Zola: Twitter Thread to Movie
If you were anywhere on social media in the year of 2015, you might recall a certain viral Twitter thread that was posted by the user @_zolarmoon, aka Aziah “Zola” Wells on October 27, 2015. It was on this monumental day that Zola would break the internet with her 148-tweet saga recounting her fateful encounter with a fellow stripper named Stefani. Throughout this epic Twitter thread, Ms. Wells shares quite literally everything that happened during this turbulent and unforgettable weekend in Florida.
#TheStory is quite the gripping read. As the titular character says herself, “It’s kind of long, but it’s full of suspense.” And she certainly is not wrong.
In her series of tweets, Zola first describes meeting Stefani while waitressing at Hooters. After bonding over their shared passion for pole dancing they eagerly exchange phone numbers, leading Stefani to invite Zola on a weekend trip to Tampa, Florida, along with her boyfriend Jarrett and her “roommate” X. Though Zola is a little skeptical about this grand gesture of a girls’ trip, she ultimately agrees after being promised a large payout for her dancing gigs.
After performing at the first Florida strip club, the two walk out with $800 in hand. Though Zola is underwhelmed by their earnings, she tells Stefani that she is done for the night. However, instead of calling her boyfriend to come pick them up, Stefani calls her “roommate” X instead. Piecing the clues together, Zola realizes that X is in fact Stefani’s pimp, which is reaffirmed when he posts pictures of the two women on a sex work advertisment page without their consent.
At this point, Zola is rightfully outraged for being manipulated and lied to. She is just about to leave until Stefani pleads with her to stay out of fear for her and her baby’s safety. Reluctantly, Zola stays out of pity and even helps Stefani set her up with new clients. By the end of the night, Stefani makes them upwards of $5,500. However, when they meet up again with X, he takes the biggest chunk of the profit, handing $500 off to Zola and leaving Stefani empty handed.
The weekend would continue to be a complete wreck with Jarrett crying, whining, and fighting with Stefani about her sex work, and X constantly being fed up with Stefani’s emotional rollercoaster of a boyfriend. But as if things could not get even worse, Stefani is later taken hostage by a rival pimp who pretended to be another one of her clients. Outright horrified, Zola is about to call the police until Jarrett pushes her to call X instead. When X finally arrives at the scene he is able to rescue Stefani, though leaving with quite literally a lot of blood on his hands. X reveals that he shot the other pimp in the face before fleeing off.
Even after everything that happened, Stefani is still adamant on trapping and refuses to leave Florida despite her boyfriend’s pleas. Unable to get Stefani to change her mind, Jarrett makes an unexpected move and jumps off the balcony of X’s condo - which he luckily survives.
Stefani tries one last time to get Zola back to her good graces, but having had enough of the deceit and trauma she has endured, she makes it clear that she never wants to see or hear from her ever again. But to Zola’s misfortune, she gets a collect call from Stefani who is being held in a Las Vegas jail. Apparently, X is now wanted for kidnapping fifteen underage girls and is also linked to six murders in Florida. X ends up being sentenced for life and Stefani finally gets back custody of her baby. The End.
Promptly after captivating Twitter users all over the world, it came as no surprise that Zola’s story was quickly being put on the table as a potential film. In February 2016, it was initially announced that James Franco was set to direct, with the script written by Andrew Neel and Mike Roberts. Zola was set to start production in February 2018, but was indefinitely put on pause following the several sexual misconduct allegations that were held against Franco. Upon Franco’s departure from the project, a new set of creatives were announced to take part in this highly anticipated A24 film. At the helm of this film, was now Janicza Bravo as the director and Jeremy O. Harris as the screenwriter alongside actors Taylour Paige and Riley Keough, Colman Domingo and Nicholas Braun.
With this new predominantly Black-led production team, Zola’s story would finally be given the proper respect and platform her story deserves to have. Not only did Bravo secure Zola a paycheck for the rights to her story, but the director also made sure to include her throughout the making of the film. Ultimately, this tag team effort between both Zola and Bravo evidently lent itself to create a supportive environment that uplifts and credits Black voices - something that is too often disregarded and overlooked in the film and entertainment industry as a whole.
Bravo’s direction also contributes to the unique audio-visual experience in watching Zola. As the original story was originally shared on Twitter, it was important to Bravo that aspects of an online presence were integrated throughout the film. One way the film brought the social media experience to life was through the use of varying notification dings, whooshes, and chirping sounds that we are all too familiar with as a generation of online people. Each time Zola - as played by Taylour Paige - recited a phrase from one of Zola's tweets, one of these sound effects would be used as a signifier of this, further reminding the audience of the digital stage that the original story was told from.
The director also took an interesting route towards the end of the film when we are presented with Stefani’s version of the previous events - which was posted on Reddit, as the film notes on screen. During this brief fourth-wall break segment, Stefani tells her side of the story to us. But as Bravo makes clear through the exaggerated acting and ridiculous wardrobe choices in the @Stefani scene (for example, there was a scene where Zola was dressed head to toe in a literal garbage bag), there is a deeper exploitive element to this character and the way in which the internet is more invested in whether or not Zola's story is true, rather than the more important subject matter at hand. Though Stefani’s character is the one who is appropriating Black culture and playing into the harmful stereotypes of this community, the focus is wrongfully shifted onto questioning the validity of a Black woman’s traumatic experience.
Zola is a larger-than-life comedy that has its way of dazzling its viewers with comedic timing, iconic one-liners, hyper self awareness, and use of social media slang and notification sound effects. Bravo captures even the most absurd and surreal of events in a seamlessly colorful and high energy direction. And at the same time, the film does not back down from tackling hard-to-talk-about topics. Through Zola’s perspective, Bravo sheds light on the exploitation and manipulation of Black people, as well as the harrowingly world of sex trafficking, ultimately offering us all to think about how these dangers and terrors are often trivialized in the media.
If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend that you watch this film in theaters, or at least with some sort of audience to get the full effect that this fever dream story has to offer. But first, be sure to check out the Twitter thread that inspired the 2021 film here.