Jill Gutowitz on Excavating Sapphic Pop Culture, Self-Love in Girls Can Kiss Now
Girls Can Kiss Now (available now).“I think pop culture is politics. It’s the things that we are talking about, consuming, and elevating that are a reflection of what the current groupthink is,” Gutowitz says, adding that she’s grappled with how much value to put into events in the zeitgeist. “I’ve always been super invested in pop culture and have seen the value in it, how political it can be, and how much it can change minds.”During the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings in 2018, pop culture and politics collided for Gutowitz with frightening effect.
Disgusted with the Republican senators who voted to make Kavanaugh a SCOTUS justice despite multiple accusations that he’d committed sexual assault, Gutowitz tweeted a list of their names with the caption “Arya Stark voice” (the character from HBO’s Game of Thrones who seeks revenge and justice for her family).
Shortly after, the FBI showed up at her apartment door. Virulent conservatives had reported her for the viral tweet, claiming she’d threatened harm to the likes of Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.
It was a wake-up moment for her relationship with social media, which ultimately informed part of the book.“After the FBI shows up at your house for something that you tweeted, a lot of stuff doesn't feel worth it,” Gutowitz says. “At first, I felt angry and muzzled.
