Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / How to Tell the Story Only You Can Tell with Girlfriends Creator Mara Brock Akil

Transcript

How to Tell the Story Only You Can Tell with Girlfriends Creator Mara Brock Akil · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and i'd come
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And who says?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: So?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's time
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to question everything. Hello, I hope you're having a beautiful
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: day and beautiful week. I just got back to LA
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and I was in New York for I think like
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: nine or ten days. I was there to do a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Reese's book Club event. I was there to do some
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: other things. I ended the trip with such a fun night.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Eve the rapper who was on the podcast when she
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: came out with her memoir. It's such a good episode.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to it, go back and listened
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: to Eve. She's such a trailblazer and she has this
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: event that she started called Breathe and Believe, which she
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: used to sign off her emails Breathe and Believe. Anyways,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: it's now an event and I spoke at it and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: then interviewed Eve and Tunday, who is just a beautiful
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: human being. You may know her name. She's a peloton instructor,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: an actress, an author, a speaker. She's like a truly
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: wonderful human being. And before we started, it was Eve, Tounday, me,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: this woman, Lexi, and Katrina. So there's five of us
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and I had never met Sunday or Lexi. And I
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: get to the green room wherever all the speakers are
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and I meet Lexi and she has this like suit
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: super effervescent personality and she's so warm, and we're talking
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: for about sixty seconds, mostly about a mutual friend that
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: we have, and then she grabs my arm. She goes, Danielle,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you are about to go through a breakthrough. And I
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: was like what, and she goes, no, don't act surprise.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: You know this, but you need to do something. You
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: need to do something hard so that you can unlock
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: everything that is waiting for you. And she said a
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: few other things that are waiting for me, and I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: just who gave me such chills. She was so specific.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And it's been tripping me out all week because you know,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I've had psychics on the podcast before you know that,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: And I oscillate between like such deep faith and being
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: so skeptical, and she was just super intuitive. It was
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: really wild. So I had to share that experience with you.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: When I get into today's episode, it's so special. Mara
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Brokakhiel is here with us, and I don't know about you,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: But not only did I grow up watching her on Girlfriends,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: as I got older and got to watch her career unfold,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I was just in constant awe of her self efficacy
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and her integrity and her realness, Like she's one of
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: those people. She just puts good stuff, stuff that matters
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: out into the world. I just felt so lucky that
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: we got to speak with her. So let's get into it.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking about the TV that raised us, not
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: just the shows we watched or quoted, but the shows
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that gave us all a model for what it was
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: like to be a grown up in the world. For
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: so many of us, Girlfriends was one of those shows
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: right if you haven't watched, it's streaming on Netflix now,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and the characters Joan Maya Imlynn gave generations of women
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a blueprint for what their lives could look like. They
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: showed us that we could be a lot of things
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: at once, messy and lovable, complicated, hilarious and truly imperfect.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: And at the center of that show was our guest today,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Marra Brakakiel. She created Girlfriends and has served as a creator, writer,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: executive producer, and showrunner on some of the most influential
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: television series of the last three decades, shows like The
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Game Being Mary Jane, Love Is Forever and More. And
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: now she's the author of her debut novel, The Revelation
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: of Dionne Daphney.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Maraa's work never gives us perfect women. It gives us
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: human women, women who are a lot of things at once,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: And for more than thirty years, she's been exploring questions
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: that so many of us were trying to find language for.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: She was answering questions with her work like can women
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: really have it all? What do friendships give us that
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: families sometimes can't, how much of our lives are driven
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: by desire? And how much by shame? Can we fully
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: be seen and still be loved? Today we cover a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: lot of ground, okay, including what inspired her famous characters.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: She takes us back to the Renaissance of Black Hollywood
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: in the nineties, and Mara hits us with an idea
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: we spoke, that our girlfriends become the surrogate parents of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: our adulthood. Just sit with that for a second. Now.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: You'd think that, after writing hit show after hit show,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: that my biggest takeaway from this conversation with Mara would
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: be about her profound impact on culture. But instead I
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: was struck by what a champion she is for storytelling
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: as a way to understand ourselves.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Your story, our stories, our feelings, our thoughts, our concerns,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: our race, how revenge, all the things.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: If you can first place it in a journal, it
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: begins the healing. And even if it's just an audience
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: of one, it is worthy to be considered.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Even if it's just an audience of one, it is worthy.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: For Mara, every story begins with a question, not because
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: she has the answers, but because she's curious about what
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: it means to be human.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Throughout her career, she's used storytelling to explore friendship and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: shame and ambition and identity and love and healing and
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the complicated process of becoming who we are all of
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the things that we talk about on this podcast, And
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: maybe that's why her work has resonated with me and
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: so many people for so long, because beneath every great
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: story is a question that we're all trying to answer
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: about ourselves. So today I invite you to reflect on
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: what that question might be for you. It's time to
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: question everything with MARAA Brod Kakuil. So we are constantly
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: talking about new eras right now, but I can't think
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: of anybody that made us love our old ones more
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: than you did. Every time we think nineties, I think
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: so many of us want to go back. So I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: want you to take me back to your nineties for
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: a second. What was the best part of that time
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: for you?
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: All the possibilities I came out. I went into college
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: believing the dream, believing that unlike my mothers and my grandmother's,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: we actually had a chance to have our own financial independence,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: seek out careers of our desires, of our curiosities, of
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: our interests, of ours of you know what we did well,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: and so it was full of possibility. I chose the
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: best for myself. I went to Northwest. I got what
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: I needed there to feel confident to go out into
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: the world. And even when I pivoted, because I went
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: went in as a journalist, I thought, and of course,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: wouldn't that be great? Journalism also said to me, I
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: was going to travel and see things and meet people
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: and learn about things, being a constant student of life
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: really but also participant.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: What was moving you at the time, because I've heard
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: you talk about seeing Whitney and magazine.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's funny you talk about Whitney was
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: the first black beautiful image I saw inside of seventeen magazine,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: which I subscribed to, and I remember the I remember
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: the feeling when I saw her inside the pages, and
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: then of course when she made it to the cover,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: it was almost like I made it. We didn't have
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: representation matters, you know, language back then, but that was
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: the feeling I saw. I was avid reader of seventeen,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: but seeing Whitney, somehow a part of me woke up.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: And then you see the heights in what she reached. Oh,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: this guy's a limit. So that sense of empowerment was there.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: And also our music was different. A lot of love
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: stories look so longing for love was in the music.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: So I think connection and you know, I partied a lot,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: worked hard during the week, especially when I was in Chicago.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: You know, Chicago's a very work hard, play hard kind
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: of town.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I really do know what you're talking about.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Chicago party. I mean, you know, but it was fun
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: to get out, you know, feel really quote unquote balanced
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: in that way. I felt the nineties were that for me.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I think there was a part when I when I
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: left Chicago to come to Los Angeles to pursue Hollywood,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I understood the game was hard. And then speaking of representation,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: you didn't see a lot of us out there. I
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: didn't know who these people were. I started reading the credits.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: You know, Debbie Allen really stuck out. Okay, Wow, she
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: changed a different world. Okay, you started to start to
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: add up until I met my mentors and Ralph Sarah
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: and also Debbie. But I then got really focused. And
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: so my nineties was very much about black Hollywood, really
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: because it was Burganine in the nineties. First was Fox,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: which I was on South Central around that, and then
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it opened up to Wow UPN and the WB and
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: suddenly we had jobs and people wanted to know about
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of Half Hour And that's how I really
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: got started after South Central, which was my writer's trainee job,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: which was amazing. I met Gina Prince bythewood there. She
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: was Gina Prince at the time time and now she's
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: my lifelong friend and sister. But that happened then and
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: then moesha. I mean, guys, I'm telling you being being
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: on a hit television show, even for what was considered
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: then called a netlit because it wasn't you know, ABC, NBC,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: CBS kind of vibes. But it was joy. It was
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: like the HBCU of television. And our show nights were
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: a thing. Like people would come to show night and
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: you know, you know, Alia would be in the crowd.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Boys to me would be in the crowd. Usher would
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: be on the show. But you know, Diana Ross is
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: in the audience when we were shooting Girlfriends to be
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: there for Tracy. I mean, people would show up to
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the show and I'm glad that I was able to
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: create during that time because we were able to capture
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: some of the culture that I think is worth being
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: nostalgic about.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful, is there? I know being a mom is
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: important to you. Is there a piece of music or
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: TV or film that's important for you to give to
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the next generation.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, good question. A fun one that I always
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: tease because now I've been I'm working with a lot
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: of young writers. It was funny the other day, not
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the other day, but during a writer's room, a first
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: season one or forever, we were talking about Prince and
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I mentioned I just made a beautiful one's reference, and
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: I just saw all these blank faces and then I
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: just repeated it again. I was like something beautiful Ones?
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Like why are they responding? And I was like, hold up,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: do you guys know what the beautiful ones is? And
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: they were like no. And I said, do you know
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: who Prince is? And they were like yeah, And I go,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: what songs do you know? They named the classics. I said,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: but you don't know what beautiful Ones is and they
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: were like no. I said, did you watch Purple Rain?
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: And they were like, yeah, you don't know what beautiful one?
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And I just so upset. I was so mad.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I was like, what are your parents do it? So?
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I could you don't give education?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And I think what I'm excited about is that I
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: did it, even recently and forever the near past about
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: where RAP was just about six years ago. I think
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: platforming or pulling certain pieces of music into the work
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: actually gives it, you know, it's putting it in the
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: canon with emotion feeling important. So I think music is
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: one of the things that I has been a through
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: line in my work, and I think I've given that
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: back within the culture. I think the other thing I've
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: given back is just the honesty. I think that you
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: can I think the the idea of the need for
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: community and to speak very candidly and honestly within your
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: friend groups. I think for the for the purpose of
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: h intimacy and closeness and connectivity. I think that you know,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: there's a there's a conversation going on right now that
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: though we have all these means to connect, we're not
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: really connecting. And I think my shows show model for
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: how you deal with your friends in conflict and in
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: fun and through the.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Pivotal points in our lives, you know.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: So I think it's and it's funny because the kids,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: they look at it and they have a lot of opinions,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: so they get to look at it and see what
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: not to do. And I think that's just fine. Like
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: you think Joan and Tony are toxic Yeah, it's guess
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: what a lot of us are. A lot of us
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: are if we're not dealing with the underbelly of our
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: of our shadow life. You know all these terms. Now,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: I love this generation for the labeling of things, just
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: naming things a lot. I think there's a what's the
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: word I'm looking for. I think there's a fine line,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: fine line, but also a catch in that you can
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: get stuck and just wanting to name things. Whereas I
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: think I got to be we call I think my
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: generation is called the feral kids. We just got to
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: experience it and figure it out later. So I think
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: there's a good combination of the two about understanding what's
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: going on and oh wow, this is a type of
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: attachment style or this is you know, this is a
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: toxic behavior. But okay, we've named it. But then now,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: how do we deal with it without throwing everything? We
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: have to cancel everything, you know what I'm saying. We
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: can sort of figure out how do we move through
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: the tough stuff because we all carry some of it.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: And if you don't, wow, thank thank the heavens for that,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: because I think you can't really live in this time,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: in this country without having some of the reverberation of
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: the pain that this country is built on, not moved
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: through you. The good news is that I think the
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: generations are trying to name it and claim it, to
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: purge it, you know, And so I'm excited to meet
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: them there. And I think looking back at my shows,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: it's okay to work through things and let it be
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: a little tough.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: You know, we're just in the messy middle of it,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: a little bit messy middle of it. I love that.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: I like that term.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: It's another naming.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: You guys are really good at it, you know.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I think your stories they don't just stick with us,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: they help us understand ourselves, which is pretty rare. And
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that you went to school for journalist of yeah,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and I love reading that. You start all of your
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: stories with a question, Yeah, can you talk to me
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: about that? I mean, I know that I'm maas I
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: love that idea.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: So my process is that shout out to Northwestern. I
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: think it was one of the best decisions I have
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: made in my life, is to choose that school. I
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: think we chose each other. It was the only school
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: I applied to. But what it did is the journalism
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: degree teaching the skill of crafting a story and really
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the importance of why. And then also I was heavily
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: concentrated in sociology, and so that educational training really then
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: allows me to really observe. So my process is one
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: of observing and just I just really pay attention to
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: what catches my attention. And I always said, good, bad,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: or other. What it catches your attention as yours or
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: what happens to you, it's yours. And so I see
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: these things as you know, I'm not going to say
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I'm I might cry through it or be upset about
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: it and feel the emotion, but I then become aware
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: of that emotion very quickly, Oh, I'm having this experience.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: And so I start to if that is a palette color, yeah,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: it's Oh, that's a paint color I'm going to put on.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: I start to separate things, and then the question it's like,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: why then am I attracted to all of these things?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: What is what am I trying to sort out? And
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: sometimes it just starts with that general general of a
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: question in a journal. What am I?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: What am I curious about?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Why? Why am I thinking about this? And then I'll
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: go on about my day and then something will happen,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: and I'll lean in and the question comes into perfect form.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, at the time, even when I was writing Girlfriends,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: the thing that kept kept speaking of magazines, that kept
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: being told to us as women is that you can
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: have it all, And we were questioning could we have
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: it all? And so if you really look at that work,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: that is what is the anchor of that question. And
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: then well, if you're going to have it all, how
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: could you have it all?
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Interesting?
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And how and if you were? And what would you
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: need in order to figure that out? You're going to
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: need a good group of girlfriends, you know. That was
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: that was So that's how that starts to form with
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: the with my latest work, with the Revelation of Deane Daphne,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I just kept noticing, I've been really watching us as women,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: now that we have more freedom, we're being more unapologetic.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I was just curious, is our sexual agency really out
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: of liberation or are we just playing out the trauma
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: that this country is built on that and there is
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: violence under this country and are we just reacting to that?
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying I have the answer. I just
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: decided that that held my curiosity and I've just been
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: So what it's been doing is making me watch and
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: look at.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Where we are. And then.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, I still had a place to put. The other
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: thing my work does is I always love this kind
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: of shout out to my journalism degree, is that I
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: always love to tell the truth through fiction, and I
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: really started to play with the idea of what are
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: facts and what is the truth. I also enjoy not
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: thinking about my process and just being intuitively led and
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: allowing I have I'm really good at making space to
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: hear my characters, and I listened to them and I
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: let them guide me. And that's a That's what I
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: call like riding the wave, and that that can be addictive,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: and so thankfully it's a good addiction because it's created
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: a wonderful career for me. But I enjoy riding the
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: wave and letting these characters embody me and being the
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: vessel by which the story can come through.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: You ask some pretty deep questions on the opening page.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I think that one of them was what did the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: nineties tell us about ourselves before we were launched into
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the new millennia? Did you have an answer to that
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: before you posed it, or do you have an answer.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Now you know, one fun thing that the book revealed
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: to me. I always expect a gift out of my writing,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: and sometimes it hits you right away, and sometimes it
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: might be years later vis a vis the audience, you.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Know, reflecting on it. In this case, I.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Think with the nineties, our effort that we had to
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: make in our friendships are really valuable. And I'm not
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: saying it's not happening now, because it is. But I'm
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: curious about about that, about the consistent nature of the
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: gathering and the need to to really be oneself truly,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: and not for the gram not for you know, not
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: for the phone. Like I even wonder how much phones
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: just being present is disrupting the connection the nineties, I
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: feel like the nineties for me, the gift of the
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: book was Dionne and Farah in the book that Journey
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: of Friendship, that is in the through line of the book.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: It revealed to me that why are our girlfriends really important?
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Is that they represent They become the surrogant parent for
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: what we did not get from our parents, that keep us,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: that keep us steady enough so we can get our
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: own legs, our own legs sturdy enough for we to
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: parent ourselves and that's when the healing begins at that generation.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: And then I think you've heard of like people, if
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: you heal yourself, you healed seven generations forward and backwards.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: I think that's exactly what happens. And I think our
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: girlfriends hold us, They just hold us in place until
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: we can get it together, so we can repairent ourselves,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: find some level of forgiveness, understanding of what the legacy
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: of pain that may have been passed on can be stopped,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: and then also remember what's good about bringing forward from
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: your family legacy, and then you can move on. Which
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: is interesting because if you're watching the men, now there's
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: been this, you know, all this naming, they're not emotionally
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: available all these women. What's happening in the divorce rate?
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And the young women don't want to get married? Like,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: what is happening? I think it's a it's not the
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: sky is falling. I believe that soil is turning because
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: we are trying to find new ways. And I think
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: when men start to cold, when they I don't know,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: they're going to call each other boyfriends, but my crew,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: my guys, my whatever. But when they honor that male
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: gathering and that mentorship of holding each other in place
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: long enough for them to reparent themselves and understand what
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: a new definition of protection and providing is. And you
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: know we can read, we can. I think there's all
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: you know, not time. I think there is value in
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: honoring the power of softness being protected by and what
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: is the new definition of that. It's not just money though,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: we like that. But you like beautiful spaces. We like
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: beautile space.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: But you kind of explored this in Forever. Yeah, in
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: some ways like you you really are. It's almost like
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: you have this spidey sense in culture and you're like,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: can feel something shifts. I liked when you said that
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the sky is not falling, this soil is turning.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: It is and what seeds are we going to plant?
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And I think the night I was going back to
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: look at the near past and what is where are
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: we in this place that we can rethink things? And
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: I think one powerful thing I think women can do
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: is to think deeper about our bodies, our sexual experience.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: What is healthy sex positive, feel good sexuality for us?
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: And even in Forever, if you notice all of the
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: young women, though there's problems around the subject, their approach
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: to sex is a sex positive idea.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: It is, and.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: That accountability, that responsibility to yourself and your own desires
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: is a shift, and in that shift it will create
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: language for what it is that we want in partnership
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: with others.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Well, how do you think about because you're talking about sexuality,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: how do you think about it? In terms of sexualization?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: There are certain public figures that I think use their
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: sexuality as a tool to gain followers or money or whatever.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: It is part of who who they are in the world.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: And I constantly think to myself, is that liberation is?
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I think about that too, So how do you think
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: about it?
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: This is the system that we have been operating in
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: and others have gotten to decide what the value was
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: and they are playing the game well within a old paradigm.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: I'm curious as a new paradigm. As we are thinking
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: about our whole health, our whole self, have we even
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: had a chance to understand the euphoria of pleasure at
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: a very sort of sacred place.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think That's what I'm asking. Have we even
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: had that yet?
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: And if the sky isn't falling and the soil is
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: turning and we can plant new seeds, with new ideas
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: and build a new world. Could we consider wondering what
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: real pleasure is for me? And that separate I think
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: one of the things you know in the book and
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: me as a survivor myself, you learn how to separate
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: yourself from your body. What if, oh well, what if
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: the healing allows you to connect your your body with
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: your heart, with your mind and with your spirit. What
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: would it be like to live in that human experience?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And and so I just think part of it is
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: learning about yourself, you know, learning about I still think
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: there would be room in the world for people to
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: be very vocal about sexuality and and your body and
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: teaching you about it, because I think we are we've
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: gotten some aspects of what others think. But what if
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: what if other people had got the mic and talked
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: about it in a different way. You know, where you
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: can come from your own choice, not from an era
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: in which you were there to please a man just period. Yes,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I mean I've moved through that. I mean I live
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: through that like a lot of other women. That part
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: of our sexual experience really from the lens of how
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: do you please him? Now?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: What's the turning point for you? The turning point in
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: which way and when you started to view it differently.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: M I think one amazing turning point for me was yoga. Okay,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: stick with me, okay, Okay, you're going to say, like
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: an amazing partner, okay, yoga. What I realized have you
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: ever done? Have you ever done yoga? Yeah? Yeah, okay.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Do you remember at the end where like, have you
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: ever had an instructor? And they say, especially during shabasna,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: which is really nap time, okay, but in shabasna they'll
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: be talking, They're like, feel the sensations and tense up here,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: and let go here and feel this, And I'd be
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: like in my mind, I like, well, she just shut
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: up so I can just get to this now. And
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: then recently, when you find the right instructor, shout out
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: to Kayana Kai taught me how to really connect to
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: my body. So I said that to her and I
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: was like, girl, you know, I just can you just
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: be quiet while I.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Take the nap? But she goes, tomorrow, what is this thing?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And I said, I just and she goes, why are
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: you bothered by me asking you to connect to your body?
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like, again a question, and I was like, huh,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and she goes, why don't you just try it? What
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: do you mean? What do you mean, like feel the
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: sensations of my Like, what are you talking about? I
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: just And what I realized in that moment is I
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: really never the dis I really was able to understand
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I am so disconnected from my body in so many ways.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: And when I found connection to my body that I
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: can feel the sensations of my body, I stop calling anybody,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: including my mother, my best friend, because I realized how
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: much my body has been my best friend. She's been
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: holding my purse stuck in the corner at the club forever,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: and I have been I have been away.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: From her this whole time.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: And the return to my body, just feeling it. I
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: can heal myself.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: There's times now but I feel like, oh I feel
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: I'm getting sick. I can. I can connect to my
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: body and heal my body.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: That's how. And so to be reunited with my body,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: you start to wonder what you wonder about all sensory ideas,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: And I started to wonder about the impact of what
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: has happened to me and how and the choices I've
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: made as a result of it. What part of.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Sexuality is really me as much as I was.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: So disconnected from my body that I could just do whatever,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever and whatever I whatever they wanted, you
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, And not to say that you
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: don't find pleasure within it. And that's the confusing part.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's because it is fun, sometimes like oh, shoot,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: you know that was great, but when you kind of
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: when you read when I reunited with my body, I
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: just started asking myself all the questions and so that
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: was a huge turning point for me. And that happened
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: around the time that I embarked on writing the book.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: It was funny I got a call about, you know,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: from the publisher saying, hey, would you consider being such
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: a fan of your work on screen? Believing that my
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: voice would translate to the page. That call came after
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: my reunion. Now that just in real time I'm figuring
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: this out with you, that I'm realizing that my reunion
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: to myself. I think six months ish after that, I
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: got the call about would you be open to writing
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: the book? And then I had I got to pour
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: out more of what I've been holding in my body.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Your debb vacation.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Makes so much, It makes different sense to me now,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: because it was really beautiful you wrote to shame and
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: all her tantrums. Yes, and I was seeking the meaning
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: of that throughout your entire book, But I'd love to
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: hear it in your own words. What does that phrase
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: mean to you?
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Shame is this other whole person almost that we carry
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: around with us all the time. For me, shame, I
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: believe we all carry some portion of it something in
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: our lives. It could just be, you know, it can
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: be something as I lost a job, and your level
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: of embarrassment to your community, to your family, to yourself
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: can fester into shame right if you don't really and
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: it just keeps growing and growing and growing. Something as
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: traumatic has happened to me, or to that I that
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I gave to the character Dion, That weight can keep
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: growing in waste.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: You have no idea, and I feel like acknowledging.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: It and dealing with it is like unbirding yourself with
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: that weight.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: So much of your work has to do with love.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: When I read that, I thought, oh wow, to me,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: this question is can I be fully seen and still love? Yes?
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, you know. Being a mother has taught me
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: that a great deal in what way? Well, it's so funny,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: and it was shout out to the moms. I know.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: I used to say this too, like I've I always
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: felt like the like, especially when they were little, like
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: why are they acting up more with me than everybody else,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: you know, especially even their dad. I'm like, wait a minute,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: like and then I started to realize, wait a minute,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, I have to process this differently. That
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: they love me and feel so safe with me, I'm
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: the safest place in the world for them to act
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: a goose. It's hard, it hurts sometimes, it hurts your
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: feelings sometimes, But then wow, that I am the safest
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: place on earth for you to act that way because
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: you know I will love you the next minute, the
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: next hour, the next day. And then if you think
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: about that, that is our relationship with God. We act
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: a goose, and God loves us at every breath and
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: they and and I think when I think about how
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: we can extend love to romantic partners, to friends, to
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: co workers, to the human being in your life, could
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: we lead with that doesn't mean that, you know, obviously
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: every relationship has that. You can't create boundaries. Even as
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: a mother, I have to say that is like with shame,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: that's too much. You got to go sit over there.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: You've got to go have this tantrum. You gotta go
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: sit in the corner. You got to think about your behavior.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: And I think even our relationship with God boogoo, you
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: can't do that.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: That's not healthy for you.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna let you. I love you so much.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: If you want to learn life this way, I'm gonna
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: let you do it. I'm gonna love you anyway.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: You're gonna come home to me, and I'm gonna you know,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: but here in the earth bound human experience, I think
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: that the the loving somebody fully the privilege to witness
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: someone is love to me, and and I think that, uh,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: the privilege to witness someone I was love to me.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, So I felt like your dedication
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: was pretty poetic. And then I learned that your mom
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: was actually a poet. She's a published poet.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: My mother is a published poet. Isn't that pretty badass?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And then I realized that your title character is named
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: after your middle name, and then Joan from Girlfriends is
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: after your mother. Yes, So then I started thinking, when
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: we engage with your stories, how much of it is
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: really just you.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. So much of me is in my stories,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: the hilarious part of me, the deep, the profound, the messy,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: the joyful. I put a lot of myself in everything.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: But I also am looking at us. I observe us
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: in every situation that I'm in. I'm curious about I
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: think maybe you know. They say we're mirrors. So my
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: curiosity in you is that curiosity in me, and vice versa.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: And I do choose to love myself, so I am
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: trying to see what's love looks like, sounds like, feels
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: like in other people and just observing our collective behavior
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: and where are we at this time that I have
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: been privileged with life and craftsmanship to tell story, But
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: so much of myself is in and the shout out,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: the naming of people. What I do takes a lot
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: of time, and sometimes I'm not always can be around
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: as much as I would like to be around. And
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: it's just my way of telling people that I love
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: them even though I'm not. I can't always be there
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: because the demand on writing is quite a bit.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: So from Moesha to Girlfriends, The Game, Being Mary Jane Forever,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: and now this novel one of the three lines is
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: definitely growth and your characters are constantly being more honest
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: versions of themselves. What has been the hardest truth for
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Mara Brockakiel to tell mar Brockakiel.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: I'm getting better at being more honest about me. I
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: think I get to do that because I can craft
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: it in story. Right, So there's not is there one
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: hundred percent of me? You don't really know unless I
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: tell you which parts are me or which parts were inspired.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: And as soon as you make a choice for a character,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: it becomes the characters too. But where I do have
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: a really pray over this, like even in Forever my Son,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: My sons are my muse through through the through the
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: curiosity of the of the age that these kids are in.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: They're my window in. It doesn't stop at them, but
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: they are the way in. And I hope that they
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: see that I really appreciate their allowing me to muse
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: off of them and use some of their their facts
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: to create a truth in that story. I hope, I
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: hope that there are that they feel that I, in
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: crafting the story, I took care of their life experience
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: that I borrowed for this story.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you spent thirty years writing cultural moments that
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: stay as memories in our mind. Some of them have
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: been instant classics. I would say, I want you to
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: flex on us for a minute. Did Girlfriend's walk so
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: that Insecure could run?
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Yes? And that's the way it's supposed to be. I
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: can't tell you how thrilled I was when Insecure not
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: only came onto the scene but made it to HBO
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: and took up more territory from a resource base that
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: the cinematic imagery they were able to put around the
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: bodies of black fly women. And then in the pilot,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: how Esa and Prentiss, who is also one of He's
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: on my family tree. I'm so proud to be his mentor.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: But they shouted out girlfriends in the pilot to say
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: the respect for what came before me, and then we're
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: going to take this baton and run.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I mean did they run? I was like, they killed it.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: I was so excited about how far they ran and
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: how much space they took up.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: When you look at TV before Girlfriends and after Girlfriends,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: what do you think changed most?
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Oh? I didn't realize the liberating way we talked about
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: all subjects on Girlfriends was not only going to liberate
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: other showrunners and filmmakers and creators and actors to want
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: to be more honest and want to be more layered.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I think vulnerability and black women the layeredness. I think
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: I've added that to the culture, the complexity of us
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: and making room for that. But I think it's also
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: shown up in like I would like to say, for
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: women like yourself, you know, the influencers, podcast creator, the
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: creator economy over here. I think Girlfriends has had impact
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: in that where people like Joan like she went from
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: being a lawyer to the j spot like I can
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I can own my own life and I can be fly,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: I can my interior I love. I mean, look at
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: your set. It's like it's amazing. It's like interiors. I
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: think I've gifted interiors. I'm really proud of that. You know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Nancy Myers is known for her kitchen sets, but they
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: would call it like house porn and film. I really
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: think that I am interior porn for and I think
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: I've I've added to the culture around that.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: It certainly stopple you know that we It was a
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: big part.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, style was absolutely that the level of ambition and
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: uh as aspiration that we wanted for our lives. The
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: having it all, you know, and truly understanding that having
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: it all meant a good, healthy sense of self and
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: relationship with self and others. I think that and I
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: think I can see that in the on A on
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: a business side of things. I guess our careers, how
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: people thought to do things on their own with this technology.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: You know what? Yeah, Tony, Tony childs she specialized in results,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: that she is fabulous. I think that. I think that translated.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I think I think the lend character surprised me. I
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: think she was the gift to the future and that
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: I may not have it all together, but I'm worth
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: being loved. And though we didn't use language like queer,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: she was, but she was before she named named herself anything.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: She named herself Lynn, and she was loved and accepted
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: for who she was. I think even the questions of sexuality,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: I think I've added to the conversation about what is
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: my pleasure? And I think those are named a few.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I love that you said the vulnerabilities of black people's lives,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: you've added to the culture. When I watch any of
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: your work and reading this book, there's so much interiority.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Nothing is what it really seems on the surface. And
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: you've spent decades creating space for black characters to be vulnerable.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Did anybody create that space for you or were you
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: creating something you so deeply wanted?
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, my mother and I have such safety in
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: my relationship with my mother, it can be fully myself.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: And you know, lately, I think the last even like
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: three to four years, we almost talk like every day
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: only because she has been the caretaker to my grandmother
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: who has passed. And then I just we just got
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: in that habit and we just talk every day. And
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: you know, I also sought out therapy and I really
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: value that weekly appointment. I also responsible for a lot
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: of people's lives being at the helm of the projects,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: and I take that seriously. And I need to be
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: healthy and whole in order to go in there and
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: make the best decisions for the show and for the
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: people who make it. So therapy has been that. And
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: then my own girlfriends. I have some, really I have.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: I have some really good girlfriends. And it's funny, maybe
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: it's the Jim and I and me. I have like
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: I've got little tranches of girlfriends for the different versions
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: of myself.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: So I like that, Yes, and you know, I think
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: that's cool.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the last one I really will say, I
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: cannot express and stress the power of my journaling. I
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: make safety for myself with myself, and it's in journaling.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: I cannot stress that enough. If you only write your
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: story and you are the it's an audience of one,
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: your story, our stories, our feelings, our thoughts, our concerns,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: our rage, our revenge, all the things. I think, if
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: you can first place it in a journal, it begins
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: the healing. And even if it's just an audience of one,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: it is worthy to be to be considered in sort
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: of a stream of consciousness thought, whether it be crafted thought,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: pen to actual paper, pen to paper, that is something
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I can You can look at all the scientific That's
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: what I love about what I do love about the Internet.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: You can go find this on YouTube. Somebody better can
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: tell you this. But I know to be true even
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: if there was no scientific measurement to it. I know
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: what it does when I put my pen to paper
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: there and now it is measured. You can go find
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: that out. But it does something to not only our brain,
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: but to our I would say my whole nervous system
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: and the healing begins in that.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: So Girlfriends is about to have its twenty fifth anniversary
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: this year. Excuse me last year. Last year, you celebrated
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: twenty five years with the original Girlfriend's cast, and you
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: noted that for seventeen years people have asked you to
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: turn it into a movie. Yes, I don't want to
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: compare it too much to Sex and the City.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: It's okay, that's a good comparison in terms of the
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: epic nature in which people want to experience gathering around
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: a story. That's the power of story. People want community
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: around it. They want to dress up because we refly
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: on Girlfriends too. And so could you imagine like a
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: whole nineties get into it.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Do you make this happen?
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: But I guess my question though, is, like the Sex
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: and the City sort of, it's not a reboot, what
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: would it be called like the.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, I guess they may reboot it. Yeah,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: they rebooted it.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was it came to such mixed reviews,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: to stuff like that make you sort of reconsider.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I have a story that I would
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: love to do in a film, and I have been
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: trying to get it made. I just you know right
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: now where the industry is, they don't see and there
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: has been some interest.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I want to be clear, but how much money are
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: we going to do this for? You? No, we need
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: to do this right, thank you.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: And I want to do it right, and I think
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: I do. I know I have the story to make
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: it right. And I'm really at that point where I
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: need the money that I need and if it's not
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: going to be there, I can't keep knocking on every door.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: I have to sort of move on. And so but
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: when that money comes, or a new idea comes for
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: a lesser amount of money, I don't don't. I don't
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: need to do this. If I can't do it right,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: why am I doing it? That's that's my question. And
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: so right now I'm looking for fifty million dollars to
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: tell the story that i'd like to tell, set in
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles, for the for the entire cast to come back.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: They want to come back, they're open to it, but
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: we all want the right value. Kind of goes back
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: to this conversation I was talking about with sexuality, when
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: you kind of are very clear, now this is what
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: I want, this is how I like to experience this,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Otherwise I can just make new things from the woman
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: that brought you girlfriends. And so I'm just I'm believing
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: in that right now, and I don't know how that's
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: going to be or if it's going to be, but
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: I'm at peace with that. Yeah, I think with the
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: twenty five years, I think, honestly, my ego wanted to
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: be able to pop off and be like, Yo, we're
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: making the movie, you guys.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: But I really believe in God's timing.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: My relationship with God was born out of surviving what
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: I went through. That gives me the authority to tell
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: the story that I'm doing now, and I would never
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: trade that. I would never go back and try to
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: fix what happened to me then because of my relationship
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: that I have with God, and because of that, I
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: believe in the timing of my life. Even though it
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: gets sticky sometimes and I want to have tantrums, I
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: believe in it. And now I stay curious about my
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: own life and what is going to happen, and expect
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: to be honest, I expect the You know, the.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Gifts were you surprised by how much people connected with
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the first season of forever because I know that was
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: such a personal project for you.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: Wow, you know, am I surprised. I'm delighted, great word,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: I'm delighted. I knew it was going to connect. I
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: have been delighted to see the places in which I
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that that was going to happen, like
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: and and I'm so thankful. I think, you know, anybody
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: the privilege to tell a story and then for people
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: to really listen and engage with you, that is a privilege.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm really happy to see the impact of the
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: show on everybody. And I'm also I wish you could
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: get out sooner than me. But we are making it.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: We are making it. We're on days twenty something of
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: day eighty. It takes about eighty days to produce these.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: It took a lot of weeks to write them. And uh,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: but we're we're but we're getting there. Were I don't know.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know when we're going to be out. It's
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: not going to be in twenty twenty six, So I
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: hope anyone's not mad about that, and that they will
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: come around when it comes back on the air. But
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: I really love the conversations that not only people have
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: with me, but that I'm hearing that they're having amongst
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: each other. Like one of my favorite things was when
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: I was on the vineyard, I literally could not walk
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: without people telling me how much they love the book.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: But what I got repeatedly was how much people were
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: having family meetings to discuss the future of their child,
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Like what do you really want? What do you what
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: is it that you? Who are you? Where are you
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: right now? Where do you think you want to go
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: to college? If you want to go to college? Like
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: what are your dreams? And as opposed those two conversations,
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: we know that we're in the recent past, if not
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: still now is you're going to college, You're doing this,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: you're doing that because as a parent, that makes me
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: feel good about your future. And I thought, wow, that's
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: really great that families are sorting it out for themselves.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: I know there was a lot of moms that cried
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: on me who saw in Dawn that she had such
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: a controlling nature out of love, And I would tell them,
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: I know, I know it's love, and your children know
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: it's love, and now we can see it together, and
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: you know, then the fears of their differences, whether it
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: be you know neurodivergent or the fear of being a
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: black boy in America. I mean, look at what's happening
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: in our news today, the heartbreaking things of what's happening
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: to black boys in America, Like they're not safe. It's
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: like forget even sexuality are but they're going to make
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: it home. That is still happening today. And someone making
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: room for their humanity is I think those what those
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: hugs and tears were about, because I think about it too,
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: you know, I think about it for my own sons
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: and then their friends, and they look like little drafts
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: to me. Sometimes they look like little poe, you know,
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: like how could you think that they are violent of
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: any sort? Look at them? They're so sweet and it
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: is awkward and handsome and swaggy and all those things
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: and one and I think making room for their humanity
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: and and them too young young people to consider love.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: I heard the other day someone was telling me, oh, yeah,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: my daughter, she's haying she's going to be in the
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: vineyard this summer. She's looking for her forever love. I said, okay,
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: so your love is a lie in the vineyard and
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: hopefully hopefully everywhere.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: I know you had such a personal connection to Judy Bloom,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: So to make that show must have just been incredible.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: You don't even know you ended up flying to meet her, right, Yes?
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: Was it everything you wanted?
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: It was everything. I burst into tears. I turned into
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: a twelve year old girl.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: As soon as I met her.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: It's still surreal to me, if I'm going to be honest.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: But it's funny. I posted about it, but I didn't
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: lay heavy into it. I think I just I'm noticing
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: some things I want to hold for myself before I
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: share them in the instagram of it, all in the
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: insta of it, because you have to think. I'm like,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: I remember reading her books, like I remember like running
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: to the library, like trying to beat out the girl.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I know she's trying to get blobbr too. I'm trying
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: to get We're trying to get these books. I remember
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: all the effort I took in all the joy I
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: felt getting lost in the pages of her book, the
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: honesty that she met me with, you know, in her work,
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: and then to meet her and then to get her
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: blessed to reimagine the work for her to love it.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Because Judy will tell you if she does.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Well, she knew you were going to do it right.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: For the girls who are coming up now who look
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: at you that way, how do you talk to them
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: about the industry? What do you say to them in
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: terms of who they need to become as a person
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: to really be a great producer, a great writer.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: I told them they can absolutely do it, that it
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: is going to take a practice. It's funny. I have
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: a writer's colony and I built it around these three pillars.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: You need a place to write, so you need to practice.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: You need place to belong. You need to find the community.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: You need to find the people are going to read
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: your scripts or read your work and give you real feedback,
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: and you give and you give that back to them
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: so that we make each other better in the sculpting.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: And you're going to need time to find your voice.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: What are the questions you're curious about? What do you see?
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: What's caught your attention that is uniquely yours?
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Be a standard?
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: But not you're not. You can't be me.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: But a lot of young people feel they're running out
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: of time.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do know that, and I think it requires
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: people like myself who you know, starting a foundation is
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: not easy. And let me tell you, it's hard enough
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: to keep up with my day job and try to
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: build on my dreams. But my foundation is a God whisper.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: I've got to create space for the new for the
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: new writers, for the new craftsmen, because we need their voice.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: It's not like it's a it's a privilege, but it's
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: a need, like it's a necessity. And I think we
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: don't want to lose the storytelling that would come from
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: those perspectives. And so I think it's going to take
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: more people like myself who have been able to carve
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: out a place of safety, yes, to offer a place
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: for people to dream and aspire and do. And I
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: really do think we going back to the soil is turning.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: The seeds are the ideas, the seeds are the stories.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Our greatest asset at this point is going to be
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: our story when and I don't say this from a
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: dystopian perspective. I think AI is here and is going
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: to change us. But it doesn't mean that we lose
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: our humanity. I hope that it's something where we think
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: that that's what can only humans do, or what do
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: humans only want humans to do? That's actually exciting to
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: me and the one thing that we can do is
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: share our story. And that's the one thing that if
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: you think about it in terms of economics, it doesn't
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: cost that much to sit down and write. It doesn't
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: cost that much to sit down to write. What it does.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Cost is a lot of time.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it costs sometimes.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: You know, reflection.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, going to to go deep in and what do
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: I have to say that might be worthy of a
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: larger audience outside of myself and my friends. If you
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: want to do it on that level, you know, how
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: can I use my creativity in community? Like, how can
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: we figure this out together? What's going to come of that? Yeah,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: you know, I believe we can do it. I think
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: we're at a time too that we're more interested in
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: each other than ever. I think the information age laid
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: the groundwork to be curious about humans, to be curious
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: about humans, and not just in the horror though we're
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: still interested in horror. I'm just trying to say that
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: we might be interested in our own humanity as much
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: as we are titillated by the superheroes and the horror
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: stories and the action films. I believe we might be
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: interested in the renaissance of us and storytelling can come.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Back around to that. You're held in such high regard,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: and it's beyond the world of entertainment or production. You
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: say your name in a room and people just light up. Wow,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: it's the truth. Really, Yeah, I think I really appreciate
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: hearing this. It's the truth. Women feel so proud of you,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: and I think your work makes them feel proud to
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: be a woman. And I'm just curious what piece of
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: work makes you the most.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: Proud ooh of my body of work?
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Is there anything that stands out?
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: You know? I don't often look back. I don't. I
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: really there was a time in which I knew everything
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: about Girlfriends, like everything the thing you could tell me
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: that I didn't know, right, And now the audience knows.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: It better than I do.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: Even if I were to do a film, I would
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: have to go back and revisit it and be sure
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: I know them.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: But Girlfriends is my child's. Girlfriends is kind of like
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: my grown kid.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: She is.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: She's doing great, like that kind of vibes, you know.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: And the book now is my infant, you know, And
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: so it's like loving that question is like I love
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: all of my projects. But if I had to answer,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: you know, like, because I see also myself at those
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: different I can see my growth in each. I can
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: see where I was, a girlfriend's the game being Mary Jane,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: Love Is Forever, even a couple of movies that I
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: wrote in there and this book, and I think it's
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: my practice, sometimes not so intentional, but I do believe
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: in this, this idea that we can we can die
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: and be reborn again all the time. And I'm so,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: I guess excited about the present. And right now I'm
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: kind of in awe that I wrote a book. You know,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: I think I think I revisited my high school dream
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: book and it, you know, like what do you think
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: you're going to be and what are you going to
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: think you're going to do? And I found it and
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: it said that I was going to write a book.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, there was something in me at
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen knew this and that it actually is physical
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: in form in the world.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: So with that in mind, why was this the novel
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: that you wanted to debut?
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: With the thing this profound that happened to me. I
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: have to believe the God that I know that is
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: a gift in the oddest of ways that it was
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: given to me for a reason, So then what am
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: I going to do with it? So I've been trying
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to talk about this, and you
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: can see it in my work.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's most profound.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: In love is and then but you can see me
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: talking about it. It's the effects in being Mary Jane.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: You can see me playing with this, but it I
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: had way more to say. And in fact, this idea
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: first became was thought to be a film way back
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: in the day, like maybe about twenty five years ago.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: I started noodling with this idea of taking my experience
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: where I remember taking that HIV test back in the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: nineties when we started to realize, oh, this is not
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: just a gay man's disease, this is this can be
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: for anybody, and you know SEXU we were like, you know,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: very independent and our and our behavior is like, okay,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: well let me just double check here. And I took
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: a test not because I felt like I had it,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: but just because it was of the times. And that
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: two week wait is one of the deepest reflections and
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: you talk about facing what could be potentially a death sentence,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: because that's what it felt like at the time. And
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: to go back and look at your life. I took
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: that memory, and I remember I wanted to talk about that,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: and I remembered I wanted to tell a story where
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: a character had to look back at her life and
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: the choices she made, and that there would be a
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: witness to her at you know, the toughest time of
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: her life, and I wanted it to be at the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: high point of her life, you know, in the case
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: of getting up, going up for a promotion. And I
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: find those things fascinating as we as human beings on
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: one aspect of who the world sees you as. Oh
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: my god, she's got it together, she looks good, she's
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: up for a promotion. But in the inside you're falling apart.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: And how well we are, how well we are resilient
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: as people, But what's really going on with your life?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: And if you think about the statistic of sexual abuse,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: it's one and four I think for women, So if
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: you think about it, you pass eight women too. And
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: then and I think the numbers are still just really
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: getting real for boys, because imagine the shame about even
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: admitting that to happen to you. So I'm always curious
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: about but that happened to a child, but who are
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: they now? And so all of these thoughts had my
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: attention twenty five years ago, and I was trying to
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: figure that out. I also knew back then that my
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: chosen form of film and television that nobody was buying this,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: So I put it on the shelf. You see me
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: working with it in my work. And then in twenty twenty,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: Chelsea John's called me up and she's from Penguin Random
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: House and she was like, Maria, I think your voice
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: would translate to the page. So I now have someone
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: who you mentioned held me in high regard and say
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: mar we need you on the page. And I think
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: the time again twenty twenty was rough for us as
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: human beings, and that level of reflection and what do
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: I want? What do I want to leave in the world?
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: Who am I? What am I about? And I thought
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: I would really like to get this story fully out,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: And this was an opportunity to really reverse engineer the
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: movie in a lot of ways by first being a
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: book and giving me a chance to workshop this story
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: and see if it would have an audience with people
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: want to have a very complex conversation about life, about
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: how how are we still fly aspirational, going after the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: dreams of our heart while shame is tugging at us
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: all the time?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: So I started this conversation asking you about the questions
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: that you ask yourself to craft your stories. So I
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: want to end by asking you one more of your own.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: Because in the Book and the Revelation of Dion, Daphne,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: your main character says, I asked myself for the first
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: time ever, what is the story I'd like to tell
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: about black women? So? If I were authoring, excuse me,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: you said, if I were authoring our story today, how
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: would I want us to be remembered? You have authored
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: a number of stories about black women. How do you
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: want them to be remembered as.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: Human, as worthy of protecting, as human, as worthy of
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: being protected and loved, as is worth being patient with,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: worth value that being fought for. That we are not
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: one thing, you know, We are so many things. We
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: are like this, and we are a reflection of womanhood
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: in general. You know, I think my stories are for
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: all humans, and certainly all women, but the but the
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: special attention to the details of a black woman. I
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: want to be seen because if we can love her,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: if we ca love black women, we would love ourselves
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: enough to change this country and let the country be
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: the leader that it is to help change the world.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do some rapid fire questions. Okay, a
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: character that you wish you had created?
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: Ooh, a character that I wish I had created. Oh
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: my gosh, Oh my gosh, you're hitting me with it's hard.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: I know no that. Let me.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: Oh god, I'm fai.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: Let me do the next one. We'll come back. Which
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: character of yours needs the most therapy? Well, gosh, it's
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: you know, Joan, she actually went to do therapy. All
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: of my characters need therapy. What's one thing from the
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: nineties that kids today will never understand?
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: Kids from the ninety kids today, something they won't understand
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: about the nineties. Guys, this is hard.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: I have marble skits.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: They never understand. They will never understand. Okay, this is
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: a horrible thing.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say how hard it was.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, there's the nineties. I'm not going so that's the early
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: two thousands. I don't say how hard it wants to
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: be that skinny without any help.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, So it's true, it's so true. I'm telling you guys.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it played everybody's life. I like
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: that answer. That counts for the nineties.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: It does, Okay, Okay, Joan.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: Tony Maya or Lynn? Who would be the most fun
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: to write today?
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: Joan Tony Maya or Lynn? Who would be the Oh
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: my god, why are you making this so hard? These
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: are good questions, okay, Joan, Tony Maya, Lynn, m I
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: am so I want to see Lynn.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: What's the most iconic fictional friend group?
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, these are good? But you know her girls?
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: But it came up and was it called gold The
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: Golden Girls? They had? They they were an amazing friend group.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: I think we can learn a lot from them. I
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: think the Golden Girls were really great.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite place to write?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: Oh? In New York, in my apartment in New York.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: I have a totally writing ritual in New York in
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: the Lower East Side.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What's something you believed about love at thirty that
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: makes you laugh? Now?
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: Oh god, oh god, these are questions you're asking a writer.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: And so I my spirit is laughing about something I
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: can't name right now, But in writing, my spirit will
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: tell me what I'm laughing about. And I want to say.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: So what in thirty that I laugh at? I don't know.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to answer these questions. I have more.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: I don't worry. Okay, right, what's a book that raised you?
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: Oh? My goodness, a book that raised me? It's certainly
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: it's going to be Judy Bloom. I was a Judy
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: Bloom nut are you there?
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: God?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: Is me?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: Margaret? A place in la that every storyteller should visit.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. I wish a lot of stories tellers
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: did visit, but it unfortunately it closed recently. But it
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: was Insomnia Cafe. You talk about the nineties. That place
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: was full of writers.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: Something that every woman should try once.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: What is happening?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: I can't answer your rapid fire.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: Every woman should try once.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: Everybody that answers that question thinks of something really dirty
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: first and then gives me a different answer.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: Well, you know what, every woman? I think to be
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: kissed passionately, like on the streets of New York, avidca
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: just kissing your way from dinner, all the way on
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: the walk home. I think that every woman's she experience love.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, grab the question everything, card game if you will, Okay,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: and whichever card calls to you.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: First of all, I love that you have this game
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: and I cannot wait to play this. In my personal life.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: Most likely to splurge on everything. Most likely to spurge
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: on travel and where I stay.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes, you just look like you like a nice hotel.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, why are I leaving the house if
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: I can't stay in a fabulous place in Yes, I
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: want to go to an amazing place and stay in an
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: amazing place, and I will splurge on that.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: Mara brakakhiel, thank you, thank you.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: This is so much fun. You are lovely, so are you.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate getting to know you this way.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Maro me too. Okay, you know what time
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: it is. Today's a good day. To have a good day.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.