The amazing thing about Judy Blume isn't that her books are still selling 50 years after they burst onto the children's scene, but that they're no less potent than then. With candid depictions of topics like menstruation, bullying, and teenage sex that's pleasurable rather than the fulcrum of a morality tale, Blume's books still dominate summer camp cabins and school libraries and dare to not ban them.
A stunning 1973 novel about a girl whose scoliosis interferes with her mother's dreams of her daughter's modeling career, Deenie is a current favorite among the 12-and-under residents of this critic's home. The very title, which also addresses masturbation with surprising frankness, aroused members of the far right. In a terrific scene from Judy Blume's Forever, Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok documentary about the iconic writer, Blume is seen on the TV show Crossfire training with conservative commentator Pat Buchanan in the early 1980s. two sons does not lose his composure before the lascivious obsessions of his critic. "Did you read the whole book or just the highlighted parts?" she asks in the warm tone of a cocktail party host offering hors d'oeuvres.
Directors: Davina Pardo, Leah Wolchok
Stars: Judy Blume, Molly Ringwald, Tayari Jones
The filmmakers lobbied Blume for several years before she agreed to take part in a film about her life. What she ultimately accepted is an energetic and engaging documentary that tells the story of a woman who progressed as the world around her struggled to reach similar levels of enlightenment. Even within the sometimes ridiculously liberal enclave of children's books, few authors have established themselves as serious alternatives to Blume, whose nearly 20 books, including Forever and Are You There God It's Me, Margaret, are free from condescension and spillovers. with a strange respect. for the young people for whom they are intended.
“I was a good girl with a bad girl lurking inside,” Blume tells the filmmakers. Born into a middle-class Jewish family, she followed a conventional line, wearing sweater sets and attending Sweet Sixteen parties and marrying her college sweetheart. It was while she was raising her own family in New Jersey that she began writing, a habit that did not earn her the admiration of her neighbors or even her husband. She took a condescending view of her efforts and was grateful that it was less expensive than a habit of shopping.
Interviews with Blume are interspersed with reflections from a group of contemporary fans, including filmmaker Lena Dunham, author Jacqueline Woodson, and Gossip Girl writer Cecily von Ziegesar. Blume was a pioneer and laid the foundation for her own work. Animated briefs and maxi pads accompany voiceovers here and there, but the most successful images are the pages of Blume's correspondences with her readers: fans who wrote on unicorn and rainbow stationery and entrusted their darkest secrets to the Favorite author of hers. When one of her old pen pals told Blume that her parents were in crisis and would not attend her college graduation, in Bryn Mawr, Blume showed up, for a girl she had never met. in person.
Other letters included in the film came from editors who weren't convinced Blume was worth taking on. Lines like, "There was something intangible missing from her story" and "We don't think it's very convincing" have incredible sting and help explain the "I'll show them" ethos that drove Blume to stick with her. She finally got her chance with a small publisher who gave her a $350 advance, which she used to buy an electric typewriter. She for many years led a double life, staying out of the awareness circles and bra burnings of her time, but finding her own private way of challenging social conventions. “I could be brave in my writing in a way that I couldn't be in my life,” she tells interviewers of her. Her books have in common boldness and frank prose. Another hallmark is Blume's ability to make a child feel heard and perhaps she suspects that the author is reading her most embarrassing thoughts from her. (It helps that she has full recall of everything that happened to her after third grade.)
Pardo and Wolchok's film works like an animated scrapbook of sorts, shading the real-life material that a living icon wove into his blockbusters. Echoes of her father, whom she calls "the caretaker" of her childhood home, are found in Deenie's father, the gas station owner who serves as her daughter's confidant.
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