a young person who understood it.
That dichotomy is at the core of “Judy Bloom Forever,” where young, old, and young “Are you God? It is, as it were, a timeless book.
Much of it is answered through an intimate interview with Bloom, now 84. She recalls being a white suburban New Jersey woman, a young mother of two, and realizing that she had become increasingly miserable as a stay-at-home mom and had more to give than being a stay-at-home mom. I started noticing. Many other women liked her at the time.
Writing a book has become a way for me to release myself as a wife and as a way to free myself in my youth when my innermost thoughts were stifled in a society and a home that did not encourage my wife. It was also a way for her to engage more with her own children, who were going through some of the same things she did at her own age.
Similarly, other books such as “Tales of a Force Grade Nothing”, “Blabber” and “Sterling Sally J. Friedman as Herself” have emerged to challenge censorship and more popular and accepted depictions of girls and women. opposed to
As “Judy Bloom Forever” emphasizes, her book confronted the cycle of female oppression and Puritan fanaticism. Roe v. Wade verdict And the list of banned books continues source of discussion.
In response to angry questions from male journalists and politicians who accused him of being too obsessed with sex in his books, Bloom used his books and interviews to speak for his own voice, along with those of women and young adults. fought to..
Perhaps that’s why “Judy Bloom Forever” has her biggest fans, who come from diverse racial and class backgrounds, including sex educators, actors like Anna Konkle, and adult readers like YA writer Jacqueline Woodson. That’s why we’re featuring an interview with
It’s interesting to witness…a white female author who wrote almost exclusively white binary characters that resonate with queer, black, Asian-American readers, and many others across the identity spectrum. Part of that is because, unlike today, queer and colored writers were rarely on many school reading lists.
Perhaps Bloom, like many white writers today, didn’t feel she had to contend with her shortsightedness at the time. We are reconsidering.
But despite the author’s lack of cultural awareness in her books, her fans cling to their themes, from suicidal thoughts, first love, bullying to self-esteem. is more than just checking all the pertinent cultural boxes defined by today’s society.
Even today, as witnessed in several scenes of “Judy Bloom Forever,” the most progressive teen and pre-teen voice can read a single line from her book, Brings familiar comfort.
This timeless issue is also reflected in Going to Mars: The Nicky Giovanni Project, directed by Michelle Stevenson and Joe Brewster. As the film’s title suggests, Giovanni is widely known for her writings and her poignant poetry, but she has always been a woman who sees herself beyond the limits of her imagination.
So, of course, Giovanni speaks otherworldly in the documentary about himself, and black women in general. This is a long-standing belief that long predates the phrase “black girl magic.”
When Giovanni, a central figure in the Black Arts movement, declares this about himself, it is not an affirmation like the ubiquitous phrase, but rather an indisputable truth.
That’s why when she talks about herself, whether it’s 79 years old today or way back in 1979, She went head-to-head with James Baldwinan equally outspoken man, 20 years older.
Perhaps as a result, much of “Going to Mars” slips effortlessly from the past into the present and, in Giovanni’s eyes, a somewhat clearer future, revealing both her personal history and the history of the world in which she lived. I’m talking
That includes the pain of years of estrangement from his son Thomas. There is also talk of Giovanni meeting his now-wife, Virginia, and navigating her own cancer diagnosis.
The film revisits a conversation with Baldwin and reflects Giovanni growing up in a Tennessee household. There, it was made clear that his father had physically abused his mother and felt he was a man dehumanized by the white system and entitled to regain his sense of power through abuse. said. And what do you do with it, she pondered aloud to the author of “If Beale Street Could Talk” in a 1979 conversation.
Giovanni always says exactly who she is, so watching a documentary about her seems almost redundant. For a glimpse, I often revisit many of her poetry collections, including 1968’s Black Judgment.
The documentary correctly points to the poem “Nikki Rosa” to emphasize the authority over Giovanni’s own story. That word, which this film’s executive his producer Taraji P. Henson mysteriously quoted in his narration throughout the film, is more empowering than ever.
“I really hope white people don’t have a cause/write about me/because they don’t understand/black love is black wealth/and they/maybe my troubled childhood Talking about/And never realizing it/Happy all the time I was quiet.”
Even now in the culture we talk about issues of negotiating blackness, femininity and empowering those who don’t care about it. I wrote about these topics many years ago in a world that was fighting the same battles it is today over freedom, misogyny.
That’s why her other works like 1983’s “Night Wind Riders” and her more personal works like 2007’s “Acolytes” and 2020’s “Make It Rain” Even the work feels like such prescient material. Because, like Bloom, Giovanni always had a knack for speaking directly to audiences in need. I have.
It’s a little depressing that these battles over basic human existence are still so relevant today, but I think Giovanni’s staying at the forefront of the battle, drawing generations of people to this struggle It’s great to see how many people are involved.
In the same way that “Judy Bloom Forever” emphasizes the author’s connection with fans old and new, “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” goes to the author’s still-crammed reading. from one of her books. That type of engagement is immortal.
Because everyone can be reminded of who they are and where they need to go, regardless of age or elapsed time.