Judy Blume & Dylan Mulvaney

[BabyofMine]

I think I just had some sort of revelation.
I’m actually furious. Maybe I’m overreacting but Judy Blume wrote a book called Are you There God? It’s me, Margaret in the 70s. My myself, and I bet many others of my era, it was the first time I ever read a book that depicted a girl going through puberty like me. It made me less afraid of periods, and growing breasts which I did precociously. It meant so much to me.

So there is a film adaptation coming out and I was ecstatic when I saw the news.

Just seen the first piece of promo apart from the trailer that I have come across - TikTok suggested it to me - and it’s a cosy little chat between Judy Blume the author and Dylan Mulvaney. Talking about what it’s like to be a girl, grow breasts and such…
Really, Judy fucking Blume? Why of all people would you choose to promote the movie, which I would presume would have a target audience of preteen and teen girls, with a person that will never go through female puberty, will never bleed between their legs like a girl, never has to worry about buying sanitary products, or a million other things girls worry about.

I’m sure they have their own many and varied things to worry about, and lots of experiences that might be great to share with their audience, but really?

I just feel like I’ve been pissed on from a great height. I may well be overreacting - forgive me, I’m due on.

@CremeEggQueen can I ask. Do you find it helpful, interesting, relevant to young girls, aspirational, or any other positive characteristic to see an interview where a male person talks about experiences of girlhood? Is that male person the kind of role model that young girls should be aspiring to when considering what it means to be a girl and women in the world today?

Every time I watch DM I'm sure it's a parody. There's no line between him and actual parody. I keep expecting him to come out with the punchline 'foolin' ya all - didn't mean any of it!!!'.

I even think he might have intended it as a parody at first and then when the money started rolling in changed his tune.

It's so offensive to girls. Dealing with periods is so hard anyway, and is the point when many girls give up sports, it's unforgiveable of JB to make it harder, which this does.

What the *k

I am so angry at Judy Blume - she is just a huge sell out and I am pretty disgusted at her

Infantilising and ageist, well done.

Oh grow up! How is it either of those things to state the obvious? That an 85 year old woman might be less aware of the trans agenda & how depraved it has become as well as utterly defying logic?

Many younger people would have a similar struggle but it's certainly the case that the world in which much of the trans agenda plays out - social media - is often one older people are less involved in. At one point DM asks JB if she's on TikTok. She doesn't even know how to answer.

the fact she's 85 must mean she's just confused.

I didn't say that. At all. But I also like to try and be nuanced in reply, not rip someone to shreds for ill-advised decisions.

Well she probably thinks, like many of us did once, that DM is challenging gender stereotypes by being clearly a man but successfully performing feminity. That having men put womanhood centre stage and ask women about their experience of femalehood means topics that, desite affecting roughly half of humanity, have hitherto been sidelined to women's cultural spaces, are finally being seen as worthy of notice and art.

She hasn't realised yet, or maybe hasn't let herself acknowledge, that these things are coming into cultural discourse not because women(original female meaning)'s voices and experiences are being reassessed and revalued, but because they are tools to be utilised in service of men(original male meaning)'s new ideas about themselves, and it's that message and male voices rather than anything female that is actually being centred.

Disappointing 🙁

I'm trying to make myself see DM as maybe trying to be some sort of Ali G figure, with a contemporary marketing schtick. And also without the cleverness and the humour. (I didn't find Ali G particularly clever or funny either but I know lots of people did.) But the image won't hang straight.

I think Blume is well enough aware of the trans agenda to have taken a stand in support of JK Rowling. That was very clear and forthright, and seems to have been offered unprompted in an interview with Hadley Freeman. Since then, she's been rowing back, presumably at the behest of her publishers or the film's publicists.

I can only assume the film/book people went apeshit when they realised what she'd said to Freeman and this is a fairly desperate attempt to repair what they imagine is her damaged reputation with young people.

I also assume that she is successful enough to say no if she wants to, so presumably she is prepared to sacrifice her own self-respect for the sake of the book and film sales. Fine. She's the one who has to live with herself.

Oh grow up! How is it either of those things to state the obvious? That an 85 year old woman might be less aware of the trans agenda & how depraved it has become as well as utterly defying logic?
Because it is infantilising and ageist to assume that just because you're older, you're less aware of trans people, and trans issues.
I'm knocking on for 50 and its fucking insulting to be told that because you're old, it must be because you're being made to think what you do, that you can't possibly have your own opinion, etc.....
Grow up? No. Shan't. 😁

Would it occur to you to read my posts in full?

It just is factually the case that someone in their 80s is unlikely to have a full grasp on trans issues. (How could they? I'm a similar age to you & it's bewildering).

It isn't ageist to say that - any more than it might be ageist to say octogenarians will likely have more health issues than 20 year-olds 🤷🏻‍♀️

I also went on to say as so much of DM's schtick is propagated via SM, especially TikTok, most people that age would have no awareness of DM, as was evidenced by JB's response to the question about TikTok

Disagree all you want but at least try to make sense.

I'm knocking on for 50 and its fucking insulting to be told that because you're old, it must be because you're being made to think what you do, that you can't possibly have your own opinion, etc.....

By the way, I'm nearly 47. I don't remotely consider myself old, nor have I ever encountered the opinions or views you seem to have.

Why do you see yourself as old when you are not? 🤔

Bwahahaha. Judy Blume is of ripe Medicare age. She has the right to government-administered Healthcare.

She's a pathetic coward. I'm so disappointed in her.

Pathetic coward, just for having a different opinion to you?
I honestly don't get thr vitriol flung at people who don't think the same, we're not all the same person, we'll have different opinions!

@CremeEggQueen do you understand that people are expressing their own opinions here? Thinking someone is a coward is a valid opinion. No one is asking you to agree or think it's reasonable. People are not immune from criticism because they support your personal ideology.

It's clearly not her opinion though. Which is why she's a coward. I'd also argue that it's not really an "opinion" to think that e.g. Dylan Mulvaney is a man. He is a man.

I don't consider myself old at all, that was kind of the point - that just because you're older, means you don't know what you're on about, and can't possibly be thinking for yourself which is often implied on here, including this thread.

I wish I'd known about Judy Blume in the 70's, when I needed her, or someone like her, with the books she wrote at the time, promoting body confidence in girls etc., but having just watched DM's Twitter video, interviewing JB, I'm so disappointed, to say the least. I'm old enough and wise enough now to know BS when I hear or see it, but if I were a young teenage girl I'd have been more confused than ever having watched that clip. My heart sinks. Such sad times we're living in.

It's clearly not her opinion though
Why isn't it? Asked her directly, know her personally, do you and she told you that she was being forced to say what she says?

I'm sure you're against the vitriol of the trans rights activists then.

To be fair, we often do see, here and in other commentary spaces, TRAs express sentiments along the lines of "who cares what a bunch of old people think, the younger generations aren't bigotted like you. You will all be dead soon anyway". It's spiced with different degrees of "dried up", "jealous", "hag" on so depending on how acceptable blatant misogyny is in that particular forum.

So if someone is spending a lot of time in circles where that is the accepted wisdom, or places a lot of weight on TRA perspectives, I can see one might well encounter the type of marginalisation, dismissal and othering Creme describes.

What in the world did I just join TikTok and watch

Judy Blume talking to Jackie O's ghost about Margaret?

Have I lived too long? Have I been on the gin? That's some super-weird shit.

Welcome to 2023, Vitriol.

Gin actually helps, tbh.

Also, not having one myself, do today's teenage girls think that DM is "one of them"?

.