Love Lives - Diversity in love stories, with Bolu Babalola

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

Support Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millennialloveThis week, Olivia is joined by author and writer Bolu Babalola, whose new book, Love in Colour, offers up a selection of ancient love myths that she has rewritten to make them contemporary and diverse.A far cry from the white-washed Disney films and fairytales so many of us grew up watching and reading, Babalola's stories offer a more universal depiction of romance.We talk about how she was inspired to write the stories after seeing a lack of black characters in romcoms, how fairytales impact the way we behave in relationships, and why Babalola thinks the online dating scene is 'atrocious' for black women in London.Follow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twas the season of chaos and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. This week I am very excited to be joined by author and journalist Bolu Babalola, whose new book Love and Colour is a selection of ancient love myths that she has rewritten to make them contemporary and diverse. There's a real feminist thread running through all

of the stories which focus on women who don't have to rely on men to save them, as is the traditional narrative in romantic folklore. It's a response to Boli's growing up and seeing a lack of black love stories and black characters in the rom-coms and love stories in the mainstream. Enjoy the show. Hello. Hi. How are you doing? I'm good, thank you. I'm doing okay. How have you been finding

lockdown? I mean, we're not really in lockdown so much anymore, but you know, how have you been finding general lockdown? It's funny because, you know, I'm a writer and I've been in book mode for the past few months, even before lockdown, so I've been doing lockdown so um I went to LA for like a few weeks for my birthday and work in February came back in um first week of March then it was lockdown but I was editing my book anyway so I would have been in lockdown anyway so I guess it's affected me in in the fact that I haven't had the option to go out and meet my friends but ultimately it didn't really affect my my life that much you know apart from the whole weirdness of a global pandemic of course yeah I I know the

feeling I'm um I'm also writing at the moment so it's um it's kind of a gift in a way because it's like well I would have to be isolating anyway so exactly it's quite, it's quite handy. I want to ask, you call yourself a romcommercer. Is that how I say that properly? Yeah. Okay. Tell me about that. What do you mean by that? I love romcoms and I can select a romcom that's for your needs, whatever you want, whatever you're in the mood for. I've probably got one ready for you in your mind. Don't test me on that because that's a lot of pressure, but generally that's what your needs whatever you want whatever you're in the mood for I've probably got one ready for you in your mind don't test me on that because that's a lot of pressure but um generally that's what it is and I think um yeah I can break them down I can break down the genre of rom-coms I know the exact kind of rom-com protagonists um the the tropes everything

um it's really just like my area of expertise I probably shouldn't really say that because that is a lot of pressure but as far as things I'm good at I think that's the thing that I'm you know good at the most interesting I I love rom-coms I think the term itself actually can sometimes sound a bit derogatory can't it like it sounds like the term it's like it's kind of been misused a bit what are you what are your some of your favorite rom-coms and and why are they your favorites um when harry met sally um brown sugar because i love brown sugar and when harry met sela because they're very similar kind of films and um they're friendship based rom-coms i love um

my best friend's wedding even though it's kind of like an anti-ron con because Jules is like such a anti-hero like she's a mess but I love her and the thing is they are in love they just they're so scared to to approach it and they're scared to confront themselves about them especially my about it especially Michael um but I love that I love that movie um oh god there's so many I don't even know where to start I love tv rom-coms as well especially in recent years because rom-coms on the big screen have kind of taken a dip so I've you know looked for them in things that I couldn't see on television so New Girl uh Lovesick uh Catastrophe um Insecure shows like that Catastrophe I'm such a fan of I love the ones

that are they're just messy and realistic and they just show all of the you know messiness of real relationships like I think I mean I love when Harry met Sally as well but the thing that annoys me about that film is that it has such a it's such a predictable ending and but I still love the film but I kind of the rom-coms I find myself more drawn towards are the ones where it's not the happy ending and they don't end up together and there's a reason for that and it's it's very clear I think that's but that that can still be romantic I think sometimes be romantic and I don't even mind mind the predictability of rom-coms that have happy endings, because for me, rom-coms are formulaic, and that's fine.

I think people say that as a derogatory thing or something that's so negative about it, but I don't think that's bad at all. The thing is, it just triggers you to be more creative with it, and it's all about the journey and the obstacles. And most times, the most obstacles are internal. It it's about fear it's about feel of being exposed it's about feel being honest with ourselves um and I just love a good happy ending that's why in my book all all the stories have well yeah most of the stories have happy endings if not open ended ended endings in which you can

infer a happy ending so yes so I want to ask you about the book so Love in Colour so it's such a necessary and important book kind of reimagining folklore I suppose um and myths about romance so can you tell the listeners a bit about um what inspired you to write this book and basically explain what it's about for those who might not know? So what inspired me to write this book? I think, you know, we're used to seeing stories like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. And we assume that fairy tales come in this form, this Disney-fied form. And it's for white people and for women who are white and skinny and fulfill this kind of societal idea of beauty and also in these stories the women are kind of waiting to to for a man to save them

and I just realized that maybe the reason why, part of seeing black people and people of colour humanised is also seeing them have access to love on the mainstream since love is really what binds us as humanity and I feel like locking marginalised communities out of

that in terms of representation in media is a really, really insidious way of dehumanising us. And also just people don't notice it as well. They grow up with, very tall, grow up with movies and think, okay, this is what love is. And this is how love should be. And this is what I expect love to be like. And we are never part of the narrative. So part of it was like, it wasn't as if I wanted to combat it because when I write, I'm naturally going to write about black so part of it was like it wasn't as if I wanted to combat it because when I write I'm naturally going to write about black people but it's something that I just wanted

to highlight in this collection and also in doing this collection I really learned so much about so many different cultures including my own um and just discovered like Africa for instance I mean I knew it before but it really honed in how Africa is like its own entire universe so many different cultures so many different languages and it's so beautiful and it's something that we've just been barred from um the mainstream it's so interesting isn't it because with fairy tales and with Disney films obviously you know for a lot of millennials those are the love stories that we grew up watching and reading and I think like you said it's so important to be able to see yourself

represented in those stories because otherwise it's like oh well I don't look like that I don't have a body like that and those are the kind of people that are worthy of love those are the people that you know fall in love and have these amazing stories and I won't have that unless I look like that it really it's quite subconscious but I think it really shapes your understanding of romance as you grow up doesn't it yeah it really does um especially as a black woman especially as a dark-skinned black woman because then within that you have colorism and then you have um light-skinned women seen as more desirable because of their

proximity, their seeming proximity to whiteness. So yeah all these things play a factor in how we see ourselves and how society sees us as well and though we don't want to define ourselves in comparison to whiteness it's important to just highlight our own stories and our own narratives and amplify them can I ask what you make of some of the more recent um Disney films that that have incorporated princesses and princesses of color and they're not they're not just the white heroines that we kind of grew up seeing do you think that's kind of like a do you find it tokenistic or do you think it's it's worthy and that's exactly you know how it should be done I don't think that's kind of like a do you find it tokenistic or do you think it's it's worthy and that's exactly you know how it should be done I don't think it's tokenistic because

naturally they'll start making um I think it's good that they're doing that but you know Princess and the Frog she was frog for like most of the movie so I mean it's okay but I just feel like we need to just generally diversify how we see romance in the landscape. I want to ask about one of your newer stories in the book that I really loved called Orin. And it's all about really, really awful dates, which I'm sure is something that a lot of our listeners can resonate with. And it certainly resonated with me. Can you tell me a bit about what drove you to to write that story was it inspired by some of your own bad dates? Orin is like my favorite story I shouldn't really even say what my favorite story

but it is because it's me Orin is like basically me like you know obviously fictionalized a little bit but yeah and Deji is like the kind of guy that I'll go for or do go for um yeah and a bad date is absolutely based on one of my bad days I just really hope he doesn't listen to this podcast or read the story um can you explain what the story is about for this for listeners yeah so this girl is on a bad date uh spoken word live music event it's like spectacularly awful dates and there is a guy also at this event and he's noticing her bad day and kind of taking pleasure he's entertained by it I should say meanwhile uh it turns out that he is also on a date that's not exactly going well either um and to kind of throughout the story kind of take the piss out of each other for their terrible

dates and eventually they end up bonding over it and realizing that they click and um organically so it's just about how you know love isn't always linear romance isn't always linear you never know when you're going to meet somebody and also I just like the fact that it's so organic and I'm, I love that feeling of meeting someone and just that initial spark and all of the stories have their own little illustrations underneath the title and their illustration is just like sparks because that's really what the story is about. I think particularly now it's lovely to read stories about organic romance, like you said, because now in the world of dating apps, love is kind of like a commodity and it's become almost sterilized and it's really like systematic. You go on the app and you find someone. It's very clinical and it totally strips away the spontaneity and the excitement of it.

And I know you said recently in an interview that you don't use dating apps is that right yeah I don't use them when did you when did you make that decision have you ever used them or just you never wasn't even a decision I tried them and like legit I actually feel sick whenever I use them I tried it once I think I talked to a few guys but it's just not me and there was so much freedom and I realized that oh it's just not compatible with who I am and that's okay because at first I felt like a weirdo I felt like a weirdo because everybody's using them but if just because it works for other people doesn't mean it works for you and I think people just need to realize that everybody has their own kind of preferences

and how they like to use someone and of course it would be way I'm sure it'd be way easier well actually I'm not sure but it might be way easier if I use apps but it just doesn't I just don't like it I just feel like it's so weird for me having to like almost perform and also you're both like there with there's this pressure of like okay we're just we're both here to meet somebody and we just both like are hoping that we click rather than just meeting someone and like see if you click or like you don't it's just it's a different thing and also my black women and apps are hell for such a minefield um the study saying that black women and asian east asian are like the least desired on these apps um and yeah and then even

if you are desired you have to navigate like maybe fetishization and things like that so it's yeah it's a lot I just can't be bothered with it yeah I mean I really I don't blame you I I can't be bothered with it either it's for me it's also just like you said it's that it's that kind of pressure to perform and also just the way that it totally strips the dating experience of like any ambiguity and that's the part of the fun isn't it like when you meet someone and you and you like them you're trying to figure out if they like you too and that's what makes it exciting whereas if you're both on a dating update it's like okay so we know that we both are attracted to each other or we like something that the other person said in their profile and now like let's do this and see if it

works it's like it's like a social experiment it's just it doesn't feel natural at all exactly but you know like you said it does obviously work some people I mean I have lots of friends that are in really good relationships and they met off dating apps but yeah I know someone who married someone off of a dating app but she was literally she wanted to get married she kind of like literally like you know when someone approaches something with a plan and so it's fine for that because she was like okay this is what exactly what I want to do but for me it's just yes not compatible with who I am. You said in an interview recently that you think love and romance are kind of seen as like innately feminine concepts do you mean that in terms of popular culture or more generally and pop culture

but also generally but culture is kind of generally anyway like I think a lot of men don't want to be seen as loving romance or liking romance or what seeking actively seeking romance because it's seen as soft and soft is seen as weak and also romance isn't just soft it can be really steely and really hard and really kind of it's a really kind of galvanizing strong thing but it cannot be soft at the same time and I think people just can't coalesce the two in their mind and think that softness just naturally equates to weakness. Yeah, it's interesting that, isn't it? Because when I read that quote from you, I was quite struck by it because I never really thought about it like that.

But you're right. And it's almost whenever a man expresses something, you know, a positive view about rom-coms, for example, it's almost like seen as an effeminate comment, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. about rom-coms for example it's almost like seen as an effeminate comment isn't it yeah exactly um and it's so weird because romance is such a universal thing like women aren't just doing it on their own like everybody's attracted to everybody like it's it's not something that is exclusive to us you know and we're not doing it on our yeah when it's not something that we're just going through by ourselves so it's a really strange it's a really strange phenomenon I think.

Can I ask how you think the the myths perpetuated about romance by fairy tales and Disney films kind of shaped the way that you behave in relationships or previously behaved in relationships? It's gonna sound really arrogant but honestly honestly didn't like it really didn't um because i you know my there's a story based on my parents um in the book and their relationship was one based on friendship friendship and equality and so yes it was nice to see you know the well i don't know the princess being swept by the prince it didn't move me in any which way I was like okay that's nice but it wasn't really something that I saw after in relationships what the thing that I saw after in relationships was friendship ultimately that was it um obviously it's like I think that um whoever if you're in a relationship

it's lovely to be cherished and you should be cherished and um you should be doted on but the thing that's most important for me is that connection and that spark um yeah which is like why Orin was such a fun story for me because they have that yeah because I think for for a lot for longevity know, the most important thing with your partner is that you are genuinely best mates, isn't it? Exactly. Exactly. And that's so fun. Like, I don't really think I can't think of anything hot than just like laughing with someone, laughing at the same thing and clicking over the same thing and just really enjoying each other's company and also being attracted to them. It's just great. Yeah, it's it, it's hard to find all of those different aspects kind of need to be interwoven together because, you know, like you said, it's easy to

get on with someone as a friend, but then you both have to have that mutual like sexual attraction as well. Exactly. Hey, it's Mitch from SideNote Podcast, and I'm here to tell you about the new Google Pixel 9 powered by Gemini. Anyone who knows me knows the Pixel has always been my favorite out of all the phones I've ever had. Now with Gemini built in, it's basically my personal AI assistant. Since I'm truly terrible at keeping up with emails, I use Gemini to give me summaries of my inbox, which is a lifesaver. And if I'm feeling stuck creatively, I just ask Gemini for help and bam, instant inspiration. You can learn more about Google Pixel 9 at store.google.com. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era,

dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals no pressure to be who you're not just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are so no matter your era make it your best with peloton find your push find your power peloton visit peloton at onepeloton.ca you you tweet quite a lot about relationships. And I wanted to pick you up on a few things that you said recently. So I think last week you wrote, being attracted to men is so embarrassing.

The bar is so low. We're like, and when I talk, he listens. Now that really resonated with me because I think that is so true and we are straight women are so quick to praise men when they show them the slightest sign of I don't know interest in what they have to say or you know they hold the door open for them or like anything tiny because you like you said the bar is literally so low and I don't think it's just about the way you act um you know in in the initial stages of a relationship I think even sexually the bar is so low you know yeah as soon as a guy does something generous you're like oh my god oh my gosh yeah

so um tell me tell me a bit about that and what inspired that tweet not really inspired because i was no because just inspired by the conversations that i have with my friends and also what i like about my guy like it's just the fact that it is the fact that he listens and also it just says the state of straight men in general they don't listen they really don't so when a guy actually behaves like a normal person that's interested in you and looks you in the eye and is engaged with your interests and asks you questions and values the words that come out of your mouth it seems like an incredible phenomenon even though it really shouldn't be because how

many women in our lives do we know who do that you know um but yeah it was just inspired generally by like conversations that I have with my friends because as soon as when they like a guy that's one of the first things that they say why why do you think the bar is so low for straight men why is that is they because of the state their state of being because it's really hard to find somebody that listens genuinely um so when you find someone it seems like it's fine with someone who does it seems like it's just this incredible special thing when really it's the least that we deserve the very very least that we deserve but I think it's just that men maybe we need to hold them to higher standards I don't know maybe they'll they'll rise up but part of me feels like we've been trying to do that for years and it hasn't happened yet so um another

thing you said recently that I wanted to ask you about um was that you said the dating scene for black women in London is atrocious uh did you mean did you mean pre-lockdown in lockdown or just generally and if so generally generally why do you think that is? Well, because of desirability politics and white supremacy. So black women are seen as the bottom of the pile, basically. It goes from history and we were seen as white women were the pinnacle of femininity and black women were meant to be the antithesis of this.

We're meant to be hyper-masculine, gr're meant to be hyper masculine grotesque beastly and so those things are perpetuated in so many small ways that's why when we watch tv there's a dark skinned black woman she's painted as aggressive we never see a black woman especially on british tv being cherished and loved and enjoying soft the soft romance and if she if we do i can almost guarantee it will not be um a dark-skinned black woman and i think the the most uh the last show i remember on british tv showing a black dark-skinned black woman in love was noughts and crosses and noughts and crosses is literally about race and is about racism and so that was a very conscious decision um that was the point but um yeah we just don't see that and so that that kind of thing perpetuates itself into society

colorism and racism and so you're battling it from all sides but yeah it's really difficult yeah i think you made a really interesting point there about noughts and crosses being one of the only shows to feature a dark-skinned black woman and like you said it's a show about race like that obviously you know it's brilliant to have that representation but at the same time wouldn't it be so much better to have a dark-skinned black woman in a show that has absolutely nothing to do with race and it's actually just a black woman being loved and I love Nought Norton Crosses I grew up on it um so it's like it's more of the thing that I want Norton Crosses to exist alongside um other representations of um black women being in love and and um I mean race war is part of our existence it's not the

fact that I want to deracialize our experience at all. Because I think that I hate seeing that on television. I think it's just false and paints a false narrative. It's the fact that, yes, we are black, but race doesn't form our entire existence. We live life regularly and we enjoy romance regularly and yes race is part of our experience ways in the totality of it can I ask if there are any shows or films you've seen recently where you have felt that the portrayal of romance on screen has been accurate and spoken to your own experiences? I mean, the thing is that the only show I can think of is Insecure and that's American because just a show about, you know, black women and their friendships and their dating

life and it's just regular and it's just normal and it's like, yeah, that's it. Otherwise, no. That's why I'm writing my own. It's mad. We're in 2020 and it's so I think people have this real uh people who maybe don't don't know that much what they're talking about but it's very easy to kind of look at the state of the world now and think we're so progressive we we're so in that state now where you know everyone's equal and it's all fine and and it's like it couldn't be further from the truth I mean we've yeah exactly we've seen that this year how much that isn't the truth but it's it's really um I

think that's why it's so important books like yours um come out and I mean it's it's there are such brilliant stories can I ask other than other than Oren what are some of your other favorite stories in the book um I love Alagomedu obviously because that's about my parents um I love Oshring just because that's the very first story I wrote and I was like oh that was the first story that I was like oh I can I can do this and it's also based on um Yoruba mythology and I'm Yoruba um what else I love Cher because um she's such a she's such a fun protagonist for me because she was so she's so not what you'd see as a soft protagonist but ultimately she really is and she gets pulled into love and I really love Naleli because that's such a like it reminds me of a high school movie and that's one of the um genres that I pulled on for that for that story and I just really loved

that it was set in Los Loto and we never really see black high school movies like that ever that are kind of like nice and fluffy um yeah so I really loved that story as well yeah so true all of the kind of classic 90s high school films like yeah all that and is that American pie and stuff yeah it's um I really liked Oshin actually you mentioned there's a quote um that I really enjoyed where uh you write Oshin was used to being looked at but from this moment she was used to being seen um what what what does that quote mean to you is that about is there an element of um because to me I read that quote and I thought are you talking about fetishization a bit in that being looked at a bit yeah a tiny bit well yes because like black women are hyper visible and invisible at the same

time so you're hyper visible which means that you're just you're you have all these images projected onto you um these things projected onto your identity that have nothing to do with you and so you're not really seen so the hyper visibility actually obscures who you really are um and it's so powerful so just to be to be free within yourself and to be seen for yourself so yeah speaking that's speaking to kind of all black women that line and and also it reminds me of um I'm sure you've seen this film um set it up on Netflix yeah yeah and there's a line in the film so it's about these um two assistants working for these very powerful bosses and you know the bosses kind of run them ragged so their plan to like get them off their backs is to set them up with one another

and one of the ways that one of their tactics they tell the guy to say to the woman I see you and none of them really understand what that means but but it it gets her hook line and sinker the fact that she's told that she is seen so what do you think this idea of being seen is so appealing because I feel like a lot of men date girls for the they don't really see the women that they're dating a lot of the time they're like okay she's pretty I was dating guys who like oh you know you're good looking and you're smart and you're funny but they're not really engaging those things they like they like the fact that I am those things they recognize it but they don't really see or

engage with it they just it's almost like a I think people think I reduce like trophy wife to like looks or something but it's actually not that sometimes women men will actually seek out smart women because they know it makes them look good to have a smart woman they're not actually like engaging with it or actually like wow she's actually smart and enjoying that fact um so to me being seen as like somebody being actually like valuing valuing you for who you are rather than just like seeing it as points for them oh yeah I'm with this amazing person um it's really possible for men to reduce your qualities into something that uh puts them in a good light yeah absolutely and I think that's probably exacerbated by dating app culture isn't it because and by social media because everyone is kind of on a dating app profile and on an Instagram profile everyone is

reduced to like a series of images or a series of metrics and you know your height and where you're from and what you do for a living and all that kind of stuff and while those are things that yes of course we judge a partner on those things before we end up hooking up with them but it's so much deeper than that attraction is so much deeper than that it should be about like physical spark in person you know it's it's you know one person could be your perfect type on paper as they say in love island but then yeah you have no spark so exactly that's why I got fatigued because I was like writing my bio and I was just like but this is not me like it's me but it's not me and I just like yeah it was just not writing my bio and I was just like well this is not me like it's me but

it's not me and I just like yeah it was just not enough for me yeah no me me too I mean I find it really difficult to to present yourself that way um and also you know there's the other thing where and we've spoken about this on the podcast quite a lot but dating apps just require you to have such a solid understanding of the kind of person you're looking for and I don't know if you can ever really pick someone who's going to be right for you just based on a profile because like I said you know you need to see how you get on in person it's um it's difficult um okay so it's time for our uh lessons in love section of the show so this is the part of the show where i ask every listener to not every listener every guest uh to share something that

they have learned from their previous relationship experiences um so would you like to share your your lesson in love um yeah nothing is linear i think as a romance writer I think that I can write somebody's lines for them and predict them and when they don't react in the way that I expect them to react and how they reacted may not necessarily be innately bad it may be just true to them just doesn't conform to what I expected I used to think that that's a negative thing and so it would affect how I saw them which was so unfair because you really can't control another person's actions and sometimes someone is not in the right exactly the same space as you are and they may take a longer time to get to where you are so I think it's just expecting the journey to romance and the journey of romance to not be as

easy as two plus two equals four and allowing the freedom for that and the space for that and also not being tied up when it isn't so straightforward and being upset and allowing yourself to be anxious when it when it isn't as easy as that because I really do truly think that if somebody is meant to be in your life they will be so I think you need to just relax and not try to force things to happen if they're not happening in the way that you want them to be yeah I actually think that's such an important thing um and it's actually really comforting to say that to yourself when when something isn't going right or if you're going through a breakup or whatever just to say everything is happening as it's supposed to happen you know everything happens for a reason if two people are meant to be together they will find their way back to one

another it's just yeah it's how it works how how did you come to that realization when did you kind of have that epiphany it was really recently um I was just because I was you know I was just trying to I was trying to write somebody's lines for them basically um and I was in doing that I was taking away their personhood and that person was a really really great is a really really great person and they were just working through things but because they weren't ready exactly the same time that I was ready I was almost demonizing that demonizing them for it which was wrong of me um but but in realizing that I was doing that I was able to keep them in my life and also allow them the space and now we're in a much better place than we were

because I was like oh I'm trying to I'm doing that thing where I'm trying to write my own romance when the reality is actually so much better and so much more interesting and they're such an incredible person and I'm trying to push them into a box where they didn't fit in um which was so unfair of me and also it was unfair on them and it was also unfair on me because it was like I was just suffering for no reason yeah so this was the former partner who you've now become friends with um it's complicated it always is it always is complicated um like you said nothing nothing is linear that's it for today thank you so much for listening if you're a new listener to this show, you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts,

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