Mara Brock Akil Wants To Challenge What Black Masculinity Means Today, And How Her “Forever” Character Justin Edwards Is Helping With That
Ever since I can remember, Mara Brock Akil has had first-hand experience in shaping the way I see Black women portrayed on TV. Whether I was in middle school watching episodes of Moesha that she helped write, or aspiring to be like some of the professional, layered Black female characters she created in shows like Girlfriends, Being Mary Jane, Love Is, and The Game, Mara has played a role in my life from girlhood into womanhood.
Well, the esteemed producer and screenwriter is back with her latest project Forever — a teen romance reimagined from Judy Blume’s controversial 1975 coming-of-age novel of the same name. Set in 2018 Los Angeles, the Netflix series follows high school students Keisha Clark (Lovie Simone), a confident and driven track star with aspirations of attending Howard University. Her focus and determination are tested when she reconnects with Justin Edwards (Michael Cooper Jr.), a talented basketball player who balances his athletic pursuits with a deep, introspective nature. Their rekindled friendship blossoms into a romantic relationship, challenging both to confront their personal goals and the expectations placed upon them by their families. Through its nuanced storytelling and authentic performances, Forever delves into the emotional journey of adolescence, highlighting the joys and heartaches of young love. The series thoughtfully addresses themes such as parental pressure, self-discovery, and the impact of first relationships, offering a resonant portrayal of teenage life under a Black lens.
I sat down with Mara to learn how this project was brought to life, the inspiration she sought, and the desire to change the way boys and men, particularly Black boys and men, experience love.
Okay, let me start by saying you have another hit on your hands. I devoured this series!
Mara Brock Akil: I love that. Thank you. I’m really enjoying hearing the feedback. I don’t make these shows just for myself. You make them have a conversation with an audience, and so I’m really thrilled to hear such feedback from you, being one of my early audiences — I consider myself my first audience. I am giddy, and I feel like I’m having my first love feelings. So, thank you!
I instantly fell in love with Lovie Simone as Keisha Clark and Michael Cooper Jr. as Justin Edwards. Can you tell us a little bit about the audition process and how you found your Keisha and Justin?
MBA: I love my art form. It is a collaborative art form. So, after you kind of push that script out, the first phone call is to one of my favorite collaborators, Kim Coleman. She’s my casting director of choice, and I get to talk to her about all the things. I send her the script, get her all hyped up, and get her thinking about her list and talent. Then, my second phone call is, who’s going to direct that pilot? So, I called Regina King.
So the casting process begins like that. When Lovie and Michael, separately, jump off the screen, you pick as many of the people who kind of spark, and then you bring them into a room. I think being together in real life, or IRL, as the kids say, is important. So, we did the individual auditions and mixed and matched different pairings. Then, as soon as we put Lovie and Michael in the scene together, it was magic! Everybody felt the goosebumps. Everybody felt it! Regina and I tried to look at each other during the audition, but not give it away. We felt it. I think for me, as a writer, when I sort of lean in and I start imagining how to write for the voice of those actors, that’s when I know it’s special. That’s what we call chemistry. They changed the molecules in the room when they came together, and then that’s how you know you found it.
Yes, I was so excited when I saw her name in the credits. What was it like reuniting with Regina King on set, after previously working together when she directed a few episodes of Being Mary Jane?
MBA: We’ve wanted to reunite and work together again. I thought this project was worthy of her and needed her because, I mean, though she’s a really accomplished director, what we also appreciate about Regina King is the nuanced levels that she has portrayed in all of her characters and her entire career, even as a young person. So, who’s going to know better how to anchor in young people into the complexity of these characters than Regina King? It was lovely to have her by my side in this moment.
Beautifully stated. When you talk about actors with range, and I don’t just mean on-screen, Regina is at the top of my list. What was that conversation like before she officially signed on to direct?
MBA: What’s lovely about working with other storytellers is that it’s about the story. I think that’s how you know who to work with — it’s about how you can be in service to the story. Does my skill set, my instincts, and my passion about it serve the story? And so we talked about the story, we talked about the love of our sons, we talked about the love of the times, we talked about our love of Los Angeles, and we talked about what we wanted to say. We were aligned on what we wanted to offer the culture, which is space and time for our young people to know each other, know thyself, and give them some room for their rite of passage…to give them room to negotiate. And then maybe see and learn through Justin and Keisha, from how they can negotiate and navigate their own lives, and give permission for them to want love and want to be loved. I think that’s a lot of what we talked about.
We also talked about the visuals we like. They needed to be top tier. This needs to be both epic in scope and detailed in its intimacy, and that’s going to cost some money. So, I’m very happy that we had Netflix as a partner who understood what we needed — like Michael Fernandez, the cinematographer, who provided the look of the show; Suzuki [Ingerslev] as the production designer, Mynka [Draper] and Tanja [Caldwell] as our costume designers — they understood what we needed and what tools through craftsman to use to tell the story.
BuzzFeed: It truly takes a village, and as a collective, you all truly blew it out of the water!
MBA: Thank you so much!
You have played a pivotal role in bringing impassioned projects about Black women, love, and friendship to the small screen. The storylines are relatable, and even when they don’t have a personal connection, they’re effective. You typically explore the lives of adult Black women, but this time you’re focus is teenage love. Tell me about that experience and any inspiration you found along the way.
MBA: I approach a lot of my work with who’s going to be my muse, and at the time, you know, I’m so focused as a mother on my children and wanting them to be happy, healthy, and have a future. So, that was natural, because that’s a daily need, and that’s a daily activity, so I just borrowed from that. I’m thankful that my eldest son allowed me to take some details from his life, which also match a lot of other children’s details, so they weren’t specific to him. He’s just the window into a world that exists. It just made me start to look at [the children] and just sort of pay attention to them and their awkwardness, their confidence, their swag, their language, and how they are trying to navigate all of this. Oh, music was another big one! I mean, again, I have a teenage son who always wants the aux in the car, and I was the parent who allowed him to listen to a lot of his music. I did that because I wanted to know what he was listening to. I felt like every fourth song I was given a lecture, but the point is, those lectures got us into conversations about what they were thinking, and what’s going on in the parent dynamic, and as much as I can get out of the peer dynamic. So, that was an influence.
My own experience with my son as a muse, the music of the times, Los Angeles — you know I love this city — and I want to make sure that a lot of it is represented. When you think about Los Angeles, we’re thinking about people who ride the bus, people who live off of Slauson [Ave.], people who love their families, and like to eat Mexican food. Even the idea about Black culture too — our young people across the nation have these amazing sort of rites of passage, or their sort of debutante balls, called Black prom. Some of these traditional ideas that we don’t get to participate in, we’ve created our own culture to celebrate our children’s rites of passage and coming-of-age. I wanted to put that in the show. So [the inspiration] is always going to be the culture, it’s always going to be us and what is happening to us in real time.
BuzzFeed: And it’s the little touches in the show, like Black prom, that make the impact so much greater as a viewer, because that is a tradition that a lot of Black families hold for their children. Where I’m from in Jersey, the pre-prom, where you show off your ensemble in front of your family and friends, is called a Showcase. We really put on a show!
MBA: Oh, we call it the Champagne Party or the Champagne Toast. It’s funny, but the same thing… like you said, it’s a whole show. Yes, it’s almost better than prom!
They are linked to family. Those events are actually a chance for mom, dad, grandparents, aunties, cousins, everybody to come around. It is infused with that, and then they go off to their peers. But some of the joy and the big highlights are at that moment, which is very interesting.
Speaking of the times, within the last decade or two, technology has really transformed the way we communicate with each other and what it means to connect, particularly with younger generations. Sometimes, the lines of what information should be shared online can get blurred. Phones and social media played a big part in the series. Why did you find it important to incorporate technology as an extra character in the show?
MBA: I was finding that technology, though it is a convenience for us, a need for us to connect, it’s something that can also be very disconnecting. You don’t really know what they mean through a text. You don’t really know the full context of something until you’re kind of in person. I think love is best in person. Trying to find a love story that has the challenges of being in-person, when you’re in a private white institution, sometimes your choice of who loves you or who even thinks you’re cute might be limited. If you’re the only Black boy, or the only Black girl, or one of the very few of them, you don’t really get a pool of people who might think you’re interesting. So, the phone sometimes allows people to find each other. But then, what if you don’t drive in a city that requires cars? So, going through those ideas was fun to put into play and make any love story that’s really about miscommunication, a part of the journey, and the plot about these two people, whom we are rooting for to be together. Because whenever they’re together and whenever they’re connecting, they seem to make a really good impact on each other.
Earlier, you mentioned your eldest son being your muse and chatting with Regina about your boys to help shape the vision you had for Forever. Typically, the romance genre is centered around the woman’s point of view. Even romance-focused movies and books are deemed chick-flicks and chick-lit. The male perspective is rarely at the center. With Forever, we get the dual point of view from Keisha and Justin, but I feel like Justin’s perspective was the main focus here. It was refreshing to see a neurodivergent Black boy openly and honestly express his feelings with his family, friends, and love interest, without being shamed. Nowadays, terms like “simp” are thrown around, which I think discourages men from being vulnerable, but Justin wasn’t afraid of that. Why did you decide to go that route with Justin?
MBA: I think the reason why we have those terms like the simp is because we keep projecting one type of image for Black men, and we don’t often get that many chances to project any images of Blackness. If you’re only going to that one idea of what Black-masculinity is, it’s very limiting for Black boys and for me. When I was talking to Judy about the book and the translation of it, you know, Katherine (the female main character in Judy’s book Forever), at that time, was considered the most vulnerable. Having just the onset of the birth control pill allowed her to be this entry point into the world, exploring herself, and her sexuality. But I would posit that young Black boys are the most vulnerable entering that stage because of the way society deems them, before they even open up their mouths. They’re oftentimes considered a threat, especially if they’re dating outside of their race. They are going to be seen in the historic lie of America a lot of times. So, I posit that the Black boys are the most vulnerable. That’s number one.
The second level is that the book talks a lot about Katherine’s emotions, thoughts, and feelings. And I thought, I’m curious about a lot of Black boys’ emotions, thoughts, and feelings. I thought that was worthy of making Justin the Katherine in the book, so that we can make space for the awkwardness of growing up, the vulnerability of growing up, the swag, having one dream and finding another, and do you even have the permission to change your mind? Basically, all of these ideas that get stuck in the notion that you’ve got to be one way to be [a Black man] — to be hard or to be strong. Michael Cooper’s smile that he gives to Justin…I noticed that sometimes our young men don’t even want to smile in their pictures. I would love to change or give more options for what Black masculinity can be in an image that can be reflected back. I want to give men and young men all over the world a chance to be more vulnerable and honest about their desire for love and wanting somebody to love them back, and how precious that is to them, just as much as we’ve over-indexed how precious it is to girls. It is also very desirable for boys. But where can they say that? Well, now maybe Justin can help shake that up a little bit.
I really hope so. I loved how Justin didn’t allow outside influences to dictate his personality. Even when his best friend tried to deter him from getting serious with Keisha, Justin continued to follow his heart instead. I felt really proud of him in a way.
MBA: I think when you fall in love, you want that feeling. And he didn’t let go. And I’m proud of Justin, too. Justin’s like, I felt something I have not felt in a long time or ever. I think the love of Keisha woke him up, and it woke him up to more of who he is, ultimately. I think that’s what love can do. I think that it will also help you tell your friends I’m going this way — you might think this, but I’m going to go this way. That honesty, that authenticity, makes great leadership. That’s what I think Justin is: a great character to lead us into a new era of what love can be.
BuzzFeed: I couldn’t agree more!
Lastly, people have become more and more vocal online when it comes to fictional characters who are, or who fans believe to be white, being “swapped” with Black actors. Did you have any hesitation about getting behind this project because of that specific type of backlash?
MBA: No, not at all. I don’t move like that. My whole life, I’ve been asked to imagine stories through a lens of whiteness, and so I’ve done it. I’ve done it without any uproar, and I feel like other people can do it too, you know? If there is backlash, I actually think it’s only going to help the show.
BuzzFeed: The more publicity the better [laughs]!
MBA: Exactly [laughs]! The more you talk about it, the better.
