History Film / Zola

''Zola'' is a 2021 BlackComedy drama film directed by Janicza Bravo, based on an infamous 148-post thread from Website/{{Twitter}} and the ''Rolling Stone'' article, "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted".

''Zola'' is a 2021 BlackComedy drama film directed by Janicza Bravo, based on an infamous 148-post thread from Twitter and the ''Rolling Stone'' article, "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted".

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hbz_zola_poster_full_1617223404.jpeg]]

Has nothing to do with French writer Émile Zola. Or the Zoras from ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', who were originally called "Zolas".

* AmbiguousDisorder: Derrek mood-swings on a dime, is overly trusting, throws tantrums frequently, and generally isn't very bright. He also repeats the line "I'm going to make films like that" several times over (partially as a defense mechanism or to try and connect to people who clearly aren't interested), and is heavily implied to watch the same Vines over and over, which are autistic traits. The actual person. Jarrett, was very obviously bipolar, which Zola picked up on.

** The pimp's alias was Z in real life, but was changed to X in the film, as was his real name (Adekunle Oluwale in the film, Akporode Uwedjojevwe in real life).

* MononymousBiopicTitle: The film's name refers to "Zola", Aziah King's personal nickname in real life.

-->-- '''Aziah "Zola" King''' in her [[https://imgur.com/a/WDwyW original thread]].

Struggling Detroit waitress Aziah “Zola” King (Taylour Paige) meets and befriends a woman named Stefani (Creator/RileyKeough), the two women bonding over shared experiences with pole dancing. Stefani later invites Zola to Florida to make money at strip clubs, joined by Stefani’s boyfriend Derrek (Creator/NicholasBraun) and her “roommate” X (Creator/ColmanDomingo). What follows is a weekend filled with sex, lies, and violence.

* AdaptationalDumbass:
** Mixed with AdaptationalJerkass: Jarrett in the original thread carried on a long, interesting conversation with Zola despite his bipolar swings, and it turned out to be one of the only high points of Zola's trip to hell. Derrek is a whiny, melodramatic idiot who is slavishly devoted to Stefani despite her constant exploitation of him, whose only bright spot of intelligence is keying Zola into the fact ''Stefani has deceived several other strippers in the exact same way before'', though he also clearly does care about Stefani and is stuck in the trap of thinking that if he tries hard enough, he'll finally get her to give up that life.

* AdaptationalDumbass: Mixed with AdaptationalJerkass: Jarrett in the original thread carried on a long, interesting conversation with Zola despite his bipolar swings, and it turned out to be one of the only high points of Zola's trip to hell. Derrek is a whiny, melodramatic idiot who is slavishly devoted to Stefani despite her constant exploitation of him, whose only bright spot of intelligence is keying Zola into the fact ''Stefani has deceived several other strippers in the exact same way before'', though he also clearly does care about Stefani and is stuck in the trap of thinking that if he tries hard enough, he'll finally get her to give up that life.