Pink of Perfection

I “met” Shauna in a friend-of-friend-of-someone-I-once-passed-on-the-street kind of way that I can only interpret as providence. And then, one day, this lovely girl emailed me to tell me we were star-crossed style friends and share with me a little project she was working on she thought I might like.

That project, Movies with Grandma Joy, is, I can safely say, the most exuberant, joyous, fun thing I have seen on the whole wide interweb in a good long while. To give you an idea of its awesomeness, let me just mention that there is a Movies with Grandma Joy music video that will knock your socks off.

The blog is what it sounds like: Shauna and her 73 year-old grandmother, Joy, go to the movies once a week, and post a video review complete with scene studies. The videos are giddy, artful, funny, and reveal all the playful love in their relationship.

Let’s get the hard part out of the way: best movie ever made?

Joy: I think the best movie ever made was Gone With the Wind. My other favorites are Little Women and The Sound of Music. Corny, I know…

Shauna: Most impossible question. It’s A Wonderful Life and Singing in the Rain. Rushmore kind of made me go to film school… but there are so many more.

Shauna, you wrote beautifully on your site about the internet age and how it can promote — and sometimes prevent — human connection. What made you desire a sense of interconnectivity and inspired you to start Movies With Grandma Joy? Any one moment or event?

When I was a senior at NYU, I took a great class called Urban Ensembles, and it was all about creating communities through art. I actually had the idea for the blog there. Whenever I came home for vacations, Grandma and I would see movies and I always thought there was something unique about it. I took this certain pride in it. But then every time I would tell anyone that I did this thing with my grandma, the other person’s face would just light up, and they’d have a story on the tip of their tongue about a meaningful relationship they’d had with someone of a similar generation. I realized that I wasn’t so unique, and that there was a need to encourage that kind of relationship and bond, especially between generations of women, that there was a possibility to use such friendships and ties as a way to bridge a technological gap that gets bigger every day. I moved to Los Angeles and I became involved with the artist Miranda July and I fell in love with how her site with Harrell Fletcher, Learning to Love You More, encouraged such connections through DIY projects. I began teaching the seniors’ filmmaking class at Echo Park Film Center and was introduced to some really cool older people and further realized that there is a want on that side to be more technologically versed, to stay in the discussion.

Truly, it was always my relationship with my both my grandmas and a knowledge that their presence was a great gift that started it. I’ve never taken for granted that I am incredibly lucky to have a close relationship with both of them. They are so different and so strong and funny. Joy and I have always been paired as travel buddies when my family goes on vacations. My parents take a room. My twin brothers take a room and inevitably, I am left sharing a bed with Grandma Joy. We are very much alike, both happy to be left alone to read, both very observant of minute details, both a little ditzy. At the same time, we’re a bit of an odd couple. She’s so short. I’m pretty tall. She’s very Southern. I’m very Californian. I don’t know… We really know each other and like each other and I was always very happy about that and felt we were bold enough in that way, that we could maybe lead by example.

Grandma Joy, how do young women of Shauna’s generation seem different to you from when you were that age?

I think young women today are more self-confident, independent, more educated, and unbiased, but I do feel they are encouraged to be more self-centered, (not always a bad thing) more impatient and more cynical. Shauna, for example, has many more opportunities than I ever had and while she doesn’t take them for granted, I feel that young women of today too easily forget all the hardships that were fought in order for them to have the opportunities they do have. I had to work so hard to be noticed at all as a serious writer in my earlier career and I think there was a certain joy in that, a certain drive, a feeling of “I can do it because you say I can’t” that I find somewhat lost in the generations of late. And I don’t believe we’ve come far enough for it to be lost yet.

Is there anything available to Shauna you wish had been available to you?

Yes! There is more freedom and the chance to be anything they want to be, even president. I wanted to be a journalist when I entered college but the only subjects women could major in were courses leading to “feminine” careers such as nursing and teaching… two of the most important fields I believe, and hardly “feminine” but alternate choices did not exist for women at all. You had to fight to even be considered.

Did life really seem simpler 50 years ago, or do you think that’s just something people say?

Maybe my nostalgic memory makes it so, but I believe things were simpler then; more black and white. Just look at all the decisions we have to make in the supermarket now between so many products!

Shauna, are you nostalgic for anything from the time Grandma Joy was growing up?

Yes and no. I like that I can wear the Patti Smith outfit some days and try to emulate Doris Day on others. But I think I would love to wear those old dresses all the time, honestly! I like the theme of magazines like Bust and your blog, Sarah, that postulate just because we are feminists and should in all ways be equal, it doesn’t mean that many of the details so inherent to past generations of women aren’t important and fun and should be held sacred: crafts, red lipstick, heels, being able to waltz or throw a dinner party. I also wish we could be re-socialized sometimes. I know that the old set of manners was part of a larger society that repressed sexuality and equality but I sometimes wish I could throw out text messaging and e-mails and I would make everyone in our generation take a course on how to talk on the phone. I’m half-joking! I’m just terrible at phone conversations sometimes! And I wish there wasn’t all the confusion about what one should and shouldn’t do on a date now, or what a date is, or that 20 years of Cosmo hadn’t made social games a norm. And I would kill to have seen Ella Fitzgerald or Anita O’Day sing live, or to have been there when Julie Andrews played Eliza Doolittle on Broadway. Stuff like that. But for most things, I’m so grateful to be trudging through this century.

So what’s your ideal day look like?

Joy: I still work six hours a day so my ideal day would be to do some good work. Then eat some good food, work a crossword puzzle, read some of a good mystery, maybe see a good movie or do some dancing with a good partner.

Shauna: Going to brunch with good friends, and then to a flea market and finding the perfect pair of clip-on earrings. Writing a little bit, going to a craft party or a fun pot-luck or something. Maybe seeing an old favorite film like “Bringing Up Baby” projected in the Hollywood Cemetery during the summer. A good, creative day at work. Teaching at the Echo Park Film Center. A day at the beach with my family in Santa Barbara.

Shauna, your site has a great community aspect with its “What we do with heart” section. What do you think are some other ways people can build community on the internet, blogs and in their real lives?

I wish I had a good answer to that question. I like sites that encourage user participation and social responsibility and I think the power of networking on the internet is awesome. I work at a non-profit community center and we utilize the net as much as possible to get people in the door for our events and projects. I like how blogs can be so specific in their content and yet, can reach so many people. My cousin belongs to a whole chain of sites where she writes fantasy stories with other girls from the U.K. to Kansas to wherever. That is so cool. She’s not finding that community in Ventura and she’s found it on the net. It’s a way to encourage creativity and activism person to person but in really large areas. At the same time, I like how just a few years ago, people were making zines to get their thoughts out and build connections and it was this physical and created work that you could touch and read and then give to someone else. There are a lot of blogs. I think bloggers really need to think about what community they are serving. If we don’t lose touch of that, then I think we’re doing okay.

Okay, both of you: favorite music to rock out and dance to right now?

Joy: Ballroom dancing is my hobby and I like to dance to the old favorites twice a week, like In the Mood or I’m in the Mood For Love. I tango, swing, waltz, cha-cha, all of that. None of the heavy metal or rap for me. Where’s the melody? And the lyrics are sometimes repeated over and over. I listen to a lot of Dixieland… I’m from New Orleans.

Shauna: My friend just burned me the whole Dusty Springfield collection which is Seriously Rad, capital S and R. I was dancing to Arcade Fire yesterday morning and I play A-Punk by Vampire Weekend over and over lately. The Blow’s “Hey Boy.” I sing that to myself in my mirror as if I’m singing it to someone else. I get all angry and dork-dance out my aggression. I’ve been sending out my resume a lot lately so I’ve had “I Hope I Get It” from “A Chorus Line” in my head like a loser.

What’s one dream you have for something you’d like to do in your life?

Joy: I should have something noble in mind that I still want to do with my life, but I don’t. I raised some wonderful children, and I am content to sit back and see what happens to them and their children. I already feel that I have accomplished a lot.

Shauna: Go to many more movies with Grandma. Have a vegetable garden. Go to Italy with my mom. Make a movie with a killer dance number.