Reviewed by Jen Bonardi
It’s likely that you’ve never heard of erstwhile actress, occasional screenwriter, and award-winning director Desiree Akhavan, and that’s a crying shame. Akhavan is a bicon (bi+ icon) who has been hiding in plain sight for almost 15 years, fearlessly blazing a trail of telling bi+ women’s stories. Surely this remarkable Iranian-born American deserves more from us than a vague recollection of her brief role in Girls.
At long last, this bi+ hero gives us a chance to get to know her: in mid-August, Akhavan released a memoir of essays entitled You’re Embarrassing Yourself. In addition to offering anecdotes on her personal hardships and triumphs, the book divulges how she created films like Appropriate Behavior, about a Persian-American bisexual woman navigating relationships; her Netflix series, The Bisexual; and the conversion camp drama, The Miseducation of Cameron Post.
My introduction to Akhavan’s work was through The Slope, a hilarious and relatable web series on a bi+ woman and her lesbian girlfriend living in an urban queer enclave. I was hooked from the very first webisode when her girlfriend implies that Desiree is “less gay” than she, to which Desiree whines, “How much gayer can I get, having a huge public fight in the park with my super-gay girlfriend?!” For me, the book’s biggest reveal is that The Slope, a shining diamond in the rough of Vimeo.com (a video-sharing platform), was merely the author’s film school assignment. Pretty impressive homework, if you ask me.
Akhavan doesn’t use the word “bisexual” much in the book, but not because she wants to distance herself from the community; quite the reverse, in fact. In simply living her life, she hits all of the bi+ hallmarks. Like many of us, Akhavan makes her own goalposts for “how gay [she is]” and whether she is a virgin. She embodies the maxim, “Don’t talk about it; be about it.” It’s refreshing that she never has an internal struggle over whether she is accepted in the wider queer community. Akhavan’s here, she’s bi, she assumes you’ll get used to it.
Despite being an ugly duckling, Akhavan had plenty of sex and romantic relationships after college. Her experience as a late bloomer is heartening, as is her unabashed choice to make a friendship the most important relationship in her life. Reminiscent of Mindy Kaling’s second memoir, Why Not Me?, Akhavan wants more from life than directorial success, and presently struggles with prioritizing her career.
You’re Embarrassing Yourself might not be revolutionary, but it entertains and has moments of deep insight. Her anecdotes demonstrate how being friendless freed her from self-consciousness, and how love led her to trust her own artistic voice. They illustrate how her connection to Iranian culture has evolved, and how her relationship with her parents was strengthened by surviving the trials of an eating disorder.
And in the end, all of the stories of Akhavan’s life comprise her artistic creations as a director. She explains, “…The story is KING. It is your responsibility to protect it. You don’t make the film…you are the film.”
Jen Bonardi lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts, in the U.S. She is a long-time BWQ writer, and she loves bi+ culture.
