Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Judy Blume Forever’ on Amazon Prime Video, an Inspiring Documentary About an American Treasure

This week in Stirring Our Nostalgia Zones Theater is Judy Blume Forever (now on Amazon Prime Video), a documentary profile of the trailblazing author of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Forever…, Blubber and so many other youth novels that left indelible impressions on people of a certain vintage – and got banned by uptight prudes who loved censorship so much they wanted to make sweet, sweet love to it, and couldn’t FATHOM how someone could so honestly address facts-of-life subjects like sex and menstruation for curious young readers. But, to lightly mangle an aphorism, the proof is in the fudge pudding, as Blume’s admirers far outnumber her critics, to the tune of 82 million books sold, a level of influence, acclaim and cultural relevance that justifies this nonfic biography.  

JUDY BLUME FOREVER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Judy Blume reads aloud an excerpt from one of her novels, and it’s about masturbation, because of course it is. She’s absolutely known for such frankness, a truth guaranteed to set the hook for any discussion of this iconic American writer. She shares her life story: Growing up in New Jersey, she was a grade-schooler when World War II ended, a topic that was glossed over by the adults in her life – adults that she felt kept secrets from children. She hated that dynamic. Her mother never shared her emotions; her father was more of a caregiver, which made his death at a relatively young age all the more upsetting. It happened weeks before she married her first husband – who also didn’t express his emotions much – and became a suburban housewife, raising two children. 

That wasn’t the real Judy, though. She says there was a “bad girl lurking just inside” her, and she “played at being a married lady.” She needed a creative outlet, so she started writing, although her husband dictated the terms, only allowing her to do so when it didn’t interfere with her duties as a wife and mother. (Weren’t mid-century gender norms wonderful? So lovely, and not at all icky or stifling!) She’d send her rhyme-happy Dr. Seuss picture-book ripoffs to publishers, who were quick with rejection letters. She didn’t get much traction until she tried writing prose, and managed to get the novel Iggie’s House published. And then she wrote Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, about an 11-year-old girl wrestling with religion and her blooming womanhood – and the floodgates opened. Nobody had written so frankly about the physical and emotional components of female adolescence, and the world responded with open arms. 

So did Judy Blume create contemporary young adult fiction? Yeah, pretty much. She lived her philosophy of liberation, too — she divorced her first husband, seeking to engage more fully with the rest of the world. And this is when we get celebs like Anna Konkle and Samantha Bee reading their favorite Blume bits, scenes with Blume and her adult children, and authors like Alex Gino and Jason Reynolds lending perspective, context and analysis to a mostly linear, chronological bio. It works diligently through the highlights of her bibliography, delving into her influence and infamous stature as one of America’s most-banned authors. The doc mixes talking heads with in-depth interviews with Blume and archival footage of TV interviews and her famous debate with prissy Christian-nationalist slobbermonster Pat Buchanan. There’s also the scene in which Blume cracks open the archive of fan letters kept at Yale University, after which we meet the likes of Lorrie Kim and Karen Chilstrom, both of whom were dedicated Blumesters who’ve been exchanging letters with Blume for decades. What Blume did for them – well, let’s just say you’re going to need some tissues for that.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Gen Xers haven’t cried this much during a documentary since Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Or spent such quality time with a great American author since Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time.  

Performance Worth Watching: Lorrie Kim and Karen Chillstrom’s stories – especially the latter’s – will break and mend your heart in a matter of minutes. 

Memorable Dialogue: Writer Gabrielle Moss sums up Blume’s young adult novel Deenie: “Come for the female masturbation, stay for the empowerment.”

Sex and Skin: A documentary about Judy Blume wouldn’t be properly representative of her and her work without some frank sex talk. 

Our Take: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. That was the Judy Blume book that wildly entertained me as a grade-schooler. You probably could name one, too – maybe it was another of her wildly popular “Fudge” books, about the troublemaking kid and his sibling rivalries, or more socially potent novels like Margaret or Blubber. Maybe it was Forever…, which dared to acknowledge that teenage girls want to have (gasp) intercourse, and featured bluntly explicit descriptions of sexual relations. These books were all in your school library – well, public school libraries, most likely, taking into consideration the events of the 1980s, which included broad calls for censorship of books containing any material that made grandstanding right-wing politicians and religious leaders uncomfortable. In one of Kim’s letters, she shared with her favorite author, quite amusingly, how the kids at her school are “c-r-e-e-p-s”; in Blume’s life story, the likes of Buchanan and Phyllis Schlafly were the c-r-e-e-p-s who inspired her to become a vocal First Amendment figurehead. 

And hey, guess what, there are c-r-e-e-p-s everywhere, and that’s why Blume’s work was, and is, so vital. She wrote about bullies and racists, sure, but the c-r-e-e-p-s in the subtext of her life story are traditionalists defending a society – read: patriarchy – that squashes sincere discussions about sex and femininity. (She reveals that she was inspired to write Forever… by her daughter, who suggested she tell the story of a teenage girl who has sex and, unlike such characters in mainstream fiction of the day, didn’t end up dead.) Her subversion of the norms of buttoned-up American suburbia will be her legacy, which justifies the existence of this warm, colorful, quietly rousing documentary. And by “rousing” I mean intellectually; Judy Blume Forever is an inherently political film, illustrating how the personal and political can be indelibly intertwined. Stories about girls getting their first period shouldn’t be political, but they were in the 1970s and, unfortunately, still are, as legislators continue to encroach upon female bodily autonomy.

Which isn’t to imply that the film is persistently hefty. Directors Leah Wolchok and Davina Pardo maintain a mediumweight tone that allows for both silliness (Samantha Bee commentary) and seriousness (Chilstrom deeply therapeutic confessions in her letters to Blume). It leans toward hagiography, and arrives just as an adaptation of Margaret is about to debut in movie theaters, but beyond that, it accurately reflects Blume’s earnestness. Stylistically and structurally, it’s a relatively straightforward and traditional documentary, but it doesn’t need bells and whistles when its primary subject is such a sparkling personality whose work engages emotions and intellect with equal ambition. 

Our Call: Judy Blume Forever is a lovely, comprehensive and inspiring biodoc about an American treasure. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.