On Queer Black Girlhood with the writer/director and cast of 'Pure' (2021)
"It's a special moment to see our bodies and our voices be used as a tool of resistance and that resistance be joy."
So rare is it that people find collaborators perfectly aligned in their mission, particularly in the art space. Completing a project like a film requires so many practical considerations that can, in some instances, detract from the creative process. Thankfully, that was not the environment under which Natalie Jasmine Harris’s Pure came to fruition. To watch the short, now available on HBO Max, is to be equally immersed in the storyline and characters as to be engulfed in the palpable sisterhood taking place behind the scenes.
At its core, Pure is a film about love, and what it means to be young, Black, femme, and experiencing that love with open arms. Writer and director Natalie Jasmine Harris wrote Pure in completion of her BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. The casting of stars, Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew (Celeste) and Josca Moore (Joy), came together organically, having crossed paths on previous creative projects.
SM: How did you all meet?
Natalie: So, I met Josca really when I first came to NYU I transferred and we met during orientation right? Yeah. And they were in my first short film Metamorphosis that I made my sophomore year or junior year of college at NYU. And so yeah, it was just kind of like we knew each other as friends. So when I had my second film that I made at NYU, this time for Pure, I really wanted them to audition. So that's how that came together. And then I also had a friend from NYU Alexis Cofield be the casting director for the film. And she worked with Mikayla on a play about Audrey Lorde, right. And so, she had people come in and audition and really recommended my Kayla to come in for the role. And then which is a really perfect fit. So we met in that process Alexis and I'm so grateful.
Mikayla: How I met these two lovely human beings, was ironically enough, Josca and I had also worked together on an iteration of Lourdes. It was an Off-Broadway production that was produced like three or four times as part of a thesis at Columbia University. And it was one of the very first shows I did in New York and I ended up being in the show like three times. And I remember Alexus reached out and said, “Hey, I've got this script. I would love for you to audition.” And I was like, “Yes, like, I don't even need to read it. And then I read and I was like, ‘Oh, I have to audition.’” And that's how I connected with Natalie. And it was really exciting because it felt like it was very divine timing. I think, in connecting with Natalie's work, and having been able to be trusted with the story of Celeste, it's one of the best things I've ever done in New York.
Mikayla, who plays the main character of Celeste is an American actress and activist native to San Diego but raised in Norfolk, Virginia by two United States Navy veterans.
All three creators, Josca, Natalie, and Mikayla have some connection to the DMV area, having been born or raised somewhere in the tri-state consortium and producer of great talent. Josca Moore continues telling this creative story of origin within the team.
“I was born in DC, DMV, continuing that connection,” Josca laughs. “But I was also mostly raised in Atlanta. So I just tell people, I'm from both. And then I came to NYU for college, and I studied acting.”
“It’s funny,” Natalie adds, “because it's DC Maryland Virginia, like literally all three.”
The chemistry between the trio is evident even in this casual conversation of origin. Once all parties were familiar with the Pure script, they knew that there was a unique opportunity to work together to tell this story of Black girlhood.
Moore offers memories of her own upbringing, referencing how ballet and etiquette classes placed an emphasis on Southern notions of proprietary, a theme non-regionally centered in this short.
Josca: I can speak for growing up in Atlanta. I was a trained ballet dancer from about age seven to eighteen or nineteen. And though I didn't do cotillion, I had a lot of friends who did cotillion, or were debutantes or did pageants. And my mom used to do pageants and things like that when she was a teenager. And that's something that we had explored like getting into, but something that we did do in regards to ballet class as an extension of ballet was etiquette classes, which were very similar, but were also in the dance studio, so also a lot different. And there was definitely an emphasis about Southern hospitality that you wouldn't find like in northern states that I feel like is very specific to like it being a Southern tradition. So that was interesting to me moving up here and having that background a little bit.
SM: Natalie, did you always know that you wanted to use this script to raise a discussion about how questions about femininity are complicated, especially when you’re still going through girlhood and figuring it out in real time?
Natalie: Yeah, I kind of always knew. I mean, at first I thought it was kind of ironic to place a story about like, coming out within a coming out ceremony of the kids volume, like it was just kind of funny to me. And, you know, I never did a cotillion myself. I was never in Jack and Jill, myself, but I was always an observer to those worlds and to those people. A lot of them were my friends who were in those groups and things like that. And so I would often just hang around them and see what kinds of things they were all talking about. So, I would sometimes go to their cotillion ceremonies and see what it looks like. And I just, you know, always thought it was a really beautiful tradition, but also one that can be problematic in many different ways and like not for everyone, and not for myself. So, I kind of thought that it would be interesting to explore, to see how it can be if I did a cotillion in that world.
Natalie recalls showing the short at the Martha’s Vineyard film festival, where many patrons are thought to be affiliated with the scene of Black propriety depicted in Pure. The feedback, she recalls, was overwhelmingly positive. Mikayla also was able to apply additional context from her own experience being in a beautillion.
Mikayla: Yeah, it's just one of those things where in reading the script I knew I understood the process and the ritual and the tradition. I understood like the ties that come in with faith and tradition, as well as the kind of coming out to society and developing a certain persona essentially, is what you're being asked to do as a young deb. And I really struggled in my process, even though it was a beautillion just because there were a lot of expectations and standards that I didn't quite know how to meet, but it seemed like I was supposed to just figure it out and know instinctively. We were constantly in etiquette classes and it kind of takes over your life, to be frank, and I didn't really know how to process it in reality. So, being a part of this process of filming, especially, from top to bottom, being able to explore the tradition in a new light with someone who was actively trying to figure out and process their own identity while also participating in this process was really special. And I think it is kind of healing and cathartic for my younger self.
When asked how she intended for the on-screen Celeste to come across, Mikayla replies, “I wanted her to be a human.” This is Mikayla, Josca, and Natalie’s charm in this project. At just over twelve minutes, the short is packed with subtext on what it is like to grow up in the rituality of Black girlhood, without sacrificing the joys the Black girls deserve. So often, Black girls are adultified and not allowed to experience that normalcy, and it is even rarer for it to be depicted on screen.
Celeste (Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew) offers glimpses into the ways Black girls are molded by processes they did not choose, but she is still granted her happy ending, which she claims for herself.
SM: I think teenage years are like a really unique place in the larger conversation of girlhood and we get to see a lot of that with white women's projects. And there's goofiness and playfulness and sometimes absurdity like but we don't get granted that because so much of what we do has to do with either trauma or like how we're of use to other people. So it was just like a breath of fresh air when it's not that way.
Natalie: I did a lot of papers about coming of age stories in college and, um, and I know that one thing a lot of people said was that a lot of Black girls are assumed to be adult beginning at a young age, I think that also kind of as to why there are not really many narratives of Black girls just being and like just being young and, you know, having the same kind of sometimes like messiness or playfulness as like white girls get to have in representations.
Josca: That was basically it. It's nice to see Black girls having fun and smiling and laughing and dancing and just the ending when we're dancing with each other. I remember filming that and thinking at the same time, like wow, you rarely see like Black girls dancing together and just laughing on screen. There’s usually some impending doom.
Mikayla: And even having a voice to be able to say, “I don't care.” Celeste at the end says ‘I don't care what everyone thinks if they see.’ Oftentimes, Black girls on screen are assumed to only have voices by way of stereotype. We can't really communicate our thoughts and feelings because we're angry or we're bitter or where you've been wronged by the world, which oftentimes we have been. Our rage is well earned as Black people holding space in Black bodies in a white supremacist society. But our voices aren't heard clearly. And so we don't get to communicate what we're going through or ask questions or be curious or grieve what we thought we knew as we're discovering something else. And I think that's fun and exciting especially because I remember watching it back for like, the first time, I was like, “dang, I look silly as hell smiling this big on camera.” But that's the point! Because it's so obvious that Jessica and I are having such a good time. And that's it's just it's it's special. It's a special moment to see our bodies and our voices be used as a tool of resistance and that resistance be joy.
I loved this film. Thus article is what made me check it out. This was a great interview, thank you for sharing.