Latest news with #Akil
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Forever' Showrunner Mara Brock Akil Wants to ‘Give Boys Their Full Humanity'
The Friday before the new Netflix adaptation of Judy Blume's novel Forever was set to release, its creator Mara Brock Akil was power-walking through New York City for exercise. The Los Angeles resident was in town doing a round of press to support the show, and, in a full-circle moment, found herself on the campus of NYU, a college her lead character, Justin (Michael Cooper Jr.), considers when gaming out his future in Episode Seven. The moment forced Akil to pause and reflect in the midst of crunch time. Forever's release hit close to home for the longtime TV writer and showrunner in a way much of her other work has not. Mainly, that's because the muse behind the eight-episode series is her older son, Yasin, 21. 'As a mother, I'm very emotional,' says Akil when we speak by Zoom just after her walk. Her voice cracks in between tears as she speaks about Yasin and her youngest son, Nasir, 16. We bond over being parents of boys. My own son is a little over five-and-a-half — not old enough to watch Forever's tale of teen sex and love — but I tell Akil that when he's of age, the show will be required viewing. 'This project came from that love for our sons that has some fear in it,' she says. 'My son is out in the world and thriving, but the catastrophic parenting part of me, I had to let her go. It's hard, but part of this project is therapizing.' More from Rolling Stone Madonna Biopic Series With Shawn Levy in the Works at Netflix: Report Karol G Celebrates Netflix Documentary Release with 'Milagros' 7 Things We Learned From Karol G's 'Tomorrow Was Beautiful' Documentary If you've been watching television since the 1990s, you know Akil's work. From her days in the writers room for hit shows like Moesha to her own creations — from Girlfriends to The Game and Being Mary Jane — Akil's canvas has always reflected the current times and the lived experience of Black women she knows. Characters like Joan (Girlfriends), Melanie (The Game) and Mary Jane not only solidified the range of actors like Tracee Ellis Ross, Tia Mowry, and Gabrielle Union (respectively) but allowed Black women to examine their complexities and humanity through the safety and context of the screen. Now, Forever — which has been renewed for a second season — brings that sensitivity and energy to an exploration of adolescence and first love. 'My whole body of work, starting with Girlfriends, especially, I have been wanting to carve out the vulnerability of Blackness,' says Akil. 'Now, having a front row seat to raising boys, I wanted to give them their full humanity. Which includes wobbling through not feeling secure one minute and feeling very secure the next.' Blume released Forever, her seventh novel, 50 years ago. It was the author's response to a request from her teenage daughter, who was curious but intimidated by sex, due to its often violent and scary depictions in literature. Blume's story follows a teenager named Katherine who falls in love with a boy named Michael and loses her virginity to him. Throughout the book's 26 chapters, Blume examines the question of whether or not first loves are eternal. While it would later be banned (even in Blume's children's school district) for being 'sexually explicit for younger readers,' its publication was a revolutionary act at the time, in step with the 'Love Movement' that fueled the 1970s. For Akil, who was five when Forever came out but read it several years later, when she was around 12, its impact was monumental. 'What Judy did was badass,' says Akil. 'Judy gave young girls the idea that they can be honest about the emotional and physical things happening to them, and they could explore it in a healthy way and still have a future.' While she was a fan of Blume's work, as a young girl Akil was often forced to reimagine Blume's white characters such as Katherine and Michael in her own likeness and melanated being. So in 2020, when Akil got word that Blume was ready to partner with Netflix in bringing one of her books to a major streaming service for the first time, she jumped at the opportunity to make her pre-teen visions a reality. 'My younger self didn't even wait for a conference call,' says Akil. 'She just raised her hand and was like 'I want in on that.' Akil says she was the one who pushed Forever as a suitable adaptation. According to Akil, Blume hadn't considered it; she didn't think there was much curiosity around sex in this modern age of technology and information. But Akil knew there was an untapped audience for the story. 'Judy and I talked about how I was going to translate the book,' says Akil. 'She wrote the book at the time to have a conversation with her daughter about sex and making healthy choices around her future. Katherine is the most vulnerable in society, and we looked at her and watched her chart her life. I posit that young Black men are the most vulnerable in society as they enter into the heart and physical space of first love, exploration, and desire.' She adds, 'To reimagine it for a Black young adult in Los Angeles in 2018 was the perfect alchemy for me.' Although Akil nods to certain plot points within Blume's novel — like the teens meeting at a New Year's Eve party where fondue is a noted delicacy — her unique storytelling shines through. The lives of Justin and his love interest, Keisha (Lovie Simone), feel deeply considered, and offer commentary on not just teen issues but everything from gender roles to parenting, socioeconomics, and an education system that is unsupportive of neurodivergence. Where Blume's 1975 version prioritizes the voice of Katherine, Akil points the lens towards Justin, who — in the most refreshing ways — is the opposite of what traditional media presents in depicting Black boyhood. He's not the star basketball player (he's actually benched for a good portion of the season) and is quite perceptive and sensitive to the world around him. 'Images of Black boys have positioned them more as man-children than allowing them to have their childhood,' says Akil. 'Justin's honesty and maturity actually is linked to ADHD. A lot of our children are misdiagnosed in the system. Not detecting the way [Black] children learn sends them in the wrong direction, and for Black boys that is a direct correlation to prison.' In Akil's story, Justin and Keisha are elementary-school classmates who've reconnected, now navigating the anxieties around their last years of high school and the grown-up decisions that await them. Keisha, an around-the-way girl from 'below the 10' (that is, South L.A.), is a straight-A student who is banking on her academics and track stardom to earn a full ride to Howard University. Her drive is a trauma response to witnessing the financial struggles of her single mom (Xosha Roquemore) — so much so that when she faces a sexual violation by another student at her old private school, she suffers in silence so as to not be seen as an inconvenience. Justin, meanwhile, lives in the hills of L.A, with his father Eric (Wood Harris), a renowned chef, and his high-strung but well-intentioned mother Dawn (Karen Pittman). Unlike Keisha, Justin is uncertain of the future — a privilege afforded to him by his family's financial security — and viewers journey with him as he battles his learning and developmental differences and his parents' expectations, which blind him to his own desires. The contrasts we see throughout are a testament to Akil's intentionality. Blume's Michael was viewed through the lens of Katherine — a radical move for the time period, having a man silenced and decentered; Justin's positioning here is just as revolutionary. Akil presents Justin's perspective of the adults molding him. Consistently, we feel the tension between him and his mom, who — while attuned to his wave of emotions as he navigates his first love and heartbreak — has a hard time navigating her own feelings and fears. Aware of his ADHD, she is often the balloon-popper of his daydreams, holding him accountable for his future and pushing him in spite of his differences. Yet she is also hyper-aware of who he is in society and what that means in the year 2018, following the killings of young Black boys like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. 'As a parent raising Black boys, I think they're the most innocent and precious, but right after fourth grade, [in society's eyes] they're no longer adorable and cute,' Akil says, becoming teary-eyed again. 'As Black parents in a Black household, you might over-protect your sons for their safety.' It's through Dawn that we see Akil's strength for writing Black women characters with depth, agency, and complexity. We also see fatherhood through Justin's lens. Eric is often the buffer between Justin and Dawn, able to set boundaries while giving Justin more leeway to grow up and have natural experiences. But what is natural when you are Black in a racist America? 'If you're raising Black boys you have to tell them about rape,' Akil says. 'It's not their disease, it's America's disease on them, but you have to protect them from it and that is the most heartbreaking thing.' It would be easy to compare Eric as 'good cop' to Dawn's 'bad.' Yet the lessons he teaches — such as the importance of consent, wearing condoms, and facing hard conversations — feel like a starter kit to parenting adolescent boys in a more conscious society, and it's refreshing to witness. Although a secondary character, Keisha also offers a beautiful mediation on the rite of passage from Black girlhood to womanhood. We see early on how her traumas, while kept internal, motivate her towards success — a testament to Black women in America, who oftentimes are lovingly teased for their influx of degrees and certifications obtained in the aftermath of tragedy. In Blume's Forever, Michael had more sexual experience than Katherine. In Akil's, that role was paved for Keisha, whose sexual encounter while attending a majority-white private school speaks to the dangers of technology but also exposes racist taboos and the lack of safety that burdens Black girls from autonomous sexuality. 'I wanted to talk about the white institutions of it all and what it's doing to Black girls,' says Akil. 'Throughout the story, Keisha is coming into her beauty and body. As smart as she is, she's having to chart this new attention.' The beauty of Forever is that despite difficult moments in its episodes, there is no overt trauma; and yet, there is much to question and unpack. How do we revamp the educational system — even the workforce — to be inclusive for neurodivergent people? What is the balance of parenting children in ways that are gentle yet firm? How can adults, hardened by life's woes, revamp their own first-love feeling in their day to day? 'My version of Forever comes from the compassion of the youth,' Akil says. 'Not only was the world telling them they didn't matter, but we as parents were loving them from that fearful place and were narrowing their gap to exist and to have these normal rites of passage. I'm just trying to make space for young people to have their humanity. We should be so blessed to witness them make healthy choices and continue to bloom and help nudge them and protect them, and that's not happening. This generation, of all ages, are lonely as ever. We might know how to have sex, but we're losing intimacy.' As Forever debuted over Mother's Day weekend, the boy who took my virginity — my first love — sent me a text to wish me a happy one. It's a ritual we've maintained since our own mishap in high school, when we almost became teen parents. Although imperfect, the parental guidance on sexuality within Forever is what I wish our teenage selves had to support us. And still, Forever drives home that even if a connection parts ways, you never forget a genuine soul. A reminder that life isn't scripted, though the right script can help us imagine different possibilities for ourselves, our children, and our community. 'When you see great art reflected, it really asks the viewers to engage in a bunch of questions and conversations,' Akil says. 'I want people to remember that level of joy around their first, just to remember that feeling and want that in our lives for ourselves. And because we want that for ourselves, we make space for our children to love themselves, each other, and choose wisely the future that's aligned to them.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Best 'Saturday Night Live' Characters of All Time Denzel Washington's Movies Ranked, From Worst to Best 70 Greatest Comedies of the 21st Century
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Forever' creator Mara Brock Akil on updating Judy Blume — and finding ‘real intimacy' — in the age of social media
Since its publication in 1975, Judy Blume's young adult novel Forever... has stirred controversy for its frank exploration of teenage sexuality. By the same token, it's been an important touchstone for young readers navigating the thorny terrain of first love. It was an important book for Mara Brock Akil, a TV veteran who has re-interpreted it for Netflix for a new adolescent audience. "Judy Blume was a first for me as a reader," Akil tells Gold Derby. "I think I became a writer because I was a reader first, and I was immersed in her world." Forever, which explores two teenagers navigating sex and intimacy for the first time, had a particular impact on Akil and her friends because "someone was willing to tell us the truth." Blume's book served as "our modern-day internet" for its young readers, explaining love, dating, and everything that comes with it. So when Blume finally made her work available for adaptation, "my middle-school hand just flew up in the air." More from GoldDerby Adam Scott, Ben Stiller, Britt Lower, Patricia Arquette and every 'Severance' Emmy submission 7 new shows with the most Emmy potential after Upfronts 'I do think that I burned down the cabin': How 'Yellowjackets' star Steven Krueger pulled off Coach Ben's mental and physical decline Yet when Akil saw the list of books Blume was willing to lend out to filmmakers, the producer was dismayed to see Forever wasn't on it. "Judy thought perhaps it was a little past its time," Akil recalls, "that the children today had moved way beyond where the book was." And in a way, Blume is right. "You can find anything and everything on the internet these days," Akil says, "but what's still missing, and maybe missing even more, is deeper connection, real intimacy, honesty." At a time when an abundance of technology has led to "an epidemic of loneliness," Akil thought, "what we need now more than ever is connection and love," and to help "young people navigate that part of the story." Akil's version of Forever places the story in 2018 Los Angeles, centering it on Black teenagers Keisha Clark (Lovie Simone) and Justin Edwards (Michael Cooper Jr.). Akil mined inspiration not just from her own adolescence, but from raising her own teenage son. From that observation came an understanding that for as much as things change, they stay the same. "At the end of the day, most love stories are about miscommunication," Akil explains. "It's just about what are the obstacles in that miscommunication." In the case of today, it's cell phone, the internet, and social media. "One minute it can connect you, and the next minute it can devastate you. Whether it be true or not, you feel like your life is on a global stage, that any mistake you make, your life is over." At the same time, "there's ways in which it can bring you together." The phone provides an important connection for Keisha and Justin, who feel out of place at the almost exclusively white public schools their parents have sent them to. Setting the story in 2018, Akil places it between the murders of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd, which heightened the sense of angst not just for Keisha and Justin, but for their parents as well. The "catastrophic parenting styles" within Keisha and Justin's households stems from a worry about whether "the kid was going to come home or not," Akil explains. That fear, in turn, "is creating unneeded and unnecessary anxiety within their relationship." All of these elements "are the interesting things that help this plot flourish around that very simple premise of miscommunication in a love story, and us rooting for them to finally get on the same page because we see that they're good for each other." That rooting factor hinges upon casting the right leads, and Akil found them in Simone and Cooper Despite her youth, Simone has a fairly robust resume that includes Greenleaf, Power Book III: Raising Kanan, and Manhunt. "She's been working at her craft as an actress for a long time," Akil says of Simone, who just earned a Gotham nomination for her performance in Forever. Pairing her with Cooper, a relative newcomer who has been "waiting to get in the game," turned out to be "magic." To bring out the best in her young stars, Akil turned to Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress Regina King, who has "given us such layered, beautiful, nuanced characters" throughout her acting career, and could do the same as a director. Having someone with experience both in front of and behind the camera was crucial to helping the stars feel comfortable. That was crucial for the sex scenes, which required "a language that felt honest to the story, and not distracting." Akil is the creator of such TV hits as Girlfriend, The Game, and Being Mary Jane. She earned her first Emmy nomination in 2024 for producing the documentary Stamped from the Beginning. Although her work has primarily centered on black characters, Akil finds that ultimately, she's just writing about people. "The majority of us wake up every morning not thinking about our race, our gender, our orientation," she states. "We think about how near and far am I to my dreams?" In the case of Forever, Keisha and Justin are "old enough to start thinking about their future as it relates to college," but at the same time are concerned with "who loves me? Who's thinking about me throughout the day?" Those everyday problems "are some of the most dramatic ideas in most people's lives." Ultimately, Akil believes that "the best way we get to know ourselves, and figure out who we are, is when we can find safe, loving relationships that allow us to carve out more of who we are, and to lead us back to our higher selves." When it comes to Keisha and Justin, "these two young people made a good choice in choosing each other," because it "freed them of themselves to get closer to who they are." All eight episodes of Forever Season 1 are streaming on Netflix. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby 'I do think that I burned down the cabin': How 'Yellowjackets' star Steven Krueger pulled off Coach Ben's mental and physical decline 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' star Charles Edwards on his tragic death scene: 'He did single-handedly withstand Sauron' 'It keeps me on my toes': 'St. Denis Medical' star Allison Tolman on walking a fine line between zany and 'incredibly heartfelt' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix 'Forever' based on Judy Blume book: Mara Brock Akil continues to evaluate the 'idyllic American dream'
Judy Blume's 1975 novel Forever has gotten a modern day update with a Netflix series, from iconic showrunner and executive producer Mara Brock Akil (Girlfriends). With the novel being the subject of controversy since its release, due to the frank conversations its characters have about sex, even being removed from a school district in Florida in 2023, Akil's reimagining of the story pays homage to the original, while placing its lead characters Keisha (Lovie Simone) and Justin (Michael Cooper Jr.) in 2018 Los Angeles. Blume wrote Forever shortly after the birth control pill was approved for use in the U.S. As Akil looked at adapting this story, it came after George Floyd's murder in 2020 and a time when she saw, as she told Netflix's Tudum, "Black boy as the most vulnerable person who needs to be protected." Just as Blume was able to honestly reflect the conversations and feelings of teens in the '70s, Akil does that for a new generation. "Meeting your icon, it was a fan girl moment, for sure," Akil told Yahoo Canada about meeting Blume. "The little girl in me was in awe to face her and to talk to her. ... I did fan girl for a minute and then we kind of took a deep breath." "She met me as a peer, as a storyteller, and then we were really able to have a conversation about, how could this book truly be translated, reimagined into a modern time? ... I love how engaged she is about story. ... It matters to her how her work is going to be interpreted, and I appreciated that she cared that much, and that also put a little bit more of a fire under me. Not that I really need it, because I care so much, but I did carry that energy with me." Forever begins with Justin asking his parents if he can go to a New Year's Eve party with some teens from school. But his mother Dawn (Karen Pittman), in particular, is concerned. 'We got cops out here shooting Black boys like it's open season,' she says. "Might as well let me live before I die," Justin says in response. After some back-and-forth, Justin's parents allow him to go, with his dad Eric (Wood Harris) laying down the ground rules. "You be yourself. And if you meet a young lady … and she even hesitates. You don't do it. If you're talking to somebody and they're drunk, don't do it, and if she's a white girl, don't do it," Eric tells Justin. "Otherwise, have a good time." Justin grew up in a wealthy family, attending a predominantly white school and his parents have tried to provide him with all the opportunities to succeed and manage his ADHD so that he can get into a great college, specifically Dawn's alma mater Northwestern. Justin is also honing his basketball skills on the school team, and in his spare time loves creating beats. "So many of us growing up, we have that kind of push and pull relationship with our parents," Cooper Jr. said. "I know for sure my mother is a Dawn, 100 per cent." "Me and Karen really pulled from our personal lives and we were able to kind of use that to bring Justin and Dawn's relationship alive. I mean, I just love Karen Pittman. ... She's a killer." At this New Year's Eve party Justin meets Keisha. They actually went to school together when they were younger, but Justin doesn't remember her. Keisha is laser focused on getting a scholarship to Howard University, from her academics to being a track star. But when her ex-boyfriend Christian (Xavier Mills) shares an intimate video of them, her life was turned upside down, having to step away from her high school scholarship to change schools, with her mom now struggling financially, including ensuring she has enough money to pay for Keisha's track gear. But Keisha never told her mom about what happened with Christian. Forever authentically portrays the double standard of how the video didn't impact Christian at all, if anything made him even more popular with his peers, while it was incredibly destructive and traumatic for Keisha. And in a particularly impactful moment, we get to see Keisha confront Christian. "You're all over the video too, but no one says anything about you," Keisha says. "You just walk away like nothing ever happened." "It felt freeing. It felt like a moment for my character to really release all of this tension that has shaped a lot of her days," Simone said about filming that scene. "It was a moment where I felt she was really sure of herself." "It was really nice and freeing to see that through another character, .. and especially as a Black woman as well, getting to really just release that tension and all of that resentment that you feel towards that person." In a separate interview, Akil highlighted that moment was about giving voice to "the nuance of the pain and the suffering." "We've heard a lot of stories, there's a lot of people who are navigating that, those levels of betrayal and challenge alone, and to give them a voice, let Keisha speak for herself, and thus for others," Akil said. "I also want to make a point that I think in this era of the new age where the phone has impacted culture in so many ways, ... a lot of young people are making mistakes, but during this time, they can literally ruin your entire future." "I think Christian made a huge mistake that is going to impact Keisha forever. And I really wanted an opportunity to let children or young people see themselves, and even adult people, what we are doing and what we could potentially be doing to people that we don't intend to do, but yet, the mistake can be lasting." As the love story between Keisha and Justin evolves, including break ups and make ups, a particularly impactful episode is when Keisha tags along with her friend on a trip to Martha's Vineyard, hoping to reconnect with Justin after an argument. With the episode directed by Akil, not only is it beautifully shot, with such a breathtaking use of light outside of the show's city scenery, we got an incredibly satisfying romantic reunion moment. "For me, it was very different. Keisha, her upbringing is very L.A. girl, very city life. She knows the subway stations and the bus stops," Simone said. "So to be able to be removed from this and still be in the same love story, but in a different way, because of the environment and the space and the intention, it was just really fun to dive into that new world." "In that space and in that time for Justin, he was healing, he was kind of going through the breaking of his character," Cooper Jr. added. "[It] really shows that arc of, he's coming into his own self when it comes to experiencing his first heartbreak." "Our first heartbreak really shapes us as people and it defines us in a way that, it shifts our perspective of how we can see the world. And I think that's what you see coming from him." But with all of Akil's work, she really succeeds in layering her stories with a number of different elements. She's giving us an evaluation of class, while looking at the importance of community, and all the specifics within Justin and Keisha's lives. It's through this process that Forever, in addition to Akil's previous projects, feel like robust portrayals of our world. "I'm constantly looking at American culture through the lens of the American dream, and ... is it really in our favour," Akil said. "And I think you see a lot of my characters trying to reach this idyllic American dream, but yet they are examining and questioning. Is this really my dream?" "And class is so much more of an issue and a challenge in our country than race is, and ... I really want to unpack that so that we can see ourselves. And then from that place we can decide what steps we want to take in preparing that, fixing that, or even giving ourselves grace about where we are in our life. ... A lot of us are marching to the same place, and I want us to march in that way that is true to us."
Los Angeles Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Mara Brock Akil
Mara Brock Akil has a love story with Los Angeles that runs deep. She was born in Compton, raised in such neighborhoods as Baldwin Hills, Windsor Hills and Ladera Heights, and now resides in Hancock Park. So when she set out on her latest creative project, a TV adaptation of Judy Blume's 1975 novel 'Forever...,' she knew she had to set it the City of Angels. shar'We kept saying we're telling a love story within a love letter to Los Angeles,' said the screenwriter and executive producer best known for the series 'Girlfriends' and 'Being Mary Jane.' Akil's new series, which premiered on Netflix on Thursday, centers on the love story between Justin Edwards and Keisha Clark, Black high school seniors in 2018 Los Angeles. 'We're a very diverse city, but we are still separated within our neighborhoods,' she said. 'I want people to get used to seeing Justins and Keishas in L.A. and make room for them as they try to discover each other.' The showrunner said her 'muse' was her eldest son, Yasin Akil, 21, and her relationship with him. 'My impetus to write this, [which] I think [was] the same as Judy,' Akil said, 'is I want to make space for my children to have a normal rite of passage to understand who they are, how they make that leap from familial love to their first decision around romantic love and friendship love, and before they move into the next realm of their lives.' When Akil isn't on set, her ideal Sunday takes her from her home in Hancock Park to art studios downtown and local bookshops in Ladera Heights. As her work on 'Forever' has taught her, 'You can stay in your bubble or you can sort of venture out. And if you venture out, I think you'll be a better Angeleno.' This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. 7 a.m.: Hot girl walk On my dream Sunday, I'm waking up at 7 a.m. when the city is quiet. There are going to be dog walkers, but there's something so luscious about the stillness of L.A. that early on a Sunday. I do have a walking and writing creative practice, and so sometimes I like to write in New York as a result of it, because I can just go out the door and walk. But Hancock Park allows me to walk to one of my favorite streets in L.A., which is Larchmont. There's something to do where you don't have to overspend, but you can feel a part of something. You can just enjoy walking up and down. You can stop by the magazine stand. You can look in all the stores. You might buy a croissant — there's 1,000 bakeries. You can just go look at the adopted pets. Matcha is my thing. Groundwork has a matcha, Le Pain Quotidien has a matcha and Cookbook has a matcha. And then one of my favorite places, too, is Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits & Cheese. The line is out the door for their sandwiches; I typically get the turkey or the tuna. I get my Sunday fixings [at the Larchmont Farmers Market], so I make a Sunday chicken. I don't cook a lot of things, but what I do well, I do very well. I have a family recipe, and it's a Sunday chicken, and so I get the herbs or the potatoes and the carrots and the things like that. It feels great to walk out of your door after driving in your car all week, to talk to people, bump into friends. 9 a.m.: Neighborly tennis lesson Hancock Park is a really lovely neighborhood. I know my neighbors, and thankfully one of them has a tennis court. I have this amazing trainer named Wkwesi Williams. Wkwesi will meet me over at my neighbor's house, and he'll give us a lesson, and then if we're feeling strong enough, we'll hit afterwards. 11 a.m.: Hit the batting cages Then I'm home, and I can be mom. My 16-year-old son, Nasir, is an aspiring baseball player. Typically, if he's not in a game, which would wipe out my whole Sunday, I just have to get him to the batting cages. My son doesn't drive yet, so he still needs his mom, thank God. He bats at BaseballGenerations with Ron Miller, another amazing coach. It's so funny. It's the flyest — all the young ballers are in there. Sometimes they'll have professional guys hitting in the batting cage. It's like the secret to the secret. 12:30 p.m.: See the art Then, since we're downtown, I would go visit Jessica Taylor Bellamy's studio. Thelma Golden, the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, who's a good friend of mine, always gave me this great advice: Art should be a daily practice. If you just have 30 minutes and you can pop into a gallery or a museum, just go see the art, see what it does. What I love about Bellamy's work is that she really understands Los Angeles. When I saw her paintings — and she had a palm tree and a pine tree, sometimes she has bright skies, sometimes she has cloudy skies — I was like, 'Who is this? She gets it. She's from here. She knows L.A.' She was also a muse for 'Forever.' When I saw her paintings, I called Michael 'Cambio' Fernandez, who is our cinematographer. We talked about her palette, her understanding of the sunny side and the rainy side and the cloudy side of L.A. That tableau was really important. 2 p.m.: Visit childhood home Because I love driving, [my son and I] take the long way home. I would go by Reparations Club to pick up a book for me. Then we would go to this new comic book store called the Comic Den on Slauson for my son. Then we would go to Simply Wholesome for us. Simply Wholesome is one of our big heartbeat centers of love, joy, wellness and community. We typically get the Sunshine Shake with the egg, and we get some Jamaican patties for my mom, which we will take literally around the corner. My mother lives in my childhood home, and we would go see grandma, so grandma can see how tall Nasir has grown. It always anchors me to walk into a place that you remember yourself. Being in that neighborhood reminds me of how safe and loved and enough I am. I love being in the place where I was a child and also making sure my child stays connected to his grandmother. My own grandmother recently passed in that home, so just honoring that. We always play a little Jhené Aiko or Nipsey Hussle to honor being back over there. 5 p.m.: Sunday fixings I'll get back home around 5 o'clock, so I can cook the Sunday chicken. I have a big life, but I'm always a writer and I'm always in practice. And one of my favorite things is music. Our house is always filled with music, so I cook. I slow down. I engage with that family history as well as my own creativity, and in that active meditation, oftentimes I will catch a lot of great ideas. So I always have my journal nearby, maybe a little Champagne because it's Sunday, and I'm using all of those little fixings I got from the farmers market. And the cool thing is that it takes a minute for the chicken to cook, so I can have a little swim or a little sauna and shower before family dinner. 7 p.m.: Family dinner Right now, it's just the three of us. Sometimes we FaceTime the older one [who is away at college] and be like, 'You're missing Sunday chicken!' But we sit down, and we just talk about the day, talk about whatever. Sometimes it gets very philosophical. To be in our homes and enjoy them is also a treat, and I don't ever want to forget that as I'm out and about around the city. We linger at least an hour before we set a new week ahead of us. 9 p.m.: Have a laugh over drinks But then, I'm also a Gemini, so I like to stay out in them streets. So it might just be calling my girlfriend Alice and being like, 'Let's go have a drink at Damn, I Miss Paris.' Friends of mine, Jason and Adair, just opened that spot up here on West Adams. How long I stay depends on who's there. Maybe just stay for an hour, have a drink, have a laugh. 11 p.m.: Poetry before bed I'm a shower girl, but sometimes I also just like to take a bath. So I would just sort of wind down with a bath, and the other thing is reading poetry. Right now I'm reading Nikki Giovanni, Mary Oliver and my mother. My mother just wrote a book of poetry, which blew my mind because my mom has been my mom. And she's allowed the writer in her to come out. I've been reading those three women in conversation with me as I try to write my life poetically. And by the way, poetry is not a whole chapter. Let me get real deep real quick before I go into this REM sleep.
Los Angeles Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
How Judy Blume's books became a hot commodity in Hollywood, 50 years later
When Mara Brock Akil was a little girl, she voraciously read Judy Blume. Looking back, she sees her obsession as the start of her becoming a writer. So when Akil heard that Blume was allowing her work to be translated to the screen, she was ready: 'My little girl hand just shot up, 'I want to do that!'' says Akil. She adds that while this generation's youth can search the internet for information — and, sometimes, misinformation — Blume was her own trusted source. 'The Information Age linked us and let us see things that we weren't able to see or know, and Judy was that for us,' says Akil. 'Judy was writing from a place that was really grounded and gave full humanity to young people and their lives. She took their lives seriously.' Akil has channeled her affection for Blume's work into a new adaptation of the author's 1975 novel 'Forever...,' which premiered Thursday on Netflix. Focused on two teens falling in love, the book contains sex scenes that placed it on banned lists from its inception — and Blume, whose work offers frank discussion of subjects like masturbation and menstruation, remains no stranger to banned book lists, despite selling more than 90 million books worldwide. But as censorship ramps up again, Blume has become something of a hot commodity in Hollywood. In addition to the documentary 'Judy Blume Forever,' a feature film based on her novel 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret' was released in 2023, an adaptation of 'Summer Sisters' is in development at Hulu and an animated film based on 'Superfudge' is in the works at Disney+. Akil's 'Forever,' set in 2018 Los Angeles, stars Michael Cooper Jr. and Lovie Simone as the teenage leads — though the roles are gender-swapped from the novel. In 2020, while Akil was developing the adaptation, she tried to think of who the most vulnerable person is in society. 'I posit that the Black boy is the most vulnerable,' she says. 'My muse is my oldest son, and through the portal of him I got to go into the generation and just really start to look at what was going on.' While working on the project, she realized there are few depictions of boys and young men whose story is anchored in love, rather than relegating love to a side plot. 'Mentally, emotionally, physically — they too deserve to fall in love and be desired and have someone fall in love with them,' she says. 'And for Keisha — his honesty was attractive to her. How often do we ever really see that level of vulnerability be the leading guy?' In true Blume style, Akil also incorporated a central issue affecting people today — technology. 'The phone is a big character in the show, because there's a lot of duality to the phone,' she says. Throughout the series, the characters use phones to connect and disconnect via blocked messages, lost voicemails and unfinished texts. In the premiere, the drama revolves around the dreaded disappearing ellipsis — that feeling when you can see someone typing and then it stops. Akil laughs when I bring it up: 'At any age, that ellipsis will kick your butt.' And when you add sex into the mix, everything becomes more charged. 'The phone in the modern times is an extension of pleasure in sexuality, when used in a trusting way, and then it can be weaponized,' says Akil. 'It can be so damaging to this generation's future at a time in which mistakes are inherent in their development.' It's this keen awareness that the mistakes haven't changed but the consequences have that grounds Akil's version of 'Forever.' 'There's a lot of real fear out there and real tough choices that parents are going through,' says Akil. 'And in this era of mistakes, kids can make a mistake and die by exploring drugs or —' She stops herself. 'I get very emotional about the state of young people and their inability to make a mistake,' she says, 'because I think most young people are actually making good choices.' Akil says Blume and her family have seen the episodes more than once and told the showrunner she really enjoyed them. Akil remembers first meeting Blume. 'I was nervous. I wanted to be seen by her,' she says. 'I fangirled out and she allowed it and then was, like, sit your soul down. We had a conversation, and it felt destined and magical. I was grateful that she listened, and it allowed me to come to the table saying, 'I know how to translate this.'' I ask Akil why she thinks Blume's work continues to resonate, lasting for decades in its original form and spawning new projects to attract the next generation of viewers and, hopefully, readers. 'She's relevant because she dared to tell us the truth,' says Akil. 'And the truth is forever.'
