Where Are They Now?
Catching Up with 2 Lizards
Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki On Taking 2020 In Slow, Scaly Strides
- Interview: Lynette Nylander
- Images/Photos Courtesy Of: Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki
In the complicated, propelling criticisms of Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature, Elizabeth Outka studies the cultural impact of the 1918 pandemic; one of the deadliest plagues in history that brought to light canonical works of fiction and poetry. Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and W.B. Yeats carefully interwove the catastrophic effects of the virus into some of their most important works. But in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was met with an alternative form of scrutiny—navigating their way through a desolate New York City, a pair of rooftop-dancing, plan-cancelling reptiles contended with the jolts and turns of isolation. The lizards expressed everything we were feeling as cities around the world shut down. Among the closed-captionings: “um...so in a fucked up way i’m...i’m loving this.”
2 Lizards, the animated series that took Instagram by storm in early quarantine, was created by artist Meriem Bennani and director Orian Barki. The pair captured the restlessness and anguish of life in early lockdown—all by way of anthropomorphic lizards who roam an empty Brooklyn. Watching them try to make sense of their dissipated city and its crippling news reports, including one ripped from audio of Dr. Fauci, conjures a hyper familiar feeling, not only for New Yorkers, but to people the world over. The series has no arc, instead hypnotically pulling the viewer through the freeform days confined to apartment walls.
Conceived at the beginning of New York’s lockdown in March, Bennani and Barki pulled references from cinematic representations of the city—the empty Times Square dream sequence in Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky, the decadent landscapes of Woody Allen’s Manhattan—to punctuate the world they were creating. “It's a really hard time to write stories,” says Bennani. “Does it have to be through a metaphor?”
If the mass reach and beloved reception of 2 Lizards is any indication, it does not. The project began as a way to procrastinate and to add relief to the monotony, and the absurdity, of creating work in the COVID era. Benanni and Barki spread joy, comfort, and much-needed familiarity, underscoring the importance of the role of the artist over the past six months. Capping the series after just 8 episodes, and at the height of its popularity; here, the two look back on the early-pandemic phenomenon of 2 Lizards—one that will live on long into the future.
Lynette Nylander
Meriam Bennani and Orian Barki
What was your favorite cartoon when you were young?
MB: I still love cartoons. I never stopped liking them, and it's a big part of me and my work. We had Cartoon Network but it would shut off at some point and turn into black and white movies at like, 7PM. I used to watch anime dubbed in Arabic. I love Spongebob, and a big inspiration for both of us is Daria.
OB: Disney shaped my storytelling, we wanted to have a point in 2 Lizards where the characters sing, inspired by Disney. The biggest inspiration is the old MTV cartoon Downtown. They did all these interviews of kids downtown compiled into stories.
Tell me a little bit about how it all started, where the idea came from?
OB: The first episode started in the first week of confinement, people were finally taking it seriously in New York. Meriem had downloaded these three characters for a different project. She had this idea that we'll make one video because the characters were ready to be animated. She was like, “Let's make something to keep ourselves busy.”
MB: Well, it wasn’t like I didn't have work. We were super busy, but it all felt so stupid. It felt really absurd to be busy! There was this feeling of, “Whoa, all of this crazy stuff is happening, why is the art world not understanding to take a break?” We needed a space away from that.
OB: Everyone was posting videos of people in Europe singing out of balconies and quarantine was awful, but still this hopeful thing of people coming together. It wasn't really happening in Brooklyn yet, but we imagined it in a Brooklyn-style situation. It was also a way for us to feel connected.
Were you surprised by the response?
MB: We've never worked together but we know each other's work really well, and it was just kind of like, “Let's make something fun outside of our jobs.” We were really surprised because first it was just this silly thing. Everyone was very confused and I think seeing something that reflects how you feel hit emotionally.
Why animated lizards?
MB: I have always made these kinds of documentaries that are live action, but then I always have this narrator character who is often a 3D animal that narrates and participates. I also have work that's just animation, but [Barki] comes from documentary, no animation, no special effects.
And how did you bring the characters to life?
MB: I taught Orian how to lip sync, it was a cool process for us because both of us don't script things in our work. You kind of craft your own version of the footage. The more we went out the harder it became. We would film the derelict cityscape for the background and couldn't create a set as easily because we couldn’t film as more people were starting to go outside. For example, we have an episode with a nurse—we found an actual nurse that works at an ICU that focuses on COVID cases. We went over to her house and interviewed her. Even if you have these animation characters, there's something that felt raw about them. We didn't edit mistakes or stutters, which is unusual in animation, but we wanted to bring our style into it. Everything was spontaneous.
How did you choose who was involved?
OB: Maluca was actually the first. She just hit us up on Instagram and was like, “Wow, the show is so cool, if you ever need a voice.” Dr. Fauci was the real Dr. Fauci, that we took from existing interviews. We chose moments that we felt abstract enough for the mood that we wanted to create. And then the nurse, we hit her up. And the rest of the voices are our friends like Becky Akinyode and Antonio and Meriem’s mom were just people in our quarantine bubble. People we were talking to or going on walks with. Part of our community and people that we know.
MB: We asked people, “What animal do you want? Is there an animal you identify with?” There's a dog that comes a lot, and a snake. Most characters we didn't design, we just buy them on these platforms. Becky asked for a cheetah and she styled it like herself, and our friend Diamond said ostrich, so we got an ostrich for her.
If the lizards were to leave us with a parting message, what would you think it would be?
MB: They are us!
- Interview: Lynette Nylander
- Images/Photos Courtesy Of: Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki
- Date: September 17th, 2020
