Open Form – Literary Hub

“Sometimes People Just Aren’t Ready for What You’re Doing.” Zakiya Dalila Harris on The Wiz

Open Form — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 08:52:15 +0000

Welcome to Open Form, a weekly film podcast hosted by award-winning writer Mychal Denzel Smith. Each week, a different author chooses a movie: a movie they love, a movie they hate, a movie they hate to love. Something nostalgic from their childhood. A brand-new obsession. Something they’ve been dying to talk about for ages and their friends are constantly annoyed by them bringing it up.

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Zakiya Dalila Harris (The Other Black Girl) about the 1978 film The Wiz, directed by Sidney Lumet.

Subscribe and download the episode, wherever you get your podcasts!

From the episode:

Zakiya Dalila Harris: As someone who creates things and considers herself an artist, I find it so inspiring that this movie flopped and now it’s such a fundamental piece of Black culture. That shows so much about how you just never know. Sometimes people just aren’t ready for what you’re doing.

Mychal Denzel Smith: Yeah, absolutely. You never know. And thinking about this film as both a critical and commercial flop, as a failure on both fronts, it raises a lot of things for me. As someone who does criticism, sometimes you’re going to miss what resonates outside of your own sense of what you think of as good. What is quality? What does that mean to you in terms of how you’ve consumed culture before, what history has taught you, what your own taste leads you toward? I don’t know the numbers, but I’m just guessing that most of those critics were not Black.

Zakiya Dalila Harris: Right. Or the ones who were were adhering to this standard of what a musical before 1978 had to be. Had to be.

Mychal Denzel Smith: Exactly. But then thinking of it as a commercial failure, there’s so many questions about why does that happen? And what is the responsibility of the studio for making sure that people know that the film exists?

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Zakiya Dalila Harris spent nearly three years in editorial at Knopf/Doubleday before leaving to write her debut novel The Other Black Girl. Prior to working in publishing, Zakiya received her MFA in creative writing from The New School. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in Cosmopolitan, Guernica, and The Rumpus. She lives in Brooklyn.

Ross Gay in Praise of Kurosawa’s Dreams and Making Beautiful (and Un-Beautiful) Things

Open Form — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 08:53:20 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Ross Gay (Inciting Joy) about the 1990 film Dreams, directed by Akira Kurosawa.

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From the episode:

Ross Gay: I so admire that one of the best filmmakers of all time is experimenting late in his practice, which I aspire to do and I admire when I see folks who are like, yeah, I’m trying to do something I don’t know how to do. Which is also why some of the dreams I remember more powerfully.

This is what I’ve been thinking lately—people who are really good at stuff, who make beautiful things, also make un-beautiful things. To me, that’s a quality. You make stuff, and you’re trying hard. Some of the shit you make should not be beautiful.

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Ross Gay is the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights: Essays and four books of poetry. His Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award; and Be Holding won the 2021 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award. He is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. Gay has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University.

How Magnolia Engages with the Aftermath of Being in a Dysfunctional Family

Open Form — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 08:51:40 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Chantal V. Johnson (Post-Traumatic) about the 1999 film Magnolia, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

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From the episode:

Chantal: It’s a movie that is engaging in really interesting ways with the aftermath of being in a dysfunctional family—themes of familial violence and neglect, and the ways that individuals cope with experiencing those things in adulthood, the way that the past crops up in the present. That’s a theme of my work and something that I’m really interested in. I also think it’s a movie that ultimately is very much aligned with survivors and victims of the family.

Many of the characters are given a lot—and maybe too much—cinematic space to, for instance, go on long monologues, as Donnie does. They’re given space to enact rage against their parental figures, which we see in the characters of Claudia and Frank. They’re allowed to explode with anger at their abusive fathers. Growing up, it was rare for me to see a movie for mass consumption that was dealing with these themes in a way that I felt was aligned with survivors, and humanizing them, and insisting that their point of view mattered.

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Chantal V. Johnson is a tenant lawyer and writer. A graduate of Stanford Law School and a 2018 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, she lives in New York.

Dawnie Walton in Praise of Say Anything’s Gangly, Vulnerable Male Lead

Open Form — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 08:52:37 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Dawnie Walton (The Final Revival of Opal & Nev) about the 1989 film Say Anything, directed by Cameron Crowe.

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From the episode:

Dawnie Walton: The Lloyd character is very iconic to me. I’m about to teach a class for the first time about larger than life characters and how you develop them. I’ve always considered Lloyd Dobler to be a character like that, and I’m trying to figure out why. I read this great little essay about characterization—the writer and teacher Matthew Salesses has a book called Craft in the Real World, which is really brilliant. He talks about character really lying in the difference between one person and another, and that’s where you get the essence of the character.

I was thinking about how different Lloyd was at the time from the other teenage male romantic leads. He’s kind of funny looking, he’s gangly, he’s tall, but most of all, he is incredibly open and vulnerable about his feelings for this girl, his infatuation with this girl, who is not only pretty but brilliant and ambitious and going places. And he admires her and he respects her. And yet the way he courts her was a way that was identifiable to me, that I recognized. Those two things together—I was crazy about this movie when I first saw it, and still today, I’m crazy about it.

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Dawnie Walton is a fiction writer and journalist whose work explores identity, place, and the influence of pop culture. She has won fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Tin House Summer Workshop, and earned her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Previously, she worked as an executive-level editor for magazine and multimedia brands, including Essence, Entertainment Weekly, Getty Images, and LIFE. A native of Jacksonville, Florida, she lives with her husband in Brooklyn.

Why There Are No Clear Heroes or Villains in Princess Mononoke

Open Form — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 08:52:25 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Ryan Lee Wong (Which Side Are You on) about the 1997 film Princess Mononoke, directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

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From the episode:

Mychal Denzel Smith: If you think of the very nature of Irontown, it’s becomes this haven for all of these outcasts. But the means through which Lady Eboshi establishes this is by participating in and bringing about ecological destruction, by continuing to destroy the forest and mine the town for iron and for the production of these guns and everything that they’re using to prosper.

Within that, it’s to say, do you get a pass? Because all of the ends here are the protection of those who have found no protection elsewhere. Do you get a pass for then being exploitative like this? I don’t believe so. But it’s to ask, what do you say to the people who have found that new form of protection?

Ryan Lee Wong: Yeah, exactly. I think this is where, again, Ashitaka’s moral lens is the lens that we’re invited into as the viewers. In one moment he’s getting a tour of Irontown, and he’s really understanding how much Lady Eboshi has done for the people of Irontown. And then in the next minute, the demon force inside him almost has him kill Lady Eboshi. So he is going through this very intense internal struggle to try to make sense and figure out his place within this world. And that is very much where we are today.

How do you tell people how many resources they’re allowed or not allowed to use in this time of ecological disaster? How do you regulate that? How do you model a different way of being in relationship to nature when, for some people, it literally is about survival—and for others it might not be about survival, but it has to do with other traumas that they’re carrying, and that leads them to consume or to be in relation with nature in a way that’s more violent. All of these moral questions are absolutely what we are dealing with right now, and what we’ll be dealing with.

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Ryan Lee Wong was born and raised in Los Angeles, lived for two years at Ancestral Heart Zen Temple, and currently lives in Brooklyn, where he is the administrative director of Brooklyn Zen Center. Previously, he served as program director for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and managing director of Kundiman. He has organized exhibitions and written extensively on the Asian American movements of the 1970s. He holds an MFA in fiction from Rutgers University-Newark. Which Side Are You On is his first book.

Celebrating One-Note Men in Legally Blonde

Open Form — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 08:52:53 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Sophia Benoit (Well, This Is Exhausting) about the 2001 film Legally Blonde, directed by Robert Luketic and starring Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma Blair, and Jennifer Coolidge.

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From the episode:

Sophia Benoit: There’s very little growth in this movie from any male character. Even Luke Wilson’s character, Emmett, doesn’t really change or grow. He’s just a guy that happens to be around and is nice all the time to Elle. And I love that. He’s kind of flat, to be honest; he’s just there to encourage Elle, and she does her own pursuit. I don’t even think there’s that much depth to him. He’s just a kind guy, which is phenomenal. I don’t think that her character needs someone with a ton of depth. They’re probably going to be great together.

It’s one of the few examples where all of the female characters are so much more interesting than the male characters, and I think usually it’s the opposite. I loved the show New Girl a ton, but my biggest complaint was that Zooey Deschanel’s character was the least interesting character on that show. The other female lead, Cece, her character wasn’t that fascinating either. I felt like the three guys were so sharp and so interesting, and they got more interesting as the seasons went on. The female characters never really did.

I feel like this movie has the opposite going on. All of the male characters are kind of one note. They’re fine and they serve their role within the film, but it’s all to serve mainly Elle and then a little bit Paulette. You’ve got Paulette’s UPS guy—we don’t know anything about him other than he delivers packages. That’s all I need to know about that man! That’s great.

Mychal Denzel Smith: He delivers packages and bends over to give Paulette a show.

Sophia Benoit: The opposite movie, the male buddy comedy movie of especially the eighties and nineties, had so many characters where it was just like the woman of your dreams that we really want to date or lose our virginity to, who’s literally just a figurehead. We don’t hear her talk necessarily, or if we do, it’s a two-line moment. And that’s the UPS guy in this movie. It’s phenomenal. Again, it’s just such a celebration of one-note men in the background.

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Sophia Benoit is a writer and comedian who grew up in Missouri and was correctly voted “Most Likely to Never Come Back.” She writes sex and relationship advice for Bustle and has had bylines in Allure, Refinery29, The Cut, The Guardian, and more. She writes an advice newsletter Here’s the Thing where she tries to get everyone to ask their crush out. Sophia lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend Dave, but usually only spouses make it into author bios, so forget about him.

Make More Children’s Movies Like My Neighbor Totoro, Please

Open Form — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 08:42:45 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Chelsea Martin (Tell Me I’m an Artist) about the 1988 film My Neighbor Totoro, directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

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From the episode:

Chelsea: My Neighbor Totoro seems so respectful of the viewers. It allows you to have your own thoughts, bring your own experiences to it and your own ways of appreciating it. And you’re not bombarded with jokes and cuts and action to distract you or keep you paying attention. It just feels more like a conversation with the audience rather than pushing things onto them or having a moral message.

Mychal: Yeah, that’s the other thing about children’s stuff—it’s a morality play. There’s some lesson that needs to be taught, that children need to go forward in life. My Neighbor Totoro feels like, your imagination is the thing. Just carry that with you.

Chelsea: And caring about each other. And trying to see the best in the world.

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Chelsea Martin is the author of the essay collection Caca Dolce and the novella Mickey, among other books. She lives in Spokane, WA with her husband and child.

How MC Hammer Helped a Classic in Asian American Cinema Get Made

Open Form — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 08:51:23 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Elaine Hsieh Chou (Disorientation) about the 2002 film Better Luck Tomorrow, directed by Justin Lin.

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From the episode:

Elaine Hsieh Chou: Art gets distorted if it is, in a lot of ways, an argument. Like you say, convincing—trying to convince someone of your own humanity. Because if that’s where we’re starting, if the baseline is “I’m a human, too,” where can you go from there? You can maybe rise like an inch above that, but you can’t explore all the other nuances and trickiness because you’ve already made the stakes so incredibly low. I really want us to get out of that space.

The executives are still mostly white, so they still hold the purse strings. I was looking at the history of how Better Luck Tomorrow was made, it was basically barely made. Justin Lin ran into I MC Hammer in Vegas, pitched himself—he read the script—and got the last ten K that he said saved the film, that it would not have been made. It just shows that studios are happy after the fact. After something is done well, they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, we stand by this, look at us, we’re so progressive.” But they are fighting you every step of the way to not do it right, to make these characters white.

Mychal Denzel Smith: To the point that you gotta hit up MC Hammer—post-bankruptcy M.C. Hammer—for $10,000.

Elaine Hsieh Chou: MC Hammer, thank you on behalf of Asian Americans. He gets a little plaque in the Hall of Fame.

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Elaine Hsieh Chou is a Taiwanese American writer from California. A 2017 Rona Jaffe Foundation Graduate Fellow at NYU and a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow, her short fiction appears in Black Warrior Review, Guernica, Tin House Online, and Ploughshares. Disorientation is her first novel.

On the Quiet Radical Black Politics of the 1976 Film Car Wash

Open Form — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 08:51:16 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) about the 1976 film Car Wash, directed by Michael Schultz and starring Franklyn Ajaye, Bill Duke, George Carlin, The Pointer Sisters, and Richard Pryor.

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From the episode:

Deesha Philyaw: There’s one moment where Bill Duke’s character, Abdullah, uses a slur against Lindy. Lindy gets the last word and says… I’m more me and more man than you’ll ever be and more woman than you ever have. … The filmmaker didn’t want to give the impression that Lindy had it easy either. That would have been, I think, a grave mistake. But then he used Abdullah’s character to show that hostility. But that was not the general feeling and sentiment of Lindy’s coworkers.

Everybody cared about everybody else, you know? And when I think about why I like this film, despite its shortcomings, I think there’s that aspect of it too. But they didn’t do it in this way that’s like, we’re color blind. Race doesn’t matter. It did it in a way that just felt very natural and very organic, which is these are people who work together every day, who have each other’s back, who have formed what we would consider a family in many respects across their differences. But at the same time, nobody has to pretend to be colorless or genderless or whatever that they make it work.

Mychal Denzel Smith: I think that for me, that moment between Abdullah and Lindy is reflective of what we would now call hoteps, that strain of black radical politics that has always sort of existed. And it’s a comeuppance for that part of it, which is revolutionary, right? He changed his name, Abdullah Muhammed Akhbar. He comes to work late and he’s just like, I don’t need this slave job and all of this other stuff. And it’s focused on the idea of revolution as being something about the black man and they see Lindy as a betrayal of that.

There’s so many more examples of that that come up … like all the black feminist literature of the time that’s dealing with what makes me think of now like a Dave Chappelle, right? You just can’t see beyond the idea that the primary focus of black liberation is the black man and then the ability of the black man to do whatever. But it’s so rich in that Lindy gets the last word there. Lindy verbally spits in Abdullah’s face to say, you don’t even know what it is that you want that will set you free. And I also am assured of myself.

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Deesha Philyaw‘s writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, McSweeney’s, the Rumpus, Brevity, TueNight, and elsewhere. Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, she currently lives in Pittsburgh with her daughters.

On Hal Ashby’s Progressive Portrayal of Disability in Coming Home

Open Form — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 08:51:24 +0000

In this episode of Open Form, Mychal talks to Chloe Cooper Jones (Easy Beauty) about the 1978 film Coming Home, directed by Hal Ashby and starring Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, and Bruce Dern.

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From the episode:

Chloé Cooper Jones: One thing that’s really valuable to me is that disability, or the body itself changing because of war—obviously that’s a really important part of the film, but disability is never the villain. Which I think is important because a lot of times when there’s a disabled character, there’s a narrative—especially a narrative in which an able-bodied person becomes disabled, which is most of the time that’s the narrative. It’s like, “I was a real normal person and then something happened, and now I have to overcome my body, I have to overcome disability.” But that’s not at all what Coming Home is focused on.

None of the characters are villains, there’s no bad guy. The only thing that is being fought against is ideology, the kind of ideology that would lead young men like Luke, who Jon Voight plays—he has this great speech to high school students at the end of the film that’s fighting this ideology of thinking that war is noble or that the desire to go into into Vietnam could ever be seen as anything other than tragic and wrongheaded and leading to great suffering of all types. I think that’s a really crucial thing of the film. When I saw it for the first time, I was really worried that we would get some sort of narrative of “John Voight overcoming his body.” And that’s not what the story is at all.

I think Hal Ashby was really careful. I was paying attention when I was rewatching it recently in order to talk to you about it, and I was really focused on how bodies were represented in the film. Every time you see a disabled character, they’re always immersed in a community or in life. They’re playing sports together, they’re talking and playing cards together, they’re drinking together, they’re complaining together. You always see these bodies in a context in which their lives are very full. Not all good things, but a lot of very human things are happening. There’s no lingering shots of people being so sad about having a changed body. That’s such a powerfully important and really progressive way of thinking about disability that feels super intentional from the director’s point of view.

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Chloé Cooper Jones is the author of Easy Beauty. She was awarded a 2020 Whiting Nonfiction Grant and was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.