March 29, 2022 • 43 mins
How Janicza Bravo turned a hilarious Twitter thread into a hilarious movie. Aziah King’s epic Twitter thread about a road trip gone bad took the internet by storm in 2015. Several years and a pandemic later, Janicza Bravo translated it into “Zola.” Here, she explains some of the creative decisions she made—like not showing the nudity.
Mentions:
● Aziah King’s original Twitter thread. https://www.dontdiewondering.com/check-out-the-full-zola-twitter-thread-ahead-of-jaw-dropping-new-movie/
● “Zola” the movie on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5439812/
Credits: Curtis Fox is the producer. Our researcher is Yessenia Moreno. Production help from Kaitlyn Adams and Meg Pillow. Theme music by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura.
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I have no doubt many of you are familiar with
word All, the online word game where you have six
chances to guess a five letter word. Now, I am
a sucker for a good word game, so of course
I play it every day. And not only do I
play it every day, I play it at midnight when
the new game goes live. It's just so satisfying to
strategically choose a sequence of words that will hopefully get
(00:24):
you to the right place. And I love games in general,
but I am especially fond of games where you feel
like you've won something even though you haven't, and where
I suppose winning makes you feel just a little smarter
than you actually are. And so now I'm on the
hunt for great games because it's a little addictive. And
so I've also started playing a Wordle spinoff called Hurdle.
(00:46):
Instead of figuring out what the word of the day is,
you have to figure out the song of the day,
so you'll hear a tiny little snippet of music like this.
Then you guess or don't, And if you don't, you
hear a little bit more. Do you still not know?
Worry not, you can hear even more. All in all,
(01:15):
you get six chances, and so here's your last clue.
The first person who guesses this song correctly on the
daily episode drops will get a free signed book from me.
(01:37):
So email your guest to Roxanne Gay Agenda at gmail
dot com from Luminary. This is the Roxanne Gay Agenda,
the Bad Feminist Podcast of your Dreams. I am Roxanne Gay,
hopefully your favorite bad feminist on this week's agenda. Twitter.
(01:57):
You know, social media seems like such a great idea.
You can connect with people all around the world who
do all kinds of interesting things. You can have fun
or strange conversations. You can have almost immediate, though questionably reliable,
access to breaking news. You can engage in activism. You
(02:18):
can argue. As a writer, I've found it to be
a useful sandbox where I can kick ideas around for essays.
On a more personal level, you can make new friends,
you can interact with existing friends. You can flirt with
people or more sometimes those connections are even going to
translate into in person encounters. What I'm saying is that
(02:38):
I've met some of my best friends on Twitter. But
social media is not always great, especially Twitter. Previous guest
Essay Cosby recently said online. This isn't my original thought,
but social media has made too many people comfortable with
disrespecting someone and not getting punched in the face for it.
And he's right. There is just something about this impersonal
(03:02):
barrier of a screen that empowers people to say wildly disrespectful, cruel,
or otherwise insulting nonsense that I assure you they would
never ever have the courage to say to someone's face.
Online there are simply no limits. The freedom to speak
becomes warped into this freedom to give in to every
lesser urge. It's all ego and id and nuance suddenly disappears.
(03:28):
All of the conversations that you once hope to have
are simply not possible because people are either too antagonistic,
or they're too deeply entrenched in their positions, or they're
too defensive. Everyone wants to talk and no one wants
to listen. But still there are these delightful moments every
once in a while where something happens on Twitter that
(03:49):
captivates everyone's imagination because someone has figured out how to
tell one hell of a story via the medium. Today,
I'm going to talk about this amazing Twitter thread I
read several years ago now by Asia King, who was
telling a story of a friendship gone really really wrong.
(04:12):
And not only was that story a Twitter thread, it
ultimately became the movie Zola, directed by the one and
only Jannick so Bravo. You want to hear a story
about how me and this beach fell out. It's kind
of long, but it's felicien. At the time, Jannick so
Bravo wasn't even on Twitter when this amazing thread happened.
(04:36):
It was two thousand fifteen. It was Asia King's epic
thread about this friendship that ended in shambles after a
really disastrous road trip. There's a stripper turned called girl,
a hapless love lorn boyfriend, a Nigerian pimp as one does,
a woman caught up in a situation she wants no
part of, and many many wild twists and turns. The
(04:59):
Twitter threat itself was this great story, grippingly well told,
and even though Bravo was not on Twitter, she heard
about the thread and knew that she was the one
who was destined to make a movie out of it.
It did take a while to get the rights, but
she got it done and so that movie Zola came
out in January of right when the entire world was
(05:22):
about to hunker down. Bad timing. Awesome movie from here
on out. Watch every movie this bitch make. Jannick O
Bravo has made two feature films, including Zola. She's worked
on many plays because theater is her first love. She's
also directed episodes of TV like Atlanta and Dear White People.
(05:44):
Jennicks O Bravo, Welcome to the Roxanne Gay Agenda. Thanks
for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you
because I'm a fan of your work. So how did
you come to this story? I know that you heard
about it because you weren't on Twitter. So what is
it that drew you? And I'm still not on Twitter?
And I feel really good about that. That's such a
(06:04):
great choice. I can't even begin to tell you. Hold
that ground, Do not give up that ground. There. They're
definitely moments that I feel maybe I've missed something. I
think at the very beginning or what is the beginning
of Twitter? To me, I've been dating a comedian and
so I was in the circle of comedians and their
relationship to needing to post this basically like you know,
(06:29):
a SoundBite, but in text form. Uh, and the way
that they would play with one another went from quickly
charming to not charming, and I thought, I just don't
want to have this relationship to this thing. I could
see how my brain would like want a pattern in
this way and which would remove me from like being
in the world, and it takes so much for me
(06:50):
to just stay in it as it is, you know.
So yes, the story came out on Twitter in the fall,
and while I am not on Twitter her, I have
a group of black girlfriends who keep me tethered. I
missed it while it was happening, but got it on
the day, so it was at the end of the
(07:10):
day and I am like dying. I'm laughing so hard.
And it was raptuous and electric and sexy and really
disturbing to me, but also just so funny. Like the
loudest note that it was was that it was funny.
I agree all of those things, like that sexiness, that humor,
(07:32):
that sharp wit, that sort of edge is really indicative
of black Twitter and remains indicative. I think black Twitter
remains the best part of Twitter as as a whole.
So I love hearing that, no question, I think that
is the best part of it. I mean, so a
part of why I'm not interested in being on it
(07:53):
is not only I don't want to like spend my
time trying to figure out like some great bit, but
it's also that it has there's a quality about it
that feels a little like a clan rally, right. I
find it incredibly like just distressing. And I do like
to fight. I was raised by a woman in the military,
(08:13):
so I like a fight, and I just don't think
I need to spend my time doing that because I
have seen other friends be hurt in that space and
have had a rush to want to get in there,
you know, like I want to throw fists, yeah, And
I want to throw fists almost every day. And it
is only marriage that has kept me from throwing fists
(08:36):
more because my wife is online, but she's not like
Capital Oh online, and so she's always like, why are
you torturing yourself with these people? Like stop doing it?
And so I actually don't do most of my Twitter anymore.
A nice woman named Meg does it, and it's been
(08:56):
really free, has been it has been healthy because I
would find myself trying to explain Twitter threads to either
Debbie or my parents, and they would all look at
me like, what do you take care about? Like this
is just not stuff that I mean, it's the real world,
but it's also really really not I think we forget that.
I'm like Facebook. A lot of people are on Twitter,
(09:18):
but it's nowhere near like everybody, and a lot of
the melodramas on Twitter just stay on Twitter and they're
very unique to the medium. And so I have found
it to be really healthy to just step away a
little bit, not entirely, but enough, and also pick better
(09:38):
battles because I am a pretty shy, quiet, normal person.
But Twitter makes me want to throw hands in every
single direction, like don't even look at me, don't even
look at me, or you might get these tef come on,
and it makes me want to be mean to It's
the thing. I think I'm a smarter fighter, or I
can be a smarter fighter, but when when I've dipped
(10:02):
a toe and seen a friend being treated badly, the
place I want to go to is just nasty, absolutely
and totally unreasonable. It's not even good fighting, right. And
you know the thing is, I know that I am
in general smarter than the average troll, and so it's
not too difficult for me to quickly figure out the
(10:23):
weak spot and like, and then I think, is this
who I want to be? Is this how I want
to be? And nine times out of ten the answer
is absolutely not. And I'm very loyal to my friends.
And so not only do I do it to like
sort of do I want to do it to protect myself,
(10:46):
but also to protect my friends who sometimes get talked
at in truly unacceptable ways, which is the nature of
being a black woman on the internet. So it becomes
this really talk sick miasma of stuff that nobody should
really have a part of. And so that's why I
(11:08):
think Asia's thread stood out so much because it was
so even though she was talking about really fucked up things,
it was so pure in its own way. And I
loved seeing how you translated it into a movie because
the movie had such a distinct narrative voice that went
(11:31):
well beyond the thread. So what were you thinking about
as you put this movie together? So it's funny you
say this about it having there's something kind of pure
about it, And I really felt that it felt very
clean in some ways, right, Like not only had I
didn't know that Twitter could go there if it did
I didn't know that that was the first of its kind,
(11:53):
but it had felt so fresh right, and on reading it,
there are two things that kind of happened. The first
was I thought, I have to protect this woman. I
have to protect the woman to tell this story. I'm
not the first and I will not be the last
director to work with a real person or to work
on a real person story. But I have found myself
(12:15):
always kind of asking where that relationship starts and ends
when you invite someone in, because you're using them, right,
You're like using some part of them to tell your story,
to help myself, to advance myself, and then at what
point does the door close? And I've been really curious
and fascinated about what the responsibility is about inviting a
(12:36):
real person in to a business and where the care ends.
So on reading it, I thought, I have to protect
this woman, and I feel I can and I think
I can be in it for as long as it
needs to go on for So that was one part
of it. And then as soon as I was done
reading it, it was like that same night, I was
(12:57):
curious how it was being written about, if it was
being written about, and I had come across I think
the first article was maybe like in the Guardian, and
then there I think there was something else on TMZ
and maybe Complex. I feel those were the three places
that I found writing on it with within the same
hours or at the top of the next day. And
(13:20):
each piece had done exactly what I thought it was
going to do. You talk about not protecting black women, right,
Each piece had question the validity of the story first,
not asking Okay, yeah, you know some of it's larger
than life total totally. The story is written in hyperbole, right,
I mean it's it is a good story, yeah, as
(13:41):
most stories are. I mean, she's telling it better. I
do this daily, you know, I do this in my life, right, Uh.
And we're not journalists, so I'm thinking, well, she's just
obviously telling the story better. But I can tell that
there's truth in here. I don't I don't know how
you arrive some of these markers without having actually lived it, right,
(14:03):
at least for me, it's it's a territory that feels
super foreign, so I'm not all the way like fluent
inside of this, so it feels very real to me.
And that that was the focus what the validity of
the story was not what was actually inside of the story,
and it disturbed me so much that I was like,
I have to tell the story that will do whatever
(14:26):
it takes to get this because I don't know that
another director is going to be able to do it.
And that's not to say that there is another director
that's going to care in the same way that I'm
gonna care or be as good at telling the story.
That's not what I mean. It was the I felt
like my first job was to protect her, and then
my second job was to tell the story. Well, yeah,
(14:47):
and I think that level of care does come across
in the movie and in the way you center Asia's story,
and you center Asia through Taylor Page. You mentioned something
really interesting that we don't talk a lot about, which
is that ultimately this was becoming a business. This was
a business decision. And so how did you navigate that
(15:08):
line of care for the person while also recognizing that
there are business concerns and that everyone is involved was
going to have a business interest in the narrative. Well,
I just I recognize that my intentions aren't totally pure either, right, Like,
like I'm making a move, I Nixon making a move
in my career, and I see how this is a
(15:31):
part of that move for me. So it was like
an experience in parallel. I could see the track that
this is from my career. If I do a through
you know, g or whatever, I'm going to get to
the thing, the next thing I'm trying to get to,
and then what was right next to it sort of
hand in hand is okay, but I'm inviting this real
person or I want to invite this real person. I
(15:53):
felt that in working with Asia, the thing I immediately
recognized was what her strength was. And I was like, oh,
her strength. Her currency is the Internet, her currency is Twitter,
her currency is in a Instagram. Right, so there is
no version of us making this that doesn't include her
(16:15):
co sign uh and and any other person who is
making this movie with me that didn't recognize that. It
seems so goofy to me. I was like, do we
need her to like it first? Right? Like she's going
to say she likes it first. And if she likes
it first, you know, we just have to hope that
the other people do too. But we need her yes first.
Without her approval, the thing doesn't exist. It's going to
(16:36):
sink before it has a chance to swim. Absolutely. I've
actually done a bit of adaptation work, and it is
more challenging than you might think to take something and
translate it into a movie, especially when that intellectual property
isn't a book oh that's full length, or a play
(16:58):
that's full length, where you have of this on tweet thread,
which is definitely a lot of story, but putting it
all together in a way that's going to work cinematically
is an entirely different thing. So what was the adaptation process? Like,
I know that you co wrote the screenplay with Jeremy o' harris.
So when we when we finally get the movie and
(17:19):
it takes, you know, some months to get there, I
finally get it, I'm able to bring Jeremy on to
write it with me the first assignment. So there was
a script before, there was another director before me, there's
another set of writers before us, and the team likes
the script that's there actually, and it's not that I
don't like it. I think that it's not the thing
(17:42):
that the internet read right, Like what I had felt
about the script before ours was that it had taken
too many liberties from what was actually there. It was
using Asia's story as a jumping off point to tell
another story, and I thought there was in another story
to tell. I want to tell this one. This is
(18:02):
the one I want to tell. I want to I
want to peel back and look at exactly what's here.
I think it's rather rich. So we we printed out
the thread and cut each of them out as like
individual lines, and then on a well put up a
sort of act one at two a three there's a
prologue and an epilogue, and divided the text in that
(18:26):
way and use that because to me, I'm very bad
at outlining when it comes to writing, but I outline
a little bit like that outline a little bit like
the Twitter thread right where I'm like, okay in the
first act, like I'll just list things that I want
to see or things that I want to happen, and
I'm not great at necessarily building paragraphs to do that,
(18:47):
so it's more in bullet point form. So to me,
I was like, it's bullet point form. I actually like
I talk like this, I I process, like this is
how I write with other writers. So it felt full.
It's a matter of So you're doing a road trip
from Detroit to Florida, and if you you know search
how long that takes. It's a nineteen or twenty hour ride,
(19:11):
which there's only one tweet four so I think, well,
you know, we have to I do want to flesh
that out right, I don't want to In our story,
it's not necessarily starting in Detroit. It starts at home,
and then you go away from home, and so wanting
to fill the gap between from home to away from
home and knowing that that one tweet for us has
(19:34):
to become you know, ten fifteen minutes of real estate
in the film actually, because that's a big part of
telling the audience how far away she is from safety,
and that the farther and farther that we get away
from that opening, we're really far away from something she understands.
One of the other things that struck me about the
movie was that it took seriously sex work and women
(19:59):
and did so in a way that didn't demean them.
It took them sort of on their own terms. And so,
what were the priorities for you, particularly with regard to
sex work and women's stories as you were bringing a
film to life. Asia took the work seriously. She never
puts down the work. The thing she's putting down is
(20:21):
that she's being invited into She's being dragged into a
situation that she has no control of. Right, she has
no problem with sex work. Actually she also engages in
sex work, but she wants to decide when she does it.
And so she's being catapulted into this situation where she
doesn't get to decide the rules. She doesn't get to
(20:41):
decide even how much she makes or what her body
is worth. Right, and that's what's wrong with it. So
wanting to make it very clear that it wasn't about
the work. It's when it's that she wasn't able to
control the parameters of the work. And so I felt,
all my job is to do the thing that she did.
That's what she did, right, I didn't walk away from
(21:03):
the thread. What if anything? When I walked away from
the thread, I felt so much care for these women
and wanted to take care of them, right, I really,
like I said, I wanted to take care of them,
and I wanted to make sure that I was taking
care of the work that they were doing inside the
movie too, because this is actually about like making the film.
When I'm in Florida making the movie with my cinematographer,
(21:23):
my production designer. We're having this conversation about nudity in
film and what nudity looks like in certain American movies
versus what nudity feels like in certain foreign films and
what that is like. What is it about. We're talking
less female male gays, We're talking more like American gays,
(21:45):
and then I guess European gays or just other foreign
gays that even like I moved to America when I
was a teenager, and even my relationship to my body
and to nudity changes when I come to this country
versus having been raised in Central America, because I feel
there's some American nous that happens that ends up feeling
a bit like violation, and and that I didn't think
(22:08):
that the audience, because I felt most of our audience
would be American, could handle seeing those two women disrobed
and still have respect for them. I thought that that
was something that they wouldn't be able to reconcile, is
how to respect to women whose bodies they were seeing,
And that for some reason, when you saw it in
(22:28):
a foreign context, you could have both. I could see
a woman naked, I could see a man naked. I
could see them like fuck each other and that I
could still respect them. But somehow that didn't seem to
happen in American films. And maybe maybe it was also
just the work. Maybe because these women took their clothing
off to make money, because they use their bodies to
(22:50):
make money, that that also became a part of why
the audience wasn't going to be able to respect them.
But I didn't have an example of being able to
cite a space like this in film where I felt
that the audience was able to respect their characters. I
love hearing that you took the time to think through that,
because nudity oftentimes feels like it's treated with a lack
(23:14):
of care, that it's just there to titilate. To say, look,
we can put naked bodies on the screen, and then
of course to exploit those naked bodies, and so to
approach it from this angle, you know, again, I think
spoke to a lot of the care that came across well. Also,
you know, the movie was entertaining as hell like, it
(23:35):
was funny, it was smart, and it was also really
stylized and from the first moment on with the sound effects,
the color palette the sort of glossy sheen, the glimmery
sheen across a lot of it. I loved the style,
and so what did you want to achieve with the
styling of the movie? So it we shot on sixteen millimeter,
(23:59):
We shot on film, and that is that. That's a
part of my initial pitch of the movie. I felt again,
this is I recognized there's a business here, but there
is also a person on the other side of the business.
And I felt like when I met Asia the first
time we met on the phone, and I had asked
(24:20):
her this question about what the what her fantasy was
of the film, like, what is what is the end
of the film look like? What does it look like
when it exists? And she had had this fantasy about
seeing herself dolled up, made up on a red carpet,
wanting this kind of spotlight. Right, this is like what
(24:41):
she had imagined for herself. And it was so sweet
to me that she was comfortable sharing that. I know
plenty of people who want things like that who won't
say that, And so in envisioning what she wanted, I
felt then, Okay, so some of my job is also like,
not only am I viewing these women in this world
with a certain like ten or of respect. But I also,
(25:02):
I'm making a film. Here. To me, this is a film.
This is not disposable. When you are making a film
and shooting on film, the whole set changes. The energy
of the whole set changes. And also when I sit
across from certain people and I tell them that this
internet movie, you know, this digital film, this digital movie
was shot on film, they sort of perk up because
(25:24):
not everyone gets to do that, and certainly people who
look like me don't also get to do that. And
so I had I had expressed too, and to killer
films that you know, if you were saying that this
movie was worth imprinting on film, you were saying that
I was worth it, and you were saying that she
was worth it, and that that would be a part
of our story, that we were worth this tangible object.
(25:45):
And so that was great, great usage of race. By
the way, Uh, it really worked. I got it. I
got what I wanted. But I think that all of that,
you know, shooting on film also is super generous with
skin and with bodies, and it made the world look
kind of dreamy. And I was thinking a lot about
(26:08):
Zola's gaze, Taylor's gaze, how she is, how she is
looking at the movie, how she's looking at the world
isn't unfold and that when the audience it's happened to
me on Sunday, our film. We went to the Independent
Spirit Awards on Sunday and I got asked by someone
why would she go on that road trip? And I
(26:30):
was like, you're asking this today? Why today? Like it's over,
and moved on, moved on. But people kept asking me
why would she go? Why would she go? And why
would she stay? And you know, I'm so sorry my dog.
Do you hear my dog? I do? But it's totally fine.
Let that dog run into that door, or let the
(26:51):
dog in. It's totally she's using her mind. Hold on,
it's totally blunt. Come here, here, let's do this. I'm
gonna let you out. I know you've been dying. There
you go. You know, I actually never questioned why she
would go on the road trip because it was like
(27:12):
five thousand dollars a night. People also that, you know,
that is a key consideration, and I do. You're already
showing up to the table thinking black women are people,
and you're already showing up thinking that you know, being
inside of the black body means that you're also able
to access a prism of colors and feelings, and so
(27:34):
if you don't think that that's a person, then it's
going to be really hard for you to understand their
choices correct and we're gonna be at fundamental odds. It's
interesting that black people's choices are always interrogated no matter what,
and you know, there's no question there. It's just an
observation that I'm not surprised that people continue even now,
(27:58):
like at an awards show more than a year now,
about a year after the movie came out, to like
ask these kinds of questions when it's like, the why
of it isn't the point that it happened is the point? Yes,
but there's just there's room for less nuance. Nuance is
something afforded only in not black skin. I started laughing
(28:20):
because I thought, this is the final road for me.
This is literally like the final day of this five
year journey that I've been on, and someone still asking
me why the lead character went on this road trip?
Do you ever feel do you ever like snap back
when people ask you dumb questions about smart work? I have.
(28:41):
I have a couple of times and I have not
liked that I've done that. I try, I work really
hard to not do that. You know. I did say
at the very beginning that I do like a fight,
and I do like a fight, but not when the
circumstances aren't fair. And that's not a fair circumstance for
me to fight in. Because I have this story, I'm
not going to get into great detail, but I had
this experience of being on a TV show directing an
(29:04):
actor who got physical with me some years back, and
it like broke me, Like it broke me so hard
that I had to go to therapy for it for
like six seven months because I was trying to understand,
like how I got in a situation like this, and
what about me had created this situation? And so this
actor gets physical with me. And when I have told
(29:25):
some people this story who are really close, people who
were are close to me, they asked, well, why don't
you say something back? And I think that do you
know what the story would be? The story wouldn't be
that they got physical with me and then I said
something back. The story would only be that I said
something back. We would forget that they had gotten physical
with me, and then only they got in physical with me,
(29:46):
they had been like abusive, right, like saying that I
didn't deserve to be at this job, calling me names,
and I knew that I couldn't fight back because that's
all that would be remembered was how I thought back,
not what put me in a situation to defend myself. Yeah,
that's an impossible position that I think is almost unique,
(30:11):
and its bitterness for Black women, where we don't get
to defend ourselves, we don't get to stand up for
ourselves without that being the entirety of who we are
for quite some time, if not forever. And we see
this actually with Black people, especially in entertainment, where a
little reputation follows them along and then eventually you learn
(30:32):
the true story and you're like, mm hmmm. I mean,
this happens with their their actors, actresses that I have
been interested in working with on various projects and have
been told, well, that person is difficult, because happens a
lot with women, act with women, and thought of both
of all the races, and I'll ask when someone says
(30:55):
they're difficult, I now I'm more comfortable with myself so
I'll ask, well, who told you that I want? Give
me the proof? And and oftentimes there is no proof, right,
It's just a thing that's been going around, or someone
knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who said it.
And then I have thought, well, is it possible that
(31:15):
this actress thought she deserved to be treated a certain
way and then she stood up for herself Because I
have been witnessed to versions of this, right, I've I've
worked with certain actresses that I've heard called difficult that
that was not my experience with them. And what I
saw was them stand up for what they deserved. And
I feel the equivalent could happen with a man, and
that no one would have even betted an eye right
(31:36):
like and no attitude, just I know I deserve this.
It's the you want you want me, then fly me
first class? You know, like you want me, you want
my time? Then I know how I want to be
flown you know, I agree, And especially about the difficult thing,
what I've tried to do now is ask defined difficult,
(31:57):
like what do you like? What's the you know, scuttle?
But what is the word on the street, So like
I can determine like, what are we calling difficult? And
nine point nine times out of ten difficult is she
wouldn't eat ship? Yes? Yes, which is such a low bar. Wait,
you just reminded me. Actually, there's one time that I
(32:19):
did sort of stand up for myself on this project.
At London Sundance. The film was premiering. We're having our
international premiere there and the moderator I think it's after
the film is played. Yes, so the film is played,
I'm about to come out on stage or I'm on
stage with him, and he says, so, Jeremy and I
co wrote the movie, but he wrote it. And then
(32:41):
what did you do exactly? And I'm like, right like
that you were the fix? Just get a title? Do
you think anyone would just give me a title without
me earning it? I it drives me to distraction when
black women are questioned in that way, or when like
when we are co doing something, people assume that we're
not the leader of a pair but the follower. And
(33:02):
that's why I hate co writing things, not because I
don't like collaboration, but because I don't like being seen
as an equal to my co writer, which I didn't
know that was an option by the way. I just
didn't know and I should have, And I am annoyed
with myself that I didn't see it that way, only
because when someone tells me they've co written with someone,
(33:25):
I believe that they have co written with them. So
I like, it didn't occur to me that there was
a different way of doing it. So I didn't go okay,
But in this dynamic, who really did it? And who
I guess was the type ist? You know, I don't
like think like that, speaking of sort of like that
bigotry of low expectations. I read that when the movie
came out, people told you that it would make money,
(33:47):
but it wouldn't win awards. How does that feel when
people think so little of what's possible for you and
your work. I to say that it didn't hurt me.
I want to be the kind of attractive that doesn't
get hurt by something like that. But it really hurt.
(34:10):
It really really hurt me. It hurt because I couldn't
help but think, would you say this to a man?
Would you say this to a white person? I just
and I tend to go there when these sort of
unsavory happens in this business, I find myself asking would
(34:32):
happened to a man, would have happened to a white person?
And maybe I don't need to be asking that all
the time, But in this moment, it was a woman
who did it to me, and I wondered would she
have done it as a white woman, would she have
done it to a man, would she have done it
to another white woman? And I don't know. Maybe she
would have. I just don't. I don't actually think she
even saw me when she said it. And what had
(34:53):
hurt me about it was that it wasn't just me.
She had said it in front of my co writer.
She had said it in front of Asia, whose story
this is, and uh and and some of my actors
were there. I don't think the actors had heard it
when it happened. It was something that Jeremy and I
and maybe Asia had heard. I've tried to bring it
(35:13):
up to no one else because I didn't want anyone
else to like remember the moment, you know, But Jeremy
and I were both like really sort of like stopped
in our tracks when it happened, because it seems so unnecessary.
We were in a moment of celebration and then to
be told that this film wasn't that kind of film
(35:33):
or wasn't that kind of special? Right? But what I understood,
I'm going to go back to saying this idea of
like an experience in parallel, was that when I'm at
a night like the Film Independent Spirit Awards, I am
recognizing that there are certain films that will get to
go to that top, and then there are certain films
(35:54):
that will exist in this other space. And it's not
just there, it's it's at the Oscars, it's at every
level of this business, right like, and it has something
to do with like the quality. Maybe it's not the
quality of the work, but maybe it's like what's at
the center of the work? Who is at the center
of the work, what's the what's the tone of that work?
I mean, the Academy rarely recognizes comedy, right or or
(36:16):
if the Academy is recognizing something that is non white, like,
what is the quality of the thing that's non white
that they're allowing to kind of rise to the top? Right?
Do you get? Do you get what I'm saying? And
so I do? I do? I Jannixa believe I am
an artist, right, And this woman was basically telling me
that I wasn't, and I was like, what, my brain
(36:36):
couldn't really process someone saying that to me. Also because
some part of my own voice is saying, but maybe
you're not right, and so she's actually doing some sort
of echoing that's already happening in my gut. And that's
why it made me feel so bad. Yeah, And you
know that that's what's so terrible about bigotry is that
you can never figure out when someone does something like that,
(36:58):
you know, like whether to race gender, um for queer people, sexuality,
or some other aspect of identity, or if it's just
that person being an asshole or a combination of those
things a little bit of each right some sort of
like you know, I was really thrilled. I actually never
(37:25):
thought this couldn't win awards, and I kind of was like,
I thought it would sort of get Best Director for
the just the the aesthetic and the way the story
was handled a nomination, and um, but I was thrilled
when I saw that Joey McMillan one for Best Editing,
and her editing was just phenomenal, and that Taylor Page
(37:45):
one for acting. To me, I'm like fucking one, I one,
I know, They're not physical awards that exist in my home,
on my pedestal, but I feel so held by, feel
so affirmed. Right I'm like that they were recognized. That
two of my collaborators, both black women, were recognized for
(38:08):
their work is such a win to me. And this
same woman who had asked about why Taylor would stay
and also said to me, she was like, you know,
you didn't win this time, but you will win next time,
and I did respond, I don't know if that's true.
(38:28):
I don't know that I'll ever have that, but I
think all this what this has really done for me
is it's I recognize that I needed this validation. I'll
be able to carry whatever I got this night, that
that with the nominations, I'll be able to carry this
for quite some time until like my next low where
I need some other like massive dolt of validation, and
(38:51):
that it is actually not about it is not about
the winning for me. I think it's about being recognized
and feeling like in being recognized that I get to
keep doing it again and that the doors will open
a little bit more, or that I can sit across
from someone who's more likely to say yes like that.
That's the thing that I need from it. So what
is the next place for you? What is it that
(39:13):
you want to do next in your career. I want
to keep making movies, and I really like working in
television as well. I like working as a guest director
in the episodic space. I have a few of my
own shows that I'm trying to get made. I'm having
this moment of reconciling that, Um, I feel like getting
(39:36):
a good deal of yes around being a hirable director,
but my own I P is in this kind of
funky place right because it's like two weird or two
left of center, a little bit two out there, uh,
and so like trying to bring those two things together
a bit more. But I want to make more movies.
(39:57):
I'm writing something right now that I'm going to write
on my own because I decided that after my first
two my first two features are co written, and I
went through the process, I didn't learn enough from the
first time, of as I already said, not being credited
as being a part of it, and so I wanted
this third film for myself too. I wanted to see,
(40:20):
like can I can I do it on my own?
And I think that I can, But I haven't ever
asked it or done it. So here we are. You
mentioned that sometimes you know your work might be too
out there, too weird, two left of center, and I
think that's the promised land for black creators, is to
get to a place where we can make that kind
of work. And so how do you stay true to
(40:43):
your creative vision even when people might put those labels
on it? I feel like it's just it's about being
comfortable with no. It took me five years to make Lemon,
which is my first film, and it took another well, Zola.
Taking five years is the complication of a pan amic right,
Like it's not supposed to be five years, but but
(41:03):
it did. And with each of those steps, even though
Zola isn't mine, I feel an ownership over it, I
feel an ownership over like its final form. And I
think that with each of those I got to prove
that I was a little bit more right than wasn't.
(41:23):
So I'm hoping that this third time that I get
to make a movie, which will be a fourth time
that I get to make a movie, that like with
each of those steps, I get to prove a little
bit more that I ought to have or that I
deserve to get the space to kind of play. I
think the complicated thing again, it's a business, right, so
like you got to make the money so that there's
(41:44):
the room to play. And if you're not making the
money and like still finding that space to play. By
the way, there are plenty of white directors that I
know who are are Some of them are my peers
who are making ship that don't make money and they
get to keep making whatever their work is that they're
going to make because they've had like, you know, one
proof of concept. So I'm just trying to get into
that place. I'm like, can I just like find myself
(42:05):
in that sort of like Donors space, you know that
Donor space where it's like we just like that it's here,
and we're just gonna keep funding that it's here and
hopefully it can make money. Maybe it won't, but hopefully
it can, but that there's just the room to keep
at it and if all else fails, I'll get to
work in the TV space and direct for other people
whose work I really respect. I don't anticipate all else failings,
(42:28):
but but I understand the instinct to like have that
backup plan, like I'll get by no matter what. I yes, well,
Jennick's abravo. It has been incredible to have this conversation
with you. I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan.
I can't believe you wanted to have me on your show.
I was like, I did, I did. I loved when
(42:49):
I saw Zola. I just what I loved about it
most was that it had a distinct voice. It didn't
look you know a lot of movies especially, and I
love these movies, there's nothing wrong with them, but like
some of the big blockbuster movies, you look at them
and you're like, anybody could have directed this. But when
I see your work, I know that only one person
could have directed this, and that was really attractive. And yeah,
(43:12):
so I of course wanted to talk to the person
who had such a distinctive directorial voice. Thank you, thank you,
thank you so much for having me. It really means
a lot. You can keep up with me and the
podcast on social media on Twitter at our Gay and
Instagram at Roxanne Gay seven four. Our email is Roxanne
Gay Agenda at gmail dot com from Luminary. The Roxanne
(43:36):
Gay Agenda is produced by Curtis Fox. Our researcher is
Yasanya Moreno, and production support is provided by Caitlin Adams
and Meg Pillow. I am Roxanne Gay, your favorite bad feminist.
Thank you for listening.
I have no doubt many of you are familiar with
word All, the online word game where you have six
chances to guess a five letter word. Now, I am
a sucker for a good word game, so of course
I play it every day. And not only do I
play it every day, I play it at midnight when
the new game goes live. It's just so satisfying to
strategically choose a sequence of words that will hopefully get
(00:24):
you to the right place. And I love games in general,
but I am especially fond of games where you feel
like you've won something even though you haven't, and where
I suppose winning makes you feel just a little smarter
than you actually are. And so now I'm on the
hunt for great games because it's a little addictive. And
so I've also started playing a Wordle spinoff called Hurdle.
(00:46):
Instead of figuring out what the word of the day is,
you have to figure out the song of the day,
so you'll hear a tiny little snippet of music like this.
Then you guess or don't, And if you don't, you
hear a little bit more. Do you still not know?
Worry not, you can hear even more. All in all,
(01:15):
you get six chances, and so here's your last clue.
The first person who guesses this song correctly on the
daily episode drops will get a free signed book from me.
(01:37):
So email your guest to Roxanne Gay Agenda at gmail
dot com from Luminary. This is the Roxanne Gay Agenda,
the Bad Feminist Podcast of your Dreams. I am Roxanne Gay,
hopefully your favorite bad feminist on this week's agenda. Twitter.
(01:57):
You know, social media seems like such a great idea.
You can connect with people all around the world who
do all kinds of interesting things. You can have fun
or strange conversations. You can have almost immediate, though questionably reliable,
access to breaking news. You can engage in activism. You
(02:18):
can argue. As a writer, I've found it to be
a useful sandbox where I can kick ideas around for essays.
On a more personal level, you can make new friends,
you can interact with existing friends. You can flirt with
people or more sometimes those connections are even going to
translate into in person encounters. What I'm saying is that
(02:38):
I've met some of my best friends on Twitter. But
social media is not always great, especially Twitter. Previous guest
Essay Cosby recently said online. This isn't my original thought,
but social media has made too many people comfortable with
disrespecting someone and not getting punched in the face for it.
And he's right. There is just something about this impersonal
(03:02):
barrier of a screen that empowers people to say wildly disrespectful, cruel,
or otherwise insulting nonsense that I assure you they would
never ever have the courage to say to someone's face.
Online there are simply no limits. The freedom to speak
becomes warped into this freedom to give in to every
lesser urge. It's all ego and id and nuance suddenly disappears.
(03:28):
All of the conversations that you once hope to have
are simply not possible because people are either too antagonistic,
or they're too deeply entrenched in their positions, or they're
too defensive. Everyone wants to talk and no one wants
to listen. But still there are these delightful moments every
once in a while where something happens on Twitter that
(03:49):
captivates everyone's imagination because someone has figured out how to
tell one hell of a story via the medium. Today,
I'm going to talk about this amazing Twitter thread I
read several years ago now by Asia King, who was
telling a story of a friendship gone really really wrong.
(04:12):
And not only was that story a Twitter thread, it
ultimately became the movie Zola, directed by the one and
only Jannick so Bravo. You want to hear a story
about how me and this beach fell out. It's kind
of long, but it's felicien. At the time, Jannick so
Bravo wasn't even on Twitter when this amazing thread happened.
(04:36):
It was two thousand fifteen. It was Asia King's epic
thread about this friendship that ended in shambles after a
really disastrous road trip. There's a stripper turned called girl,
a hapless love lorn boyfriend, a Nigerian pimp as one does,
a woman caught up in a situation she wants no
part of, and many many wild twists and turns. The
(04:59):
Twitter threat itself was this great story, grippingly well told,
and even though Bravo was not on Twitter, she heard
about the thread and knew that she was the one
who was destined to make a movie out of it.
It did take a while to get the rights, but
she got it done and so that movie Zola came
out in January of right when the entire world was
(05:22):
about to hunker down. Bad timing. Awesome movie from here
on out. Watch every movie this bitch make. Jannick O
Bravo has made two feature films, including Zola. She's worked
on many plays because theater is her first love. She's
also directed episodes of TV like Atlanta and Dear White People.
(05:44):
Jennicks O Bravo, Welcome to the Roxanne Gay Agenda. Thanks
for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you
because I'm a fan of your work. So how did
you come to this story? I know that you heard
about it because you weren't on Twitter. So what is
it that drew you? And I'm still not on Twitter?
And I feel really good about that. That's such a
(06:04):
great choice. I can't even begin to tell you. Hold
that ground, Do not give up that ground. There. They're
definitely moments that I feel maybe I've missed something. I
think at the very beginning or what is the beginning
of Twitter? To me, I've been dating a comedian and
so I was in the circle of comedians and their
relationship to needing to post this basically like you know,
(06:29):
a SoundBite, but in text form. Uh, and the way
that they would play with one another went from quickly
charming to not charming, and I thought, I just don't
want to have this relationship to this thing. I could
see how my brain would like want a pattern in
this way and which would remove me from like being
in the world, and it takes so much for me
(06:50):
to just stay in it as it is, you know.
So yes, the story came out on Twitter in the fall,
and while I am not on Twitter her, I have
a group of black girlfriends who keep me tethered. I
missed it while it was happening, but got it on
the day, so it was at the end of the
(07:10):
day and I am like dying. I'm laughing so hard.
And it was raptuous and electric and sexy and really
disturbing to me, but also just so funny. Like the
loudest note that it was was that it was funny.
I agree all of those things, like that sexiness, that humor,
(07:32):
that sharp wit, that sort of edge is really indicative
of black Twitter and remains indicative. I think black Twitter
remains the best part of Twitter as as a whole.
So I love hearing that, no question, I think that
is the best part of it. I mean, so a
part of why I'm not interested in being on it
(07:53):
is not only I don't want to like spend my
time trying to figure out like some great bit, but
it's also that it has there's a quality about it
that feels a little like a clan rally, right. I
find it incredibly like just distressing. And I do like
to fight. I was raised by a woman in the military,
(08:13):
so I like a fight, and I just don't think
I need to spend my time doing that because I
have seen other friends be hurt in that space and
have had a rush to want to get in there,
you know, like I want to throw fists, yeah, And
I want to throw fists almost every day. And it
is only marriage that has kept me from throwing fists
(08:36):
more because my wife is online, but she's not like
Capital Oh online, and so she's always like, why are
you torturing yourself with these people? Like stop doing it?
And so I actually don't do most of my Twitter anymore.
A nice woman named Meg does it, and it's been
(08:56):
really free, has been it has been healthy because I
would find myself trying to explain Twitter threads to either
Debbie or my parents, and they would all look at
me like, what do you take care about? Like this
is just not stuff that I mean, it's the real world,
but it's also really really not I think we forget that.
I'm like Facebook. A lot of people are on Twitter,
(09:18):
but it's nowhere near like everybody, and a lot of
the melodramas on Twitter just stay on Twitter and they're
very unique to the medium. And so I have found
it to be really healthy to just step away a
little bit, not entirely, but enough, and also pick better
(09:38):
battles because I am a pretty shy, quiet, normal person.
But Twitter makes me want to throw hands in every
single direction, like don't even look at me, don't even
look at me, or you might get these tef come on,
and it makes me want to be mean to It's
the thing. I think I'm a smarter fighter, or I
can be a smarter fighter, but when when I've dipped
(10:02):
a toe and seen a friend being treated badly, the
place I want to go to is just nasty, absolutely
and totally unreasonable. It's not even good fighting, right. And
you know the thing is, I know that I am
in general smarter than the average troll, and so it's
not too difficult for me to quickly figure out the
(10:23):
weak spot and like, and then I think, is this
who I want to be? Is this how I want
to be? And nine times out of ten the answer
is absolutely not. And I'm very loyal to my friends.
And so not only do I do it to like
sort of do I want to do it to protect myself,
(10:46):
but also to protect my friends who sometimes get talked
at in truly unacceptable ways, which is the nature of
being a black woman on the internet. So it becomes
this really talk sick miasma of stuff that nobody should
really have a part of. And so that's why I
(11:08):
think Asia's thread stood out so much because it was
so even though she was talking about really fucked up things,
it was so pure in its own way. And I
loved seeing how you translated it into a movie because
the movie had such a distinct narrative voice that went
(11:31):
well beyond the thread. So what were you thinking about
as you put this movie together? So it's funny you
say this about it having there's something kind of pure
about it, And I really felt that it felt very
clean in some ways, right, Like not only had I
didn't know that Twitter could go there if it did
I didn't know that that was the first of its kind,
(11:53):
but it had felt so fresh right, and on reading it,
there are two things that kind of happened. The first
was I thought, I have to protect this woman. I
have to protect the woman to tell this story. I'm
not the first and I will not be the last
director to work with a real person or to work
on a real person story. But I have found myself
(12:15):
always kind of asking where that relationship starts and ends
when you invite someone in, because you're using them, right,
You're like using some part of them to tell your story,
to help myself, to advance myself, and then at what
point does the door close? And I've been really curious
and fascinated about what the responsibility is about inviting a
(12:36):
real person in to a business and where the care ends.
So on reading it, I thought, I have to protect
this woman, and I feel I can and I think
I can be in it for as long as it
needs to go on for So that was one part
of it. And then as soon as I was done
reading it, it was like that same night, I was
(12:57):
curious how it was being written about, if it was
being written about, and I had come across I think
the first article was maybe like in the Guardian, and
then there I think there was something else on TMZ
and maybe Complex. I feel those were the three places
that I found writing on it with within the same
hours or at the top of the next day. And
(13:20):
each piece had done exactly what I thought it was
going to do. You talk about not protecting black women, right,
Each piece had question the validity of the story first,
not asking Okay, yeah, you know some of it's larger
than life total totally. The story is written in hyperbole, right,
I mean it's it is a good story, yeah, as
(13:41):
most stories are. I mean, she's telling it better. I
do this daily, you know, I do this in my life, right, Uh.
And we're not journalists, so I'm thinking, well, she's just
obviously telling the story better. But I can tell that
there's truth in here. I don't I don't know how
you arrive some of these markers without having actually lived it, right,
(14:03):
at least for me, it's it's a territory that feels
super foreign, so I'm not all the way like fluent
inside of this, so it feels very real to me.
And that that was the focus what the validity of
the story was not what was actually inside of the story,
and it disturbed me so much that I was like,
I have to tell the story that will do whatever
(14:26):
it takes to get this because I don't know that
another director is going to be able to do it.
And that's not to say that there is another director
that's going to care in the same way that I'm
gonna care or be as good at telling the story.
That's not what I mean. It was the I felt
like my first job was to protect her, and then
my second job was to tell the story. Well, yeah,
(14:47):
and I think that level of care does come across
in the movie and in the way you center Asia's story,
and you center Asia through Taylor Page. You mentioned something
really interesting that we don't talk a lot about, which
is that ultimately this was becoming a business. This was
a business decision. And so how did you navigate that
(15:08):
line of care for the person while also recognizing that
there are business concerns and that everyone is involved was
going to have a business interest in the narrative. Well,
I just I recognize that my intentions aren't totally pure either, right, Like,
like I'm making a move, I Nixon making a move
in my career, and I see how this is a
(15:31):
part of that move for me. So it was like
an experience in parallel. I could see the track that
this is from my career. If I do a through
you know, g or whatever, I'm going to get to
the thing, the next thing I'm trying to get to,
and then what was right next to it sort of
hand in hand is okay, but I'm inviting this real
person or I want to invite this real person. I
(15:53):
felt that in working with Asia, the thing I immediately
recognized was what her strength was. And I was like, oh,
her strength. Her currency is the Internet, her currency is Twitter,
her currency is in a Instagram. Right, so there is
no version of us making this that doesn't include her
(16:15):
co sign uh and and any other person who is
making this movie with me that didn't recognize that. It
seems so goofy to me. I was like, do we
need her to like it first? Right? Like she's going
to say she likes it first. And if she likes
it first, you know, we just have to hope that
the other people do too. But we need her yes first.
Without her approval, the thing doesn't exist. It's going to
(16:36):
sink before it has a chance to swim. Absolutely. I've
actually done a bit of adaptation work, and it is
more challenging than you might think to take something and
translate it into a movie, especially when that intellectual property
isn't a book oh that's full length, or a play
(16:58):
that's full length, where you have of this on tweet thread,
which is definitely a lot of story, but putting it
all together in a way that's going to work cinematically
is an entirely different thing. So what was the adaptation process? Like,
I know that you co wrote the screenplay with Jeremy o' harris.
So when we when we finally get the movie and
(17:19):
it takes, you know, some months to get there, I
finally get it, I'm able to bring Jeremy on to
write it with me the first assignment. So there was
a script before, there was another director before me, there's
another set of writers before us, and the team likes
the script that's there actually, and it's not that I
don't like it. I think that it's not the thing
(17:42):
that the internet read right, Like what I had felt
about the script before ours was that it had taken
too many liberties from what was actually there. It was
using Asia's story as a jumping off point to tell
another story, and I thought there was in another story
to tell. I want to tell this one. This is
(18:02):
the one I want to tell. I want to I
want to peel back and look at exactly what's here.
I think it's rather rich. So we we printed out
the thread and cut each of them out as like
individual lines, and then on a well put up a
sort of act one at two a three there's a
prologue and an epilogue, and divided the text in that
(18:26):
way and use that because to me, I'm very bad
at outlining when it comes to writing, but I outline
a little bit like that outline a little bit like
the Twitter thread right where I'm like, okay in the
first act, like I'll just list things that I want
to see or things that I want to happen, and
I'm not great at necessarily building paragraphs to do that,
(18:47):
so it's more in bullet point form. So to me,
I was like, it's bullet point form. I actually like
I talk like this, I I process, like this is
how I write with other writers. So it felt full.
It's a matter of So you're doing a road trip
from Detroit to Florida, and if you you know search
how long that takes. It's a nineteen or twenty hour ride,
(19:11):
which there's only one tweet four so I think, well,
you know, we have to I do want to flesh
that out right, I don't want to In our story,
it's not necessarily starting in Detroit. It starts at home,
and then you go away from home, and so wanting
to fill the gap between from home to away from
home and knowing that that one tweet for us has
(19:34):
to become you know, ten fifteen minutes of real estate
in the film actually, because that's a big part of
telling the audience how far away she is from safety,
and that the farther and farther that we get away
from that opening, we're really far away from something she understands.
One of the other things that struck me about the
movie was that it took seriously sex work and women
(19:59):
and did so in a way that didn't demean them.
It took them sort of on their own terms. And so,
what were the priorities for you, particularly with regard to
sex work and women's stories as you were bringing a
film to life. Asia took the work seriously. She never
puts down the work. The thing she's putting down is
(20:21):
that she's being invited into She's being dragged into a
situation that she has no control of. Right, she has
no problem with sex work. Actually she also engages in
sex work, but she wants to decide when she does it.
And so she's being catapulted into this situation where she
doesn't get to decide the rules. She doesn't get to
(20:41):
decide even how much she makes or what her body
is worth. Right, and that's what's wrong with it. So
wanting to make it very clear that it wasn't about
the work. It's when it's that she wasn't able to
control the parameters of the work. And so I felt,
all my job is to do the thing that she did.
That's what she did, right, I didn't walk away from
(21:03):
the thread. What if anything? When I walked away from
the thread, I felt so much care for these women
and wanted to take care of them, right, I really,
like I said, I wanted to take care of them,
and I wanted to make sure that I was taking
care of the work that they were doing inside the
movie too, because this is actually about like making the film.
When I'm in Florida making the movie with my cinematographer,
(21:23):
my production designer. We're having this conversation about nudity in
film and what nudity looks like in certain American movies
versus what nudity feels like in certain foreign films and
what that is like. What is it about. We're talking
less female male gays, We're talking more like American gays,
(21:45):
and then I guess European gays or just other foreign
gays that even like I moved to America when I
was a teenager, and even my relationship to my body
and to nudity changes when I come to this country
versus having been raised in Central America, because I feel
there's some American nous that happens that ends up feeling
a bit like violation, and and that I didn't think
(22:08):
that the audience, because I felt most of our audience
would be American, could handle seeing those two women disrobed
and still have respect for them. I thought that that
was something that they wouldn't be able to reconcile, is
how to respect to women whose bodies they were seeing,
And that for some reason, when you saw it in
(22:28):
a foreign context, you could have both. I could see
a woman naked, I could see a man naked. I
could see them like fuck each other and that I
could still respect them. But somehow that didn't seem to
happen in American films. And maybe maybe it was also
just the work. Maybe because these women took their clothing
off to make money, because they use their bodies to
(22:50):
make money, that that also became a part of why
the audience wasn't going to be able to respect them.
But I didn't have an example of being able to
cite a space like this in film where I felt
that the audience was able to respect their characters. I
love hearing that you took the time to think through that,
because nudity oftentimes feels like it's treated with a lack
(23:14):
of care, that it's just there to titilate. To say, look,
we can put naked bodies on the screen, and then
of course to exploit those naked bodies, and so to
approach it from this angle, you know, again, I think
spoke to a lot of the care that came across well. Also,
you know, the movie was entertaining as hell like, it
(23:35):
was funny, it was smart, and it was also really
stylized and from the first moment on with the sound effects,
the color palette the sort of glossy sheen, the glimmery
sheen across a lot of it. I loved the style,
and so what did you want to achieve with the
styling of the movie? So it we shot on sixteen millimeter,
(23:59):
We shot on film, and that is that. That's a
part of my initial pitch of the movie. I felt again,
this is I recognized there's a business here, but there
is also a person on the other side of the business.
And I felt like when I met Asia the first
time we met on the phone, and I had asked
(24:20):
her this question about what the what her fantasy was
of the film, like, what is what is the end
of the film look like? What does it look like
when it exists? And she had had this fantasy about
seeing herself dolled up, made up on a red carpet,
wanting this kind of spotlight. Right, this is like what
(24:41):
she had imagined for herself. And it was so sweet
to me that she was comfortable sharing that. I know
plenty of people who want things like that who won't
say that, And so in envisioning what she wanted, I
felt then, Okay, so some of my job is also like,
not only am I viewing these women in this world
with a certain like ten or of respect. But I also,
(25:02):
I'm making a film. Here. To me, this is a film.
This is not disposable. When you are making a film
and shooting on film, the whole set changes. The energy
of the whole set changes. And also when I sit
across from certain people and I tell them that this
internet movie, you know, this digital film, this digital movie
was shot on film, they sort of perk up because
(25:24):
not everyone gets to do that, and certainly people who
look like me don't also get to do that. And
so I had I had expressed too, and to killer
films that you know, if you were saying that this
movie was worth imprinting on film, you were saying that
I was worth it, and you were saying that she
was worth it, and that that would be a part
of our story, that we were worth this tangible object.
(25:45):
And so that was great, great usage of race. By
the way, Uh, it really worked. I got it. I
got what I wanted. But I think that all of that,
you know, shooting on film also is super generous with
skin and with bodies, and it made the world look
kind of dreamy. And I was thinking a lot about
(26:08):
Zola's gaze, Taylor's gaze, how she is, how she is
looking at the movie, how she's looking at the world
isn't unfold and that when the audience it's happened to
me on Sunday, our film. We went to the Independent
Spirit Awards on Sunday and I got asked by someone
why would she go on that road trip? And I
(26:30):
was like, you're asking this today? Why today? Like it's over,
and moved on, moved on. But people kept asking me
why would she go? Why would she go? And why
would she stay? And you know, I'm so sorry my dog.
Do you hear my dog? I do? But it's totally fine.
Let that dog run into that door, or let the
(26:51):
dog in. It's totally she's using her mind. Hold on,
it's totally blunt. Come here, here, let's do this. I'm
gonna let you out. I know you've been dying. There
you go. You know, I actually never questioned why she
would go on the road trip because it was like
(27:12):
five thousand dollars a night. People also that, you know,
that is a key consideration, and I do. You're already
showing up to the table thinking black women are people,
and you're already showing up thinking that you know, being
inside of the black body means that you're also able
to access a prism of colors and feelings, and so
(27:34):
if you don't think that that's a person, then it's
going to be really hard for you to understand their
choices correct and we're gonna be at fundamental odds. It's
interesting that black people's choices are always interrogated no matter what,
and you know, there's no question there. It's just an
observation that I'm not surprised that people continue even now,
(27:58):
like at an awards show more than a year now,
about a year after the movie came out, to like
ask these kinds of questions when it's like, the why
of it isn't the point that it happened is the point? Yes,
but there's just there's room for less nuance. Nuance is
something afforded only in not black skin. I started laughing
(28:20):
because I thought, this is the final road for me.
This is literally like the final day of this five
year journey that I've been on, and someone still asking
me why the lead character went on this road trip?
Do you ever feel do you ever like snap back
when people ask you dumb questions about smart work? I have.
(28:41):
I have a couple of times and I have not
liked that I've done that. I try, I work really
hard to not do that. You know. I did say
at the very beginning that I do like a fight,
and I do like a fight, but not when the
circumstances aren't fair. And that's not a fair circumstance for
me to fight in. Because I have this story, I'm
not going to get into great detail, but I had
this experience of being on a TV show directing an
(29:04):
actor who got physical with me some years back, and
it like broke me, Like it broke me so hard
that I had to go to therapy for it for
like six seven months because I was trying to understand,
like how I got in a situation like this, and
what about me had created this situation? And so this
actor gets physical with me. And when I have told
(29:25):
some people this story who are really close, people who
were are close to me, they asked, well, why don't
you say something back? And I think that do you
know what the story would be? The story wouldn't be
that they got physical with me and then I said
something back. The story would only be that I said
something back. We would forget that they had gotten physical
with me, and then only they got in physical with me,
(29:46):
they had been like abusive, right, like saying that I
didn't deserve to be at this job, calling me names,
and I knew that I couldn't fight back because that's
all that would be remembered was how I thought back,
not what put me in a situation to defend myself. Yeah,
that's an impossible position that I think is almost unique,
(30:11):
and its bitterness for Black women, where we don't get
to defend ourselves, we don't get to stand up for
ourselves without that being the entirety of who we are
for quite some time, if not forever. And we see
this actually with Black people, especially in entertainment, where a
little reputation follows them along and then eventually you learn
(30:32):
the true story and you're like, mm hmmm. I mean,
this happens with their their actors, actresses that I have
been interested in working with on various projects and have
been told, well, that person is difficult, because happens a
lot with women, act with women, and thought of both
of all the races, and I'll ask when someone says
(30:55):
they're difficult, I now I'm more comfortable with myself so
I'll ask, well, who told you that I want? Give
me the proof? And and oftentimes there is no proof, right,
It's just a thing that's been going around, or someone
knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who said it.
And then I have thought, well, is it possible that
(31:15):
this actress thought she deserved to be treated a certain
way and then she stood up for herself Because I
have been witnessed to versions of this, right, I've I've
worked with certain actresses that I've heard called difficult that
that was not my experience with them. And what I
saw was them stand up for what they deserved. And
I feel the equivalent could happen with a man, and
that no one would have even betted an eye right
(31:36):
like and no attitude, just I know I deserve this.
It's the you want you want me, then fly me
first class? You know, like you want me, you want
my time? Then I know how I want to be
flown you know, I agree, And especially about the difficult thing,
what I've tried to do now is ask defined difficult,
(31:57):
like what do you like? What's the you know, scuttle?
But what is the word on the street, So like
I can determine like, what are we calling difficult? And
nine point nine times out of ten difficult is she
wouldn't eat ship? Yes? Yes, which is such a low bar. Wait,
you just reminded me. Actually, there's one time that I
(32:19):
did sort of stand up for myself on this project.
At London Sundance. The film was premiering. We're having our
international premiere there and the moderator I think it's after
the film is played. Yes, so the film is played,
I'm about to come out on stage or I'm on
stage with him, and he says, so, Jeremy and I
co wrote the movie, but he wrote it. And then
(32:41):
what did you do exactly? And I'm like, right like
that you were the fix? Just get a title? Do
you think anyone would just give me a title without
me earning it? I it drives me to distraction when
black women are questioned in that way, or when like
when we are co doing something, people assume that we're
not the leader of a pair but the follower. And
(33:02):
that's why I hate co writing things, not because I
don't like collaboration, but because I don't like being seen
as an equal to my co writer, which I didn't
know that was an option by the way. I just
didn't know and I should have, And I am annoyed
with myself that I didn't see it that way, only
because when someone tells me they've co written with someone,
(33:25):
I believe that they have co written with them. So
I like, it didn't occur to me that there was
a different way of doing it. So I didn't go okay,
But in this dynamic, who really did it? And who
I guess was the type ist? You know, I don't
like think like that, speaking of sort of like that
bigotry of low expectations. I read that when the movie
came out, people told you that it would make money,
(33:47):
but it wouldn't win awards. How does that feel when
people think so little of what's possible for you and
your work. I to say that it didn't hurt me.
I want to be the kind of attractive that doesn't
get hurt by something like that. But it really hurt.
(34:10):
It really really hurt me. It hurt because I couldn't
help but think, would you say this to a man?
Would you say this to a white person? I just
and I tend to go there when these sort of
unsavory happens in this business, I find myself asking would
(34:32):
happened to a man, would have happened to a white person?
And maybe I don't need to be asking that all
the time, But in this moment, it was a woman
who did it to me, and I wondered would she
have done it as a white woman, would she have
done it to a man, would she have done it
to another white woman? And I don't know. Maybe she
would have. I just don't. I don't actually think she
even saw me when she said it. And what had
(34:53):
hurt me about it was that it wasn't just me.
She had said it in front of my co writer.
She had said it in front of Asia, whose story
this is, and uh and and some of my actors
were there. I don't think the actors had heard it
when it happened. It was something that Jeremy and I
and maybe Asia had heard. I've tried to bring it
(35:13):
up to no one else because I didn't want anyone
else to like remember the moment, you know, But Jeremy
and I were both like really sort of like stopped
in our tracks when it happened, because it seems so unnecessary.
We were in a moment of celebration and then to
be told that this film wasn't that kind of film
(35:33):
or wasn't that kind of special? Right? But what I understood,
I'm going to go back to saying this idea of
like an experience in parallel, was that when I'm at
a night like the Film Independent Spirit Awards, I am
recognizing that there are certain films that will get to
go to that top, and then there are certain films
(35:54):
that will exist in this other space. And it's not
just there, it's it's at the Oscars, it's at every
level of this business, right like, and it has something
to do with like the quality. Maybe it's not the
quality of the work, but maybe it's like what's at
the center of the work? Who is at the center
of the work, what's the what's the tone of that work?
I mean, the Academy rarely recognizes comedy, right or or
(36:16):
if the Academy is recognizing something that is non white, like,
what is the quality of the thing that's non white
that they're allowing to kind of rise to the top? Right?
Do you get? Do you get what I'm saying? And
so I do? I do? I Jannixa believe I am
an artist, right, And this woman was basically telling me
that I wasn't, and I was like, what, my brain
(36:36):
couldn't really process someone saying that to me. Also because
some part of my own voice is saying, but maybe
you're not right, and so she's actually doing some sort
of echoing that's already happening in my gut. And that's
why it made me feel so bad. Yeah, And you
know that that's what's so terrible about bigotry is that
you can never figure out when someone does something like that,
(36:58):
you know, like whether to race gender, um for queer people, sexuality,
or some other aspect of identity, or if it's just
that person being an asshole or a combination of those
things a little bit of each right some sort of
like you know, I was really thrilled. I actually never
(37:25):
thought this couldn't win awards, and I kind of was like,
I thought it would sort of get Best Director for
the just the the aesthetic and the way the story
was handled a nomination, and um, but I was thrilled
when I saw that Joey McMillan one for Best Editing,
and her editing was just phenomenal, and that Taylor Page
(37:45):
one for acting. To me, I'm like fucking one, I one,
I know, They're not physical awards that exist in my home,
on my pedestal, but I feel so held by, feel
so affirmed. Right I'm like that they were recognized. That
two of my collaborators, both black women, were recognized for
(38:08):
their work is such a win to me. And this
same woman who had asked about why Taylor would stay
and also said to me, she was like, you know,
you didn't win this time, but you will win next time,
and I did respond, I don't know if that's true.
(38:28):
I don't know that I'll ever have that, but I
think all this what this has really done for me
is it's I recognize that I needed this validation. I'll
be able to carry whatever I got this night, that
that with the nominations, I'll be able to carry this
for quite some time until like my next low where
I need some other like massive dolt of validation, and
(38:51):
that it is actually not about it is not about
the winning for me. I think it's about being recognized
and feeling like in being recognized that I get to
keep doing it again and that the doors will open
a little bit more, or that I can sit across
from someone who's more likely to say yes like that.
That's the thing that I need from it. So what
is the next place for you? What is it that
(39:13):
you want to do next in your career. I want
to keep making movies, and I really like working in
television as well. I like working as a guest director
in the episodic space. I have a few of my
own shows that I'm trying to get made. I'm having
this moment of reconciling that, Um, I feel like getting
(39:36):
a good deal of yes around being a hirable director,
but my own I P is in this kind of
funky place right because it's like two weird or two
left of center, a little bit two out there, uh,
and so like trying to bring those two things together
a bit more. But I want to make more movies.
(39:57):
I'm writing something right now that I'm going to write
on my own because I decided that after my first
two my first two features are co written, and I
went through the process, I didn't learn enough from the
first time, of as I already said, not being credited
as being a part of it, and so I wanted
this third film for myself too. I wanted to see,
(40:20):
like can I can I do it on my own?
And I think that I can, But I haven't ever
asked it or done it. So here we are. You
mentioned that sometimes you know your work might be too
out there, too weird, two left of center, and I
think that's the promised land for black creators, is to
get to a place where we can make that kind
of work. And so how do you stay true to
(40:43):
your creative vision even when people might put those labels
on it? I feel like it's just it's about being
comfortable with no. It took me five years to make Lemon,
which is my first film, and it took another well, Zola.
Taking five years is the complication of a pan amic right,
Like it's not supposed to be five years, but but
(41:03):
it did. And with each of those steps, even though
Zola isn't mine, I feel an ownership over it, I
feel an ownership over like its final form. And I
think that with each of those I got to prove
that I was a little bit more right than wasn't.
(41:23):
So I'm hoping that this third time that I get
to make a movie, which will be a fourth time
that I get to make a movie, that like with
each of those steps, I get to prove a little
bit more that I ought to have or that I
deserve to get the space to kind of play. I
think the complicated thing again, it's a business, right, so
like you got to make the money so that there's
(41:44):
the room to play. And if you're not making the
money and like still finding that space to play. By
the way, there are plenty of white directors that I
know who are are Some of them are my peers
who are making ship that don't make money and they
get to keep making whatever their work is that they're
going to make because they've had like, you know, one
proof of concept. So I'm just trying to get into
that place. I'm like, can I just like find myself
(42:05):
in that sort of like Donors space, you know that
Donor space where it's like we just like that it's here,
and we're just gonna keep funding that it's here and
hopefully it can make money. Maybe it won't, but hopefully
it can, but that there's just the room to keep
at it and if all else fails, I'll get to
work in the TV space and direct for other people
whose work I really respect. I don't anticipate all else failings,
(42:28):
but but I understand the instinct to like have that
backup plan, like I'll get by no matter what. I yes, well,
Jennick's abravo. It has been incredible to have this conversation
with you. I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan.
I can't believe you wanted to have me on your show.
I was like, I did, I did. I loved when
(42:49):
I saw Zola. I just what I loved about it
most was that it had a distinct voice. It didn't
look you know a lot of movies especially, and I
love these movies, there's nothing wrong with them, but like
some of the big blockbuster movies, you look at them
and you're like, anybody could have directed this. But when
I see your work, I know that only one person
could have directed this, and that was really attractive. And yeah,
(43:12):
so I of course wanted to talk to the person
who had such a distinctive directorial voice. Thank you, thank you,
thank you so much for having me. It really means
a lot. You can keep up with me and the
podcast on social media on Twitter at our Gay and
Instagram at Roxanne Gay seven four. Our email is Roxanne
Gay Agenda at gmail dot com from Luminary. The Roxanne
(43:36):
Gay Agenda is produced by Curtis Fox. Our researcher is
Yasanya Moreno, and production support is provided by Caitlin Adams
and Meg Pillow. I am Roxanne Gay, your favorite bad feminist.
Thank you for listening.
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