lovecraft country
-
The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Rewind 1921'
Did you catch the fire? Sunday’s journey through Lovecraft Country was full of hope—as passed down to us by our ancestors and living elders. It might seem an odd takeaway that an episode beginning with a hexed Dee coming dangerously close to becoming a Topsy twin (uh, triplet? I’m still having nightmares about them damn…
-
The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Jig-a-Bobo'
Multi-orgasmic sex while molting your white-woman skin? Running from creepy twin pickaninny caricatures? Saved from gunfire by a concrete shoggoth? It must be Episode 8 of HBO’s Lovecraft Country! Last Sunday was a welcome respite from watching The Masque of the Red Death play out in real-time on our nightly news, but you want to…
-
The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'I Am.'
Welcome back to Lovecraft Country! Wow! Talk about the Afrofuture! Talk about Black feminism! Episode 7, “I Am.” hit all of my academic erogenous zones and I can’t wait to dig into it with you. First, I want to address a critique of Lovecraft Country I haven’t addressed in this space, which came up while…
-
The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Meet Me in Daegu'
Welcome back to Lovecraft Country—we are past the halfway point of the season’s journey! I can totally see Misha Green in her writers’ room, saying, “Give me K-Horror, but make it BLACK!” What I am really enjoying is how the show’s creators are throwing all of these different, well-developed worlds and storylines at us, confident…
-
Well, This Is Major: Jonathan Majors Covers October's GQ
There are many qualities to love in HBO’s Lovecraft Country. There’s the centering—and survival—of Black characters and other nonwhites in the horror/fantasy genre; there’s the magnificent acting; there are the jaw-dropping special effects and period costuming; not to mention the historically relevant Easter eggs peppered throughout. It’s no wonder showrunner and co-creator Misha Green is…
-
The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Strange Case'
Hey! Welcome back to another week in Lovecraft Country! Our fifth week’s episode—the first half of our midpoint in the season, and our most extensive analysis to date—was full of interruptions and metamorphoses (spoilers to follow): Ruby was plagued by interruptions, both as a Black woman and a white one; Tic’s progress seems to be…
-
Where White People Are Scarier Than Monsters: The Hidden Black History of Lovecraft Country
On Sept. 16, 1968, 51 years before HBO aired the first episode of its groundbreaking horror series, Carol Jenkins found herself in Lovecraft Country. Jenkins, a 21-year-old door-to-door encyclopedia saleswoman, sprinted away from a pack of bloodthirsty monsters chasing her through the tiny streets of Martinsville, Ind. She ran for the first home she could find…
-
The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: A History of Violence
Welcome back to another week in HBO’s Lovecraft Country; our fourth. I want to begin this article moving backward from the largest issue in this week’s episode (serious spoiler alert): the violent murder of Yahima by Montrose. The final scene features a presumably cis Black man slitting the throat of a “two-spirit” Indigenous person in…
-
The Safe Negro Travel Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Holy Ghost'
If you watched Episode 3 of HBO’s Lovecraft Country, you already know: This was a damn near perfect episode. I sincerely believe that the horror genre is where Black folks get to tell truths that otherwise aren’t safe to tell. Horror is an imaginative space for us because so much of our history and experiences…
-
The Safe Negro Travel Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Whitey's on the Moon'
Still with us on our journey through Lovecraft Country? Last Sunday’s episode—the series’ second—is why I have certain issues with traditional Black pain/trauma narratives (spoilers to follow, so if you haven’t watched, stop here). We can certainly explore the origins of our deepest pains—but isn’t it so much more interesting with Shoggoths in the mix?…