Introducing Polyester’s New Film Columnist - Maia Wyman, aka Broey Deschanel

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Maia Wyman, who is better known to film fans as the cultural critic Broey Deschanel, has some early memories of YouTube, but they are not wholly positive ones. She recalls mid-2000s slop before slop became a thing, and the Shane Dawson videos that had kids entranced in the platform’s nascency. It was for this reason that Broey ignored the platform for years, until a friend told her that she’d been binging a new kind of content: video essays. When she delved back into YouTube, she discovered people like Lindsay Ellis, Thomas Flight, NerdWriter, Every Frame a Picture, all delivering engaging, cultural critiques of films.
For Broey, who immediately describes herself as “a person with many opinions”, it marked a beginning. After being gifted a microphone, she sat down and created her first video – a feminist critique of the way women are depicted in John Hughes' films. With the internet being the way the internet is, and feminism still feeling radical on YouTube, Broey received a lot of hate, but it didn’t deter her. Over the years, she has built a platform and fanbase for her smart takes, with almost half a million subscribers, and her channel has become the place to go for insightful film criticism – whether she’s diving into Sofia Coppola’s politics of prettiness, examining depiction and endorsement in *Liquorice Pizza*, or explaining exactly why *Saltburn* sucks.

Top: SC103 | Skirt: Sandy Liang | Socks: Stylist’s Own

Having now expanded her empire outside of YouTube, Broey co-hosts the podcast Rehash which delves into the internet’s forgotten histories; and has just published her second book Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Love, Loss, and the Fade to White, which examines the titular film’s legacy alongside the dissolution of one of her own relationships. We caught up recently to discuss what it’s like to be a critic today, the first films that she loved and hated, the power of films to affect your moods – plus, of course, a fancast for her dream Oscar’s ceremony.

Polyester: Hey Broey! Why don't you start off by introducing yourself to our audience.

Broey Deschanel: This is something I’m famously really bad at – I never know what to say. I guess my first answer would be that I'm a YouTuber, but I don't love to say that because YouTube is more my medium, not what I do. I'd like to say that I'm a writer. I think that that's the bulk of what I do on a daily basis – podcasting, YouTube, regular writing – and I’m a cultural critic.

Why did film criticism appeal to you?

I think when you have a passion for movies, criticism can come quite easily. But I enjoy the craftwork that goes into delivering those opinions to a public in a persuasive manner. It’s definitely a valve for my many many opinions

Who are the video essayists you like? And the film critics?

I'm a huge fan of Adam Nayman. He's a Canadian film critic who wrote a book about Showgirls called ‘It Doesn't Suck’. I think he's incredible. There's also a film critic named Saffron Maeve, who's doing amazing work. She writes amazing prose when she talks about movies, which I love.

And then on YouTube, Lindsay Ellis is the main one. You have to kind of make your videos entertaining and accessible to the masses, and she manages to make them so funny, but has still shaped my worldview in a way that I think is really important. I love Thomas Flight, and then obviously my friend Izzy, Be Kind Rewind, who does an amazing job of the cultural aspect of it.

Last week, an article came out in the New Yorker called “How Music Criticism Lost Its Edge.” The premise was basically that music critics used to be known for being, on the whole, crankier than the average listener, but that's not the case anymore. Do you think you're a critic in the classic sense of the word?

I guess they're speaking more to a crisis of journalism and people not being able to be as biting as they used to be because they're trying to get clicks. Or there's greater forces at hand that are inhibiting them from making money – they're freelance, their jobs are less stable. I do see myself a bit like a critic, although I'm not as up-to-date as I think a critic would be. But I do think I am critical. I also am just in a privileged position where I'm on YouTube, so I think there's a lot more freedom there. I'm not really a journalist and so it makes it a bit easier to kind of do what I want.

And do you think you're cranky?

I really identify and empathise with the spirit of a film critic. I'm quite cranky. I'm like a grumpy girl. I consider Toronto kind of the East Coast, even though it’s not, but I feel like when you’re from a big city, you have that New York-y sensibility. The people I associate with are big characters, they have big opinions, that's what I like in other people, and that's what I like about myself. But it does mean that I'm almost a little pessimistic – I just want something to be good. I hate when a movie is not absurdly bad, and it's not absurdly good, it's just in the middle. That's my least favourite kind of movie. I need it to either fail spectacularly or be spectacular. And I think that kind of ties into the way I am as a person, too. I have expectations and I think it's a disservice to a movie to not give it the time and attention it needs. I care about the art of filmmaking, and I think the best film critics are like that. If I didn't care, then why would I be doing this?

**Dress: Meruert Tolegen | Boots: Jil Sander**

Can you remember the first film that made you fall in love with films?

I saw this movie called Four Rooms. It's an anthology, where there's four separate vignettes, and each one's directed by a different director. Tarantino directed one of them. I saw that in high school and I was like: “this is art.” Some people hate it. Madonna's in it. I think it's amazing. Tim Roth is the bellhop, like, how could you go wrong?

Do you remember the first one you hated?

Mmm … yeah, Snow White and the Huntsman. I went to see it with my friend and she's also kind of a cynic. I would have been 15 or something, and I remember both of us walking out because it was horrible. It was that era of trying to make fairy tales serious and dark, instead of just taking them for what they were. It had this desaturated palette, really bad acting – yeah, it was bad.

You said that films that sit in the middle are your least favourite. What makes a film sit in the middle for you?

It's a film that plays it extremely safe, usually a film that's cosies up to the studios. Any Marvel movie, to me, or something that feels extremely corporate – that’s trying to appeal to the masses in the most boring way possible. Any movie that knows it's gonna make a lot of money or believes it will is really boring, usually. I want someone to take risks.

You’ve just released your book Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Love, Loss and the Fade to White – I know you've watched the film about thirteen times. When you first saw it, did you kind of know it would be this force in your life?

It did feel extremely important at the time. I remember watching it and feeling so impacted by it, to the extent that it affected my mood for several days – it kind of calmed me down. I think I was in a state of bad anxiety at that time, and it felt like something lulling you to sleep.

I read a quote about your book which said it was as much a memoir as a cultural exegesis – how has your relationship to the film evolved as you've continued to grow and watch it?

As romance ebbs and flows in my life, obviously that impacts how I watch it. These days, because I know so much about the making of it, I watch it to find evidence about things that I was already reading about. I'm watching it more like a detective, from an analytical point of view rather than an emotional one.

Excitingly, we can ~exclusively reveal~ that you’re about to join Polyester as our film columnist. What are the things you're looking forward to talking about?

There’s so many things that I feel like are really hard to make into a video essay. It has to be mass appeal, it has to be kind of salient, and it feels like a lot of things get left by the wayside. I've been thinking a lot about the idea of sincerity. I love ringing the death knell on things.

And what else can we look forward to from you in the future? What are the big dreams?

I definitely just dream of writing. I would love to write a book of essays – it was kind of my five-year goal and I’m in the midst of trying to get that off the ground. I'm also excited to do more in-person events. I want to figure out how to host a monthly screening series in New York, which I'm attempting to kick off in October – building community around cinema. So stay tuned!

Introducing Polyester’s New Film Columnist - Maia Wyman, aka Broey Deschanel

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