Forever: Mara Brock Akil on First Love, Judy Blume, and Her Love Letter to her Sons
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Through its authentic, joyful, and moving portrayal of first love between Black teens in 2010s Los Angeles, the Peabody Award-winning series Forever provides a timely, necessary update to the Judy Blume classic.
Episode Description
Today, we’re falling in love with the empathetic, bittersweet Peabody Award-winning Netflix series Forever, a refreshing update to the Judy Blume classic, now set in Los Angeles with two Black leads. In our conversation, host Gabe Gonzalez and showrunner and creator Mara Brock Akil dig into the legacy and revived fandom of her first series Girlfriends, the importance of apprenticeship and craft in TV, and why she wanted to update Forever for today’s Black families, especially young Black men and the parents who want to keep them safe while also letting them flourish. Then Caty Borum, the pod’s Executive Producer and Executive Director for The Center for Media & Social Impact, chats with Dr. Yalda T. Uhls, a research scientist, educator, author, and expert on the science of media and adolescent development, about teens’ hunger for stories where parents and adolescents love and care for each other and work out their issues in a healthy way. Turns out the kids really are alright!