Few authors have established as powerful a bond with their fans as Judy Blume. That incredible connection first manifested with the publication of her debut novel for young adults, 1970’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which shattered taboos by candidly addressing subjects like menstruation and masturbation.
“It was the first time, I think, that an author had written a character that girls could relate to on an internal level, like she was speaking to their internal lives,” said filmmaker Leah Wolchok, co-director and producer of the Prime Video documentary Judy Blume Forever. “She wrote in the first person. And I think readers felt like they were reading their own diary. … Kids just flocked to the book.”
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While young readers flocked, some adults swooped – demanding Blume’s books be yanked from shelves. During an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted virtual event, Wolchok, fellow director-producer Davina Pardo and producer Sara Bernstein discussed the controversy that has attended Blume’s work for more than 50 years.
“Judy today is almost more relevant than [ever. ]… Her books are banned today as much as they were in the ‘80s,” said Bernstein, president of Imagine Documentaries, the unit of Imagine Entertainment that produced the film. “It’s really important, obviously, that young people and all people are given a chance to decide what they want to read.”
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Said Pardo: “I keep thinking about this line [Judy] says in the film — it’s an archival clip where she’s fighting back against the sensors and she says, ‘A book cannot harm a child.’ But we know the opposite is true. A book can help a child, a book can save a child. … What’s been so powerful for me in seeing how connected people are to Judy is how much her books have helped them.”
The documentary follows Blume’s remarkable journey from 1950s housewife and mother to becoming one of the bestselling novelists of all time. Her first husband, the film says, only tolerated her writing habit so long as it didn’t interfere with her raising their kids, and he never read any of her books.
“We’ve always thought of it as a sort of feminist coming-of age-story of Judy and then, sort of alongside that, her readers,” Pardo observed. “One of the things we love about Judy’s story is that the coming of age doesn’t end when you get your period. But throughout her life, she was coming of age.”
Check out the panel video above.
