The 6 Coming-of-Age Films That Made Ira Madison III a Critic

When Ira Madison III was in high school, he loathed the band Coldplay—simply hated them. So did everyone at his all-boys Jesuit high school in Milwaukee, and, importantly, so did the essayist Chuck Klosterman, whose collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs was Madison’s “Bible”—the way that “Cosmo was Elle Woods’s Bible in Legally Blonde,” Madison writes in his new memoir-in-essays, Pure Innocent Fun, out Feb. 4. “It was better to agree with people than be the odd man out.”

He hated the band until he didn’t. “Pop culture for me was a way of communicating with people and finding friends. In some way, I was crafting opinions to be likable,” he tells W. “When I stopped doing that, I started getting better as a writer.” The band—and his feelings about it—was, in fact, a vessel for a host of other latent ideas about race, gender, and sexuality. Throughout the collection, Madison weaves together an appraisal of the pop-culture artifacts that made him a critic and a wider examination of the ways that film, television, and music gave him lenses through which to understand his own experiences growing up gay and Black in the Midwest.

When he started working on the book, he knew he wanted to embed his own coming-of-age story within it. “It’s weird to write a high-concept essay collection,” he notes. At the same time, it reflected his own taste as an audience: “I love a good laugh, and I love melodrama and big stories.” W spoke to Madison about the making of Pure Innocent Fun and shared his own most cherished coming-of-age stories.

What was the genesis of this project?

When I was first doing culture writing at BuzzFeed, I’d take something happening quickly in pop culture, and turn it inward, in the sense of making it about myself. (Very narcissistic.) That’s how I could find a take that would be different than whatever someone else might write.

That’s how I approached the book, too. I knew the book was going to be a coming-of-age story. I knew I wanted to end with my coming out. I pieced it together like I was hunting for the Zodiac Killer. When I first sold the book, it was months of me, in my Notes app, writing down anything from pop culture—from Pizza Hut Book It! to Power Rangers—from a certain time period.

What do you think of as being the role of cultural criticism?

I tend to play like The Traitors. There are people who are called Faithfuls, and there are people called Traitors, and the job of the Traitor is to kill the Faithfuls and win. Sometimes, you’ll watch The Traitors and you’ll see someone be personally offended that someone is a traitor. Like, how could you do that? It feels morally wrong. But we’re all playing this game.

Criticism coincides with art, and so much of great art is criticism. Great artists are always in conversation with other people’s work, whether they’re inspired by it or they’re like, I hate being compared to this fucking artist, so I want to do something different. There’s always criticism there. Despite the “They don’t build statues of critics” shirt that Charli xcx wore, there’s criticism of fame and the music industry and herself and Taylor Swift in Brat.

Do you have a favorite essay in the collection?

Probably “Being Steve Urkel,” which is about Family Matters, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and The Cosby Show. Writing about my father and abandonment issues is tough for me. So much of the book consists of aspects of my life that I don’t talk about on my podcast, or to friends, even. I’m grateful to have a podcast that doesn’t invite me telling personal stories. Despite being a Leo who talks a lot, I don’t love talking about myself a lot.

What impelled you to write a memoir-in-essays, then, as a writer and a person who resists personal narrative?

I don’t think it is worth making any piece of art—or setting out to do anything, you know—unless it scares you a little bit. It’s not going to be good if it’s not honest or vulnerable.

Ira Madison III’s Coming-of-Age Pantheon

Here, the critic shares his own favorite coming-of-age narratives.

Clueless

Ira’s logline: Shopaholic fashionista in Los Angeles is looking for love.

There’s always this debate of Clueless versus Mean Girls—which one defines a culture more. Minute by minute, Clueless is immensely quotable, and funny. Obviously, the characters are Jane Austen’s, but they also take on their own form; it’s indicative of how society saw culture at the time. Cher is a person who is doubted by people around her and doubts herself; by the end of the film, she starts to believe in herself a little bit more.

Legally Blonde

Ira’s logline: Reese Witherspoon seems like a dumb sorority girl, but learns that she is a badass lawyer.

Legally Blonde is not just a white classic; it’s a Black classic, too. The film is about learning to trust yourself, but it’s also about learning when to rebuke authority and when to trust it. Going to a Jesuit high school, I had to learn to navigate which teachers to trust—which ones are on your side and which ones are not.

Eve’s Bayou

Ira’s logline: A young black girl discovers mysticism through her psychic aunt and that her family, um, is full of dark secrets.

Eve’s Bayou is one of my favorite movies. It is Kasi Lemmons’s best work, honestly. Eve’s Bayou is a coming-of-age story, but it’s also a story about family secrets, and what you remember versus what people in your family tell you. I come from a family where, like a lot of Midwesterners, and maybe Black families, there’s a lot of subtext. This is a movie about breaking through the subtext.

Moonlight

Ira’s logline: A young, gay, Black kid’s journey with learning to develop relationships with men in life—whether they’re straight, gay, mentor, friend or lover.

I absolutely love Barry Jenkins’s work. It feels intimate—it’s this grandiose melodrama, but it’s all about the small characters in between. My friend Tarell Alvin McCraney wrote the script, and it’s one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen. I’m so grateful younger generations of Black queer kids have this movie to watch. It’s not something that existed for me.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Ira’s logline: A famous chocolatier terrorizes a bunch of kids in his factory, seemingly for fun.

This is the quintessential fantasy comedy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rewatched it, singing oompa loompa doopity doo. It’s basically a slasher film; we’re all engrossed in how these kids are gonna die. (They’re little shits. You kind of want him to get them.) Charlie’s the final girl, and then Charlie also pulls the curtain on the Wizard of Oz, so to speak, when he realizes that Willy Wonka is kind of an asshole, too. It’s a lesson for kids to be good, but it’s also a lesson that adults aren’t perfect.

Carrie

Ira’s logline: A young girl from a very, very, very religious household discovers she has telekinetic powers.

Carrie grows up in more than just a suffocating household—it’s an abusive household. Her mother is really domineering. I have difficult relationships with my parents, and so I can relate to that. Also, what teenager who was bullied in school or felt like an outcast hasn’t imagined setting the whole gym on fire at a school dance?

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.