Jeremy O Harris is at the intersection of storytelling, fashion and queerness. With great style praised by the likes of GQ and Vogue, “the most Tony nominated one-hit wonder” (as Jeremy calls himself jokingly) playwright of Slave Play and Daddy continues to positively surprise through collaboration on a variety of creative projects, such as his collection with SSENSE and Janicza Bravo’s Zola. The playwright achieved a lot of success with Slave Play which has debuted on the main stage on Broadway in November 2018.

Style

CREDITS | image 1: David Abrahams/GQ, image 2: Walter McBride/WireImage, image 3: Micaiah Carter/GQ, image 4: Getty Images, image 5: Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images, image 6: Robert Nethery/ Garage Magazine, image 7: Sofia Malamute, image 8: Antwaun Sargent

Jeremy O. Harris is on our style radar. He has mastered elegance with lively colours, masculinity with femininity and great hairstyles. If you need to liven up your style, have a look in the gallery above for some inspiration.

Zola film review

Zola tells the story of A’Ziah King (@_zolarmoon), shared in an intense and exhilarating 148-part Twitter thread. In the thread A’Ziah shares the story of why her and “this bitch” fell out, adding “it’s kind of long but full of suspense”. The film follows the twitter thread for the most part. However, Jessica refutes A’Ziah’s version of the story in a reddit thread and so does Jarret Scott. A’Ziah shares with Rolling Stone that she is happy her story is told by two black creatives as opposed to James Franco who was originally hired to tell the story. Looking back at Spring Breakers and his stints with Harmony Korine it is clear he would not do the story justice.

Zola (Taylour Paige) is a waitress at a Sports bar (Hooters originally) where she meets Stefani/“this bitch” (Riley Keough). Stefani in reality is Jessica Rae Swiatkowski. Whilst serving, Zola meets Stefani, who is there with an “old ass big ass black dude” sugar daddy. Zola and Stefani start talking and confess they both dance (read: strip). Stefani is portrayed as a seductive blonde with over the top mannerism and an exaggerated, put-on accent. Soon after Stefani asks Zola to join her on a trip to go stripping in luxurious Florida clubs which Zola accepts. Zola’s boyfriend isn’t too happy with the trip but she “fuck[s] him calm”. When Stefani comes to pick Zola up she comes with company; her “roommate” X (Colman Domingo) and Stefani’s boyfriend Derrick (Nicholas Braun). During the car ride Stefani starts a racist rant calling a woman she met a “dookie ass bitch” with “nappy ass” hair, quite obviously making Zola uncomfortable. In reality, the quotes are taken out of Jessica’s reddit account of the story were used to describe Aziah and cleverly inserted by Bravo. Soon enough Zola figures X is Stefani’s pimp when she shares that the three of them live together and that X “takes care of her” and realises she is being coerced into sex work, essentially sex trafficked by X with the help of Stefani. When they are both sent to “trick” Zola refuses to have sex with any of the clients and tells Stefani “your head is broke!”. To help Stefani pay (and also to get herself out of it) she takes the situation in her own hands by making a new backpage ad. Zola is aware that sex is about fantasy and framing which allows her to jack up Stefani’s prices.

The film includes recurring freeze-frames that allow us to hear Zola’s thoughts. Zola’s a confident, clever and empowered woman in a disempowering and dangerous situation. She is not a lost and insecure and she is her own saviour. Unlike other films involving sex work, Zola is not a saviour fantasy story for men but rather an unfortunate and (somewhat) realistic story about sex work, sex trafficking and blurred consent lines full of comedic twists. Throughout the film microagressions are cleverly inserted into the plot, from the confederate flag and Stefani’s “blaccent” to a client telling Zola she looks like “Whoopi Goldberg”. As much as Stefani tries to create this idea of sisterhood and fun, it all falls apart very quickly and it is clear Zola and Stefani do not live in the same world. Zola enjoys sex work and is empowered by it however being sex trafficked was not the plan. A considerable amount of applaudable female gaze is included in the film by Bravo; When Stefani has sex with her clients we see men physically vulnerable with numerous close ups of penises, butts and orgasm faces. Later on Zola is sexually assaulted when she, X and Derrick go to get Stefani back which isn’t in #thestory. The scene is glamorised through use of lighting and colour.

Stefani’s morality in the film is blurry, she is a villain and a victim, neither one or the other. She says herself she is not trying to be saved but is controlled. X is a villain but at the same time we don’t see him as purely dangerous, we also see him as protective and fun. Derrick is lost, he is clueless and too in love to see things clearly. Janicza bravely showed us humanity within evil, something not many directors do.

Being based off a twitter thread the main difference between the thread and the film is pacing. The film felt slow. However, reading 148 tweets takes a lot less time than a 90 minute film so naturally some of the excitement and surprise was lost along the way. As a film Zola is worth watching, Taylour Paige’s acting is fantastic, soundtrack by Mica Levi’s is fittingly eerie and altogether it shows a refreshing take on sex work and sex trafficking (not to confuse one with the other). I am excited to see where Janicza Bravo’s and Jeremy O Harris will go next creatively next.

SSSENSE WORKS

At the end of 2020 Jeremy O Harris collaborated with SSENSE on a clothes and accessories collection. To listen to Jeremy speak about the collection scroll down and press play.

“SSENSE WORKS unites the SSENSE brand with cross-disciplinary creatives to design and develop collaborative products, content, and new narratives. As part of the SSENSE platform, SSENSE WORKS is a standalone product assortment and content extension that creates and builds a tangible legacy of creative collaboration. Initiatives with Jeremy O. Harris, 88rising, Dev Hynes, and Justin Hunt Sloane tap into the contemporary zeitgeist, creating work both cultural and curated—timely and timeless. Through partnerships with prolific talents traversing imaginative mediums, SSENSE WORKS promotes meaningful discourse while pushing the boundaries of storytelling.” (SSENSE)

The pieces feature lines from unreleased text by Jeremy such as “He brought her heart back in a box”, “—aliens and monsters kill—”, “I murdered a desire to blend”, “I made shrines for idols” or “I let myself go”. The androgynous and bold collection features a lot of patterns and bright colours which are common in. Harris wardrobe. The items are mostly the same for both genders with minimal sizing difference which is rare and refreshing to see. The collection was inspired by work from other black creatives such as Zora Neale Hurston, Ethel Waters, painter Jacob Lawrence, photographer Tyler Mitchell, director Janicza Bravo, and the photography of Carl Van Vechte.

CREDIT: SSENSE | Director: Joshua Kissi, Director of Photography (London Footage): Courtney Bennett, Director of Photography (New York City Footage): Bob Hoste, Hair: Shamara Roper, Audio Engineer: Mike McGinn, Post-Production: Weekend Post, Production: Olivia Gouveia / Rosco Production, Retouching: revivethecool

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