We must! We must! Watch this trailer

January 12, 2023 3:39 PM

The trailer for Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret has dropped. Get your hankies Gen-xers!
posted by St. Peepsburg (67 comments total)

It looks hilarious, and I still haven't read the book. I'll do that before the movie comes out.
posted by soelo at 4:02 PM on January 12, 2023

I don't love that when something from my youth gets the movie treatment these days, I won't recognize any of the younger cast.

On the other hand, Kathy Bates I do know, and this was my favorite part of the trailer-
I read that when you don't have any loved ones around, your life expectancy drops drastically. But you know, I've had a good run.

When did Rachel McAdams start getting mom roles instead of love interest roles? Why are the years going by so fast. Dammit.

Blubber was the first one I read. Probably they couldn't make that one.
posted by Glinn at 4:18 PM on January 12, 2023 [7 favorites]

yay it's a period piece
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:20 PM on January 12, 2023 [40 favorites]

When did Rachel McAdams start getting mom roles instead of love interest roles? Why are the years going by so fast. Dammit.

She's a couple of weeks older than me and my oldest kid is in 6th grade so to me she's perfectly cast for this.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:24 PM on January 12, 2023 [12 favorites]

We must! We must!

I first read of this infamous adolescent exercise in this book, but it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that a roommate of mine told me there's more to the chant. Her version was, "We must, we must, we must increase our bust! The tighter the sweater, the bigger the better, the boys are depending on us!"
posted by orange swan at 4:32 PM on January 12, 2023 [15 favorites]

yay it's a period piece

I see what you did there...
posted by jeremias at 4:34 PM on January 12, 2023 [15 favorites]

I think I'll go see it.

Then again, maybe I won't.
posted by not_on_display at 4:36 PM on January 12, 2023 [51 favorites]

There was a more recent red-suited remake of a pivotal scene from the story. Content warning: gross
posted by lalochezia at 4:52 PM on January 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

You wanna know what's throwing me?

At the time I read it (when I was, like, twelve), I had an image of Margaret and her friends all looking...like me. Maybe even a little older. But I'm looking at the cast and - y'all, those are BABIES.

Just like we were babies when we were reading that. Holy mother of God, is that how young we looked too?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:11 PM on January 12, 2023 [55 favorites]

I did not know this was coming. It looks great - but I’m not sure I’m ready to relive it.

Get your hankies Gen-xers! Yeah, pretty much.
posted by Mchelly at 5:17 PM on January 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

This looks excellent.

I was a big Judy Blume fan but somehow I never read this one. I should probably do that.
posted by edencosmic at 5:38 PM on January 12, 2023

Yeah no, older Gen Xer here, I never read much if any Judy Blume (tho I do need to post an Ask about a YA book that I could have sworn was by JB, but I can’t finding a matching plot description on her Wikipedia entry). When I was 12 it was all Nancy Drew and the Oz books and all the paranormal stuff, like Chariots of the Gods. And I didn’t have any friends.

Anyway this looks [long paise] ok.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:41 PM on January 12, 2023 [5 favorites]

Oy, they’re <going to focus on the grandmother?? I fear that the subtleties of the book will not translate well to the screen. That, and, yeah, babies.
posted by Melismata at 5:50 PM on January 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm an Xennial, and I didn't relate to Judy Blume books AT ALL. I think they're cool but they just weren't for me or my peers. Nowadays they are fun but more retro than reflective of everyday life, thankfuckinggod.

I teach middle school at my former middle school so this is my life every day. The cool thing in 2023 is that girls/people of all genders who menstruate can talk openly about this stuff and call their dads if they've had a period accident, etc. Our bathrooms and (male) nurse's office have free period supplies. Boys/people who don't menstruate are chill and know to be supportive and certainly not to tease people about periods.

At first I thought "Why did they make the movie version set back in the day?" And then I realized it's because, in mainstream USA culture in 2023, getting your period/going through puberty/being a girl/NOT being a girl and getting your period has been normalized and it's chill. Yes, life is hard in other ways (omg the environment! the economy! Roe v. Wade being overturned, etc.) but fortunately some things really have gotten better. Judy Blume books are classic but they're kind of passé in that certain aspects of life really are so much better! I'm grateful for that AND I plan to watch the movie but tbh it's going to be great but surely super painful too.
posted by smorgasbord at 5:52 PM on January 12, 2023 [31 favorites]

I read this book in grade 4, thank you to Ms. Susan. Two years later I got my period at Disney World and my mum accidentally bought me panty *liners* by mistake and not only did I visit every bathroom there and had to go every hour and honestly thought my life would be like that forever….what I am saying is I needed a hanky already and can’t wait to see this. I’m glad they did it historically.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:04 PM on January 12, 2023 [7 favorites]

I...feel weird about it. I don't believe all books should be a movie. Not sure I can watch the trailer yet. I loved this book and all of hers.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:15 PM on January 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

Reading it as an adult, I realized that Nancy is a rotten friend ( also slutshaming Laura for having boobs is Not Cool) and Philip Leroy is a dick.
posted by brujita at 6:22 PM on January 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

Really wish they'd spent the time and money making a similar movie for kids today, not us Gen Xs who have already gone through our blood sacrifice and are actually tapering down these days thank Goddess thh
posted by The otter lady at 6:58 PM on January 12, 2023 [14 favorites]

I admit it's been literally decades since I read this book, but I feel like it was a very internal book, mostly one girl's thoughts about growing up and trying to cope with it. I'm not sure how well this is going to work externalized into a movie where you're watching it all from the outside.

I hope it's a good movie, but it does feel like the wrong effort being made far too late in the life cycle of this particular book.
posted by hippybear at 7:32 PM on January 12, 2023 [15 favorites]

Loved the book as a kid. Slightly worried about this, but I'll see it.
posted by eotvos at 8:41 PM on January 12, 2023

Really wish they'd spent the time and money making a similar movie for kids today
Turning Red.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:44 PM on January 12, 2023 [33 favorites]

When did Rachel McAdams start getting mom roles instead of love interest roles? Why are the years going by so fast. Dammit.

We got through Marisa Tomei as Peter Parker's Aunt May, we'll get through this.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:05 PM on January 12, 2023 [20 favorites]

Old Millennial here, but I was reading (and hitting puberty) far enough ahead of grade level that this book was relevant to me at the right time. (I remember praying at age 7 that I wouldn’t develop early, lest my classmates/teachers treat me like the poor Catholic girl who developed early, and…sure enough, within a year, it was all happening. This book was my best reassurance that the torment wasn’t actually all my fault.)

I think the trailer looks delightful. I’m excited to see this one. Thanks for sharing it here!
posted by armeowda at 9:07 PM on January 12, 2023 [5 favorites]

Being a boy, I did not read this book, but I was all about Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing and Superfudge.
posted by zardoz at 9:15 PM on January 12, 2023 [6 favorites]

We got through Marisa Tomei as Peter Parker's Aunt May, we'll get through this.

The three Aunts May (Rosemary Harris, Sally Field, Marisa Tomei) were born in respectively 1927, 1946, and 1964 (putting them in their seventies/sixties/fifties when they took the role). We can extrapolate that the next Aunt May should be born in the early eighties and will be in her forties.

Kirsten Dunst was born in 1982 and thus turned 40 last April. Or if you want a little less meta, Cobie Smulders, Jewel Staite, Anna Paquin, and Anne Hathaway were all born in 1982 as well.

If there were to be a fifth Aunt May, I guess it would have to be someone named Fanning.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:13 PM on January 12, 2023 [7 favorites]

I teach middle school at my former middle school so this is my life every day.

You are my hero. Thank you.

One of the standout moments for me in Turning Red was Priya just offering pads to Mei like it's no big deal. "I've got some, if you need one." What a great no-drama friend is Priya! I wish that I had had a friend like Priya. So you like girls. (Waves hands! I'm a dude! I just think positive role models for girls are great!) Don't be an a-hole, OK?
posted by SPrintF at 11:45 PM on January 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think I read every single Judy Blume book when I was a tween. Including "Forever," which I read sitting on a beanbag chair tucked away in a corner of a public library in the adjacent town in one long afternoon.

I mean, I wasn't going to check it out, was I?

(Also, JB wrote some fiction for adults too. One *very cool* kid at school had checked out "Wifey," carried it around in his trumpet case for security, and had thoughtfully bookmarked all the steamy sex scenes so we didn't have to waste any time on the narrative during recess.)

For the record, Judy Blume is alive and her website looks like it was designed in the 1990s, which is as it should be.
posted by chavenet at 1:36 AM on January 13, 2023 [14 favorites]

Really wish they'd spent the time and money making a similar movie for kids today, not us Gen Xs

As much as I loved WandaVision and Wednesday, I’m a) glad to see movies without CGI monsters and b) a reimagining of an era without serial killers in the woods. But why not both? We loved Turning Red here.
posted by warriorqueen at 3:56 AM on January 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

Another small thing that's puzzling me - what's up with George Harrison's "What Is Life" as the music?

(Not that I'm complaining, just curious about the connection.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:13 AM on January 13, 2023

Being a boy, I did not read this book, but I was all about Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing and Superfudge.

I went from the Fudge books to Blume's Then Again, Maybe I Won't which I was maybe a little too young for. At age 10 most of it just went right over my head, but as I grew older (it's amazing what a difference a year makes) I ended up having more and more fridge moments where suddenly I understood. I think reading the book "early" helped because it created a giant placeholder in my brain with lots of helpful context that was ready to go as I matured.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:58 AM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

what's up with George Harrison's "What Is Life" as the music?

If you're a GenX it's a huge audio cue that it's the 1970s again. (The swash font they're using in the title cards doesn't hurt either)

There are also some nifty little edits where the lyrics mesh with the scenes. (what I feel I can't say as Margaret is looking at a boy and tell me who am I without you by my side? comes up just after Margaret and her mom are cuddled together on the couch)

I see challenges in the marketing of this film and this trailer obviously appeals more to parents who read the book in the 70s-80s than the teenagers the story is trying to reach. But would I take my 14 year-old daughter to see it? She'd probably want to go alone.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:55 AM on January 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

> Being a boy, I did not read this book, but I was all about Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing and Superfudge.

Nothing against you personally but this comment is telling. Being a girl, I read all of them.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:16 AM on January 13, 2023 [27 favorites]

Just because a movie is about teens doesn't necessarily mean it's for teens. Maybe some teens today will love it, but I think the people who read the book as a teen are more the target audience, frankly. I think the studio is hoping GenX will bring their kids.

ETA: The title cards ("One iconic book has connected generations") kinda makes that point.
posted by tzikeh at 6:30 AM on January 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

> what's up with George Harrison's "What Is Life" as the music?

If you're a GenX it's a huge audio cue that it's the 1970s again.

I am GenX. And it's only recently that I've noticed "What Is Life" being used as that kind of clue; that's why I'm curious. Up until recently it was other songs that were the "70s!" tropes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:55 AM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the reminder to go check out the Judy Blume rest stop. (The Jon Bon Jovi one is amazing)
posted by armacy at 7:04 AM on January 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Thinking I was a boy at the time, I went through both the Judy Blume and Paula Danziger oeuvre in high school in the late 80s, and enjoyed them tremendously.

Wondering if I should go see this. I might, as a matinee by myself.

Hearing this has caused my wife to say “And you thought you were a guy?” (I coughed up water due to how deep in de nile I was.)
posted by mephron at 7:16 AM on January 13, 2023 [7 favorites]

Are You There, God? was dated by the time I was the target age for it (1998, my mom had to explain that pads used to require belts) but I still enjoyed the book. I don't think its time period will necessarily limit its popularity with current preteens, Now and Then was a teen girl coming-of-age film that was required watching at sleepovers in the 1990s and it's set in 1970, the same year Are You There, God? was published.

...although I guess the modern equivalent would be a film released today...set in...1998...!..
posted by castlebravo at 7:36 AM on January 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

When did Rachel McAdams start getting mom roles instead of love interest roles?

Paging Amy Schumer.
posted by The Bellman at 7:51 AM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I read this and Then Again Maybe I Won't the same year. Maybe even back to back. I was probably 10 or so. (Cis boy here). I remember being very confused about the girls being in a race to see who would get their period first or last. I understand now that it's a perceived sign of maturity, but given that there wasn't really an equivalent for (cis) boys in the early 90s, the closest I could think of was a wet dream, which was something that you would never advertise to anyone else.

I only remember bits and pieces, and honestly, I'm not completely sure it needs to be a movie. That said, given that they made it into a movie, I really hope it's a good one. It deserves nothing else.
posted by Hactar at 8:08 AM on January 13, 2023

> Are You There, God? was dated by the time I was the target age for it (1998, my mom had to explain that pads used to require belts)

I'm a Gen Xer and it was dated when I read it, in 1980-ish. Belted pads were already a thing of the past. But I loved it.

It's interesting that so much of the discussion is about men-strooo-ation. I hope the movie includes her religious curiosity. It's right there in the title!
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:32 AM on January 13, 2023 [9 favorites]

Then Again, Maybe I Won't which I was maybe a little too young for.

I still don't understand why the paperback books needed underlining, and how he wasn't mortified when the sister gave him one in the hospital.
posted by Melismata at 9:04 AM on January 13, 2023

Being a boy, I did not read this book

Being a boy, in a rural life, with no access to TV - I read everything I could get my hands on (having 2 younger sisters and 2 older foster-sisters, these books were just sitting there, begging to be read) - including all of Judy Blume's works multiple times - as well as all Nancy Drew volumes. (And of course Tom Swift and Hardy Boys - which I could go through about a book every 45m)

(And - it was great, hence reading it multiple times)
posted by rozcakj at 9:11 AM on January 13, 2023 [8 favorites]

Just a note to make you feel old?
If Rachel McAdams had a child at 30 irl, they would be 14 now.
If she'd gotten knocked up by her prom date, that kid would be old enough to rent a car (26).
Let's say the mother of an 11 year old, in a book published in 1970, was 35. The mom character would have been born in 1946.
posted by bartleby at 9:24 AM on January 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm looking forward to this, and I hope I can come across a copy and find out what happened in it, besides the obvious. It's pretty well checked out in the library.

I wonder what girls her age now would make of it. Decent parents teach girls about periods without shame now, and it's a lot more discussed. (Girls being raised in evangelical hellholes that think otherwise are not going to see this movie.) And do girls still worry about their bust sizes? Having a small bust gets you into the best clothes, and if you want a big one, you can always buy it. The world has given them many more and much worse ways to feel sexually inadequate in the meantime.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:42 AM on January 13, 2023

Anecdote: I spotted Judy Blume at a reception in a Key West bookstore that she supports. I hate being a fan at people, so I did not approach, but she seemed very much in her element. Her books did mean a lot to me, but for some reason all I can specifically remember in them is a) Fudge's poor turtle, a scene that gave me the absolute horrors, b) "flensing," and c) chocolate-covered ants.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:46 AM on January 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

what's up with George Harrison's "What Is Life" as the music?

Note that the music of trailers often doesn't appear in the actual film -- the producers are still working on that 'post' aspect while the trailer's being circulated. In this case, however, I suspect the exuberance and subject of this song's official video has some bearing on its choice here, so it may show up in the final cut.
posted by Rash at 9:46 AM on January 13, 2023

Oh this will be delightful!! Maybe it'll open the door for more, like Deenie, Otherwise Known As Sheila The Great, Blubber ... so many great reads as a kid, Judy Blume was and is a literary treasure.
posted by riverlife at 10:36 AM on January 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Born in 1970, the same year the book was published. I think I read it was I was 10 or 12 and just...didn't like it. None of the characters were like any of my friends or me and it was sufficiently dated that it felt really old-fashioned.

I'm glad that people who did like it and/or saw themselves in it are getting what looks to be a decent movie-telling, though.
posted by cooker girl at 11:28 AM on January 13, 2023

I hope the movie includes her religious curiosity. It's right there in the title!

It does. This article--which made me feel pretty hopeful about the movie, based on how the writer/director talked about it--emphasizes the religious aspect much more than the physical issues that the trailer pushes. I think it's an easier tack for the trailer to take.
posted by dlugoczaj at 11:43 AM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I had no idea this was coming out, but will certainly watch it. As a child of the 70s I was a huge Judy Blume fan. I must have read this book half a dozen times, as well as many of her others, including Blubber, Tiger Eyes, Deenie, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, the Fudge series and *of course* Forever. Forever was passed around my high school (along with Clan of the Cave Bear and Flowers in the Attic) with *certain pages* very well worn.

I likely didn't meet anyone who was Jewish until I was in my late teens (or at least wasn't aware of it), but I had a pretty decent working knowledge of cultural (East-coast American ) Jewish holidays, food and vacation spots because of Judy Blume. She was also probably where I first learned about the Holocaust. I grew up with parents who spent a good chunk of years in the Evangelical church. In retrospect, I think Blume's books helped me develop a wider concept of religious tradition and eventually to consider ideas of atheism and agnosticism.
posted by Cuke at 12:23 PM on January 13, 2023 [6 favorites]

....I....I've never read Forever.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:58 PM on January 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Did you go to sleepaway camp?
posted by Mchelly at 1:13 PM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Our daughter (10, fifth grade) started puberty last year and is Not Having It because She Wasn't Consulted about it. I won't be able to show her the trailer because she would be mortified to watch it with dad. Maybe she and my wife will see it. It does look great, though.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:37 PM on January 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Thank God, it IS set in the early 1970s! I was really worried about a pointless update (I wrote a comment about it in the previous thread). TBH I am not a particular fan of Judy Blume-- I read Blubber when I was 8, and I found it so repellent that it put me off reading any more of her books. The new movie looks fun though. I am very, very happy that I was wrong, and they decided to keep the period setting.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 3:49 PM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

they decided to keep the period setting
har har

As trailer music, would also have accepted Suite: Judy Blume Eyes
posted by bartleby at 4:53 PM on January 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Bartleby, I was very close to adding the a (hur hur) in my own comment, but I decided not to, for fear it would be too on the nose. :P
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 7:07 PM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Book AYTGIMM has been updated with sticky strip pads
posted by brujita at 11:59 PM on January 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Nothing against you personally but this comment is telling. Being a girl, I read all of them.

Oh, I would read them now, but I'm not a boy anymore. It's "telling"? What does it tell about me, then?
posted by zardoz at 12:48 PM on January 14, 2023

It wasn’t my comment, but I strongly agreed with it. I imagine what it “tells” is really about our society.

Boys aren’t generally expected to be interested in books, films, or anything else with a girl protagonist. We likewise tend to assume any story about women is somehow beneath men’s dignity to sit through. (The eye-rolling dismissal of “chick flicks” comes to mind.)

Women and girls, on the other hand, are expected to be able to sympathize with a protagonist of any gender, or with a cast of characters that’s overwhelmingly male. I read “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t” even though I was a girl. It seemed like a given that I should care what pubescent boys were going through, because caring in general was a “girl job.”

As a childless person, I can only hope the tide is turning, however slowly. I hope parents raising any kind of kid will encourage that kid to take in the stories of kids who are different from them.
posted by armeowda at 2:29 PM on January 14, 2023 [8 favorites]

I read all the Judy Blume books in late elementary school and enjoyed most of them. Was a boy, remain a boy. Judy Blume was one of the big YA authors. A bunch of my favorite YA books had girl protagonists.

I read all the Little House books. I read all the usual horse girl books. I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. A I read A Wrinkle in Time. I read Mists of Avalon. Later on when I got into fantasy I read Tamora Pierce, and Jennifer Roberson. (I tried but could not stand the Dragonrider books.) The list goes on.

The only books I remember dismissing as 'girl stuff' were series like Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley High. And Nancy Drew.

That conditioning had a much stronger influence on my interest in music, movies, TV, etc. Although I guess my taste in fiction then veering off towards scifi and fantasy as a pre-teen was typical boy stuff, and I may have overlooked authors girls were reading after that.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:50 PM on January 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

> What does it tell about me, then?

That's why I said it wasn't anything personal -- it's not about you as an individual. The male experience is universal, from children's books to medical studies, and the female experience is the exception, from heart attack symptoms to the WNBA.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:11 PM on January 14, 2023 [6 favorites]

The WNBA might not be the best example since women are, I believe, technically welcome to play in the NBA. But you get my point.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:12 PM on January 14, 2023

Ok, I misread that comment, sorry. I would agree that it's a societal conditioning. But I do remember in the 5th grade talking about books and some girls were talking about Are You There, God...and I sort of chimed in something about (even though I hadn't read it) and they laughed, shocked. "Really? You? A boy read that?" or the like. So of course I turned beet red and that just definitively confirmed it wasn't a book for me.
posted by zardoz at 12:32 AM on January 15, 2023

That's relatable; I would have shrugged off that kind of comment from other boys but would have been totally flustered by it coming from a girl. I suppose that's still more or less true.

Also a loose synecdoche with the kind of feelings Blume is good at getting at.

The trailer reminds me of My Girl.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:11 AM on January 15, 2023

Hmmm... I hate going to movie theaters. In that last 15 years, I've probably seen 5 in them. But as a Gen X-er I might have to suck it up and go. I'm a huge JB fan and I think I might have to check some of her books out of the library again.
posted by kathrynm at 5:14 PM on January 15, 2023

I read Are You There God in 5th grade, when I was 10. A classmate loaned me her copy. My fifth grade teacher, Miss G., saw it on my desk and came to talk Very Seriously with me about how it was a "mature" book that perhaps I shouldn't read. After that, wild horses couldn't have kept me from reading it.

I remember being taken aback by its frankness. I don't think I really learned any new information from it other than perhaps the whole belt thing, but the idea that these things that people only talked in private about would be so bluntly discussed in a published book left me a little shocked and titillated. I don't consider Judy Blume to be a good writer and I find her work problematic in a number of ways, but I do think she helped break down some hidebound conventions as to what was considered acceptable subject matter in children's literature.

Incidentally, Miss G. was later fired from that school for being a really shitty teacher after a particularly egregious incident in which she berated a young boy at length and in front of his entire class for only getting 37% on a test sometime AFTER his mother had specifically asked Miss G. not to criticize her very sensitive son in front of the whole class, but to take him aside whenever she had something negative to say to him. There'd been other issues (she really wasn't temperamentally fit to work with children at all) so Miss G. got the axe mid-school year. And she was stunned -- stunned! -- to be fired, because she didn't think she'd done anything wrong. Self-righteous cow.
posted by orange swan at 11:19 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oh wow hello possible new comfort movie
posted by The Adventure Begins at 7:06 AM on January 20, 2023