Lovecraft Country: Racism is the Real Monster (And Also There are Monsters)

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AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Collateral posted:

The bar dude getting a bj out back was a reference to James Baldwin right? That speech was good, shame about the audience.

I mean, Baldwin was gay. I'm not sure how you get from there to back-alley blowjobs but I guess he could be? He didn't look anything like him though.

The audience for that speech decided in Baldwin's favor, incidentally. Standing ovation and everything. It's hosed up though (or at least it's always looked this way to me), because if you watch it there's a split-second when Baldwin is sitting down and everyone else is rising to their feet at once, and he's loving terrified of what these white people are about to do.

Anyway, although I have not read the book, I kinda feel like the ending of the pin-drop speech will turn out to be a pretty heavy bit of foreshadowing:

James Baldwin posted:

It is a terrible thing for an entire people to surrender to the notion that one-ninth of its population is beneath them. And until that moment, until the moment comes when we, the Americans, we, the American people, are able to accept the fact, that I have to accept, for example, that my ancestors are both white and Black. That on that continent we are trying to forge a new identity for which we need each other and that I am not a ward of America. I am not an object of missionary charity. I am one of the people who built the country�until this moment there is scarcely any hope for the American dream, because the people who are denied participation in it, by their very presence, will wreck it.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2020 23:04

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 03:21

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Collateral posted:

They look the similar, that's all.

Ah, okay. I didn't see it, but that ain't saying much.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2020 02:16

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

Are they intentionally doing a different subgenre each episode?

They are all doing the same subgenre: Lovecraftian horror.

Emerson Cod posted:

Was that kid who asked the Ouji board about his upcoming vacation meant to be Emmit Till? He did live in Chicago in 1955 and was dressed similarly.

The Root's been running a kind of pop-culture guide to the series of sorts (it's...okay), and their writer noted that this character was called "Bobo," which was Emmit Till's real life nickname. So yeah, that was definitely intentional.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2020 20:19

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Sleeveless posted:

This episode was Lovecraftian in the sense that Sharknado is a Spielbergian film because it has a shark in it.

Rats in the Walls meets Re-Animator sounds like an accurate description to me.

edit:

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

Yeah what is the Hate Crime equivalent of "torture porn"?

In schools, it's called US History.

AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Sep 1, 2020

# ¿ Sep 1, 2020 23:18

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Macdeo Lurjtux posted:

More true than you know; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie

Likely inspiration for the story for the mansion.

I mean, it's certainly possible she provided some inspiration. But I think the above-posted excerpt that mentions inventing a batshit* mythology around the Tuskegee Experiments fits a little better. Besides, if they want to talk about murder houses in Chicago, the Holmes Hotel seems the most likely place to go (granted, I think Holmes stuck to murdering white people, especially women, but he did trade some of his remains to medical researchers and other black market buyers).

One of the things Ruby mentioned in passing was another historical horror show: Trumbull Park Race Riots. If someone has a better source for this, I'd love to read it. That site--along with this contemporary account from The Militant--is the only site I found that gave it more than a paragraph.

*I mean that in a good way.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2020 02:56

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

That Italian Guy posted:

Does Atticus even have a problem with Sammy or the concept of being gay, especially for someone in the 50s? I don't think Tic has ever shown any kind of disdain/contempt for the few gay characters we have seen him met before and I guess this is more all the extra layers - the secrets Montrose has kept from Tic and his mother, to the point of Tic maybe even considering his true parentage, especially with what has been shown already on the show - together with the unexpected, sudden reveal.

I'm rewatching and just got to that scene, and he tosses the sissy line off like he's barely interested in what dude is saying. There's some performative masculinity there, but it's hardly enough to assume it's what Tic really thinks. He just wants the guy to shut the gently caress up. And homophobic or not, finding out a parent's sexuality might be a lot more complicated than you thought it was is probably going to cause a reaction. Finding out an abusive parent might have been repressing their sexuality would definitely stop you in your tracks regardless of any sexual prejudices.

Also, this is the same show that gave James Baldwin the mic in episode one.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2020 23:42

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

mary had a little clam posted:

I'll do you one better: as a queer guy, I've been picking up on weird blips that Tic might be queer, so I actually read "... ... ... ...I'm not a sissy!" as Tic being extra huffy because he's not straight.

I could see it too. Either as deflecting suspicion by play-acting a little homophobia or as repressing his feelings. I'd probably lean towards the former if I had to pick though.

He still seems super into Leti though, so I'd guess bi if he's anything other than straight. It'd fit with all the other binary-challenging stuff this episode. A lot of characters seem to be saying Montrose is gay, but he sounds like he really did love Tic's mom, too. The white she-devil showed us they were a white they-devil. Ruby has a drat breakdown not because she's black, but because she's not a more socially preferred shade of black. The indigenous intersex person (forgot the name). The creation story about Adam and Eve...and monsters.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2020 03:31

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

That episode has a lot to unpack, but tonight I learned that ballroom events/culture is much older than I thought, by almost a century. Like, Langston Hughes went to one in the 20s, and they weren't even new then.

Show loving rules.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2020 03:46

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Bird in a Blender posted:

What the gently caress was going on with the cops skin?

I...think he's grafting black skin onto himself? A cop's fear of a black body becomes jealousy of/desire for that body, maybe?

This episode was loving rife with that kind of fetishistic Get-Out hosed-upped-ness.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2020 04:21

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

socialsecurity posted:

They've explained his violent ways due to his own father beating him, so I don't think the closeted gay thing is related to the violent thing as muchy.

I wouldn't rush to that conclusion. The opening scene of ep4 has a lot of clips of dialogue from Montrose's past, some of which we might presume are from his abusive father. Lines like, "I see the flower in your hair," and, "...Preening in the gotdamn mirror," and (maybe Montrose saying), "I promise dad, I won't do it again."

What I'm suggesting is that Montrose's father wasn't just abusive, but that he specifically tried to beat the gay out of Montrose.

Darko posted:

I'm kind of torn on the gay thing, because black people are especially problematic towards homosexuality and trans issues, worse and worse the further back you get in time (NOBODY was gay in inner city black schools in the 80's/90s apparently to avoid getting beat down or worse) - and a show about black people in earlier time periods should definitely include that.

There's kind of dual issue where some gay people are tired of self hating/violent gay tropes, but then you can't talk about the black "community" and gayness without talking about how ridiculously horrible it has historically been towards sexuality due to a mix of lower income - inner city toxic masculinity combined with a huge Southern Protestant background via slavery and the effects on a person due to that.

This. Kinitra Brooks over at The Root approached it this way (while also acknowledging that the editing decision to end the episode with the murder of Yahima was probably a mistake):

"Kinitra Brooks posted:

This episode also begs a conversation on the grander narrative of the structural violence of hierarchies, the problematic construct of our Western society that pushes the oppressed to become the oppressor. Michael Lamar Simeon, aka Black Gay Comic Geek expounds upon this history, writing: �violence against trans or even intersexed men and women of color, there�s a history there. Especially with it being perpetrated by men of color.� The data on violence against trans women of color, especially those identifying as Indigenous, supports this truth-telling. The genre of horror is never a �safe space� and it consistently asks us to �hold things in tension,� explains Michigan State University�s Dr. Tamura Lomax...

I mean, it's something I can't speak to from experience, but I see Montrose as something more than just a self-hating stereotype, and I'm willing to at least see where they go with him.

AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Sep 15, 2020

# ¿ Sep 15, 2020 19:02

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Soooooo this will probably not be a popular opinion, but I got curious today about MKW's own sexuality. He's kinda known for playing gay/bi characters--not exclusively or anything, but they're 2/3 of his HBO characters that I've seen--and I've never heard him included in any list of straight actors taking roles from LGBTQ actors. Wikipedia had nothing, but I did find this NYT article from a few years ago. It had the following segment (and I'm gonna put a couple slurs behind spoilers):

quote:

The Vanderveer of Mr. Williams�s childhood was often a landscape of drugs and violence. As he rode down the avenue, nearly every corner conjured a grisly memory. �That�s where I saw my first shooting,� he said, passing New York Avenue. Two blocks later: �That�s where I first got robbed.�

Born in 1966, Mr. Williams rarely envisioned a life beyond Brooklyn. His mother, an immigrant from the Bahamas, worked as a seamstress for much of her life before opening a small day care center that she ran out of Vanderveer. His father, who came from South Carolina, was a gregarious but wayward man who battled health problems.

Starved of opportunities, many in the community took their cues from local gangsters, who exuded a swaggering masculinity that Mr. Williams contorted himself to realize.

As a boy, he was sexually molested and the experience left him withdrawn and confused about his own sexuality. He never spoke of the abuse back then, but his peers seized on his vulnerability and tormented him relentlessly.

�They had two nicknames for me: Blackie and human being Mike,� Mr. Williams said. �I was very soft, very fragile.�

Though formal acting was not yet on the horizon, his life became a kind of delicate performance as he desperately tried to conform. He wore knockoff streetwear and learned to walk with a lean. As a favor to a friend, he smuggled balloons of marijuana into Rikers for a man he barely knew. He was 16. (The experience later helped inspire a plot point on �The Night Of.�) Before long, he developed a drug problem of his own, and by 19, he was cycling in and out of clinics. To finance his addiction, he tried his hand at carjacking and credit card fraud, though the schemes left him with little more than a thickening arrest record.

Alienated from his family and friends in Vanderveer, he found a sense of belonging at the gay bars of downtown Manhattan in the 1980s and �90s. Though he did not identify as gay himself, Mr. Williams relished the sheer liberty of carousing around a space unencumbered. Many weekends, he would dance until the early morning at clubs like the Roxy, Sound Factory and Palladium. His nimble moves even landed him some work as a part-time backup dancer.

Most of that seems relevant, but that line about being soft reminded me of a much more current interview from AV Club about Montrose specifically:

quote:

I didn�t make his sexuality the thing that I went after. It was the fact that he never had the chance to identify as anything. By the time we meet Montrose, he is so traumatized. He survived a massacre that took place in Tulsa. He moves to the South Side of Chicago, which is like moving into a war zone within itself. And he�s doing this during the Jim Crow era. That�s how we meet him. He�s been so beaten into a box and told how to feel and what the definition of Black masculinity or Black sexuality feels like. He was made to feel so much that being soft or being soft spoken or being mild� that his demeanor was a sign of weakness by his father that I don�t think he really had a chance to define himself any which way.

[snipped, partially because I think the next sentence was a spoiler]

Montrose was very soft growing up. He was very afraid, fragile, and he was abused by his dad. So that demeanor that we see him have, that�s because he was battered and very traumatized. He�s not given a space to explore, so when you see him let down his guard [in the ballroom scene], he�s going back to the little boy in him that was so severely scarred and thrown into this box.

Maybe I'm seeing layers that aren't there, maybe MKW is recycling interview answers, and maybe I'm not as familiar with bad tropes in queer portrayal as I should be, but this thread is flattening the character in a way that I think really misses the point. Like, we're perfectly willing to accept racism as a monster of the show, but...not homophobia or toxic masculinity? Much less a character caught at the intersection of all three? The biggest complaint so far --other than nitpicks about pacing and music selection--is really just a poor editing decision at the end of ep 4 (which would've been much better if it'd ended with Tic beating Montrose instead of leading off the next episode with that).

For comparison, a couple of friends and I use Sunday night for TV watching, and we've been going through Doom Patrol followed by this show, and I've gotta say I'm way more interested in Montrose than DP's own resident self-loathing gay man, who came off to me as far more stereotypical through S1. I'm not rooting for Montrose--he's a loving murderer and a lovely father--but I do want to see how they play him out, whereas I had a good idea where Larry was headed after about two episodes.

I dunno, I just don't feel what y'all are feeling.

(FWIW, I don't think we've seen the end of Yahima either, mostly because when we first saw them, they were deader than they are now. But if it turns out the show introduced them just to kill them almost immediately for some other character's development, then yeah I'll agree that that's pretty drat bad.)

edit: removed a jab about music tastes. the forums were crapping out so I posted a little before I was ready.

AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Sep 19, 2020

# ¿ Sep 19, 2020 04:53

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

davidspackage posted:

What did Tic say right before attacking Montrose? I listened to it three or four times, but couldn't make it out.

"Titus's pages?" is the last thing he says before punching him.

Totally different subject, but one that I was reminded of looking that up: When it comes to how we ought to view Ruby's actions at the end, it's worth pointing out that the episode title "Strange Case" is a reference to "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

# ¿ Sep 20, 2020 06:32

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Gonna be rude for a second and quote myself quoting someone else:

Kinitra Brooks posted:

This episode also begs a conversation on the grander narrative of the structural violence of hierarchies, the problematic construct of our Western society that pushes the oppressed to become the oppressor.

<----eta: that quote

AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Sep 21, 2020

# ¿ Sep 21, 2020 04:30

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

wolfs posted:

i feel like ultimately you need to decide if you want your entertainment to be normative or transgressive because arguments like this are fundamentally based on this distinction and to what degree you’re comfortable with or supportive of the normative message you want it to send

This is pretty much where I am. Give me a show about broken, hosed up people. I'm not looking for a role model, but characters I haven't encountered before and have to work a little to understand.

veni veni veni posted:

(and it really felt like the show wanted me to root for her there, which was weird)

That was tonally weird. I got the impression they wanted us to sympathize with what Ruby was doing while also showing it go too far. I said it upthread, but the title of that episode comes from Jekyll & Hyde, and in that story Jekyll--who is not exactly a good dude to start with--starts by using the Hyde persona to get away with his own evil poo poo, but in the end the Jekyll persona just becomes a way for Hyde to stay hidden.

I don't really know if that's what they pulled off though.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2020 23:31

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

veni veni veni posted:

If this is the case I don't think the show succeeded. At least from the way I watched it. They flirt with her showing her "true self/dark side" When she interacts with the other black employee, so I don't think they were trying to make her a flawless character or anything. But that whole scene felt like it was trying to be sweet revenge, when my first reaction was was "what did this guy do again?" cause, I thought the man being rude and inappropriate at the bar was some random white guy (which is on me for not paying attention, but still. in a show full of people doing heinous poo poo, it was so minor I practically forgot about it)

Plus watching someone get gorily raped in the rear end is just like, really unpleasant, especially for a scene that had so little to say.

My read on the manager was a lot worse than being rude or inappropriate. He acts like a boring milquetoast guy and leaves the most attractive women alone, but instead chooses victims that are less likely to be believed. No offense to the actress playing Ruby's white counterpart, but she's not played as very attractive here, and the other woman was black and therefore distrusted by the general public. Kind of like how Ji-Ah's step-father chose her mom to marry and exploit because she was vulnerable and desperate.

Point is, dude's a predator. Ruby wanted to make sure it didn't happen again. So like I say, I can understand with the impulse while thinking it went too far.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2020 01:36

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

veni veni veni posted:

He wasn't a good dude, but theres a lot of conclusions being jumped to here. Ruby's white form jumped on him. He wasn't seeking her out. He acted rapey behind the bar, but ultimately bugged off. Sure he was a scumbag, but it wasn't nearly enough to turn that final scene into sweet revenge. I don't even feel bad for the character or anything. The entire scene just felt tonally off and I felt like the creators were trying to show me how cool what she did was. And if the whole point of the scene was "Ruby is becoming a monster" it didn't work for me, because it felt like something you were supposed to enjoy, or at the very least be cathartic. Which it wasn't. it was just gross.

I don't want to be a dick, but you really might want to rewatch (most of) the episode. Ruby's white form "jumped on him" at the end, sure, but he had been handsy already with her earlier in the episode, to the point that Ruby asks the other women working there if he had ever got inappropriate with them during the scene where they try on shoes in the basement/backroom. One of the other women calls him something, forget what it was, but basically a walking LL Bean ad (even though that's not how we just saw him behave behind closed doors).

Between that and what happened behind the bar, that's a pattern. I feel pretty secure in calling the guy a predator.

\/ Yeah Norman Rockwell was it.

AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Sep 25, 2020

# ¿ Sep 25, 2020 06:35

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

anothergod posted:

Also anyone want to speculate about Christina hiring people to kill her like bobo?

Rather than sympathy, I think what got to Christina is the idea that she could never understand something. Like, when Ruby told her that she couldn't do something, she took that poo poo as a challenge; she's white and she knows magic, so she should be able to do whatever she wants. So she recreates the lynching thinking the brutality and pain is the point. She doesn't understand that she's missing the terror that Emmett felt and that would've rippled through the black community right alongside the outrage and despair and everything else. She can't feel that fear because even as she's being beaten, it's still all under her control.

It's like an extreme version of a wealthy 20-something who goes slumming--basically that "Common People" song--but with murder and magic.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2020 20:15

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Anonymous Zebra posted:

Just as a quick aside, Christina actually turned off her invulnerability during that beating, which was why those guys could even touch her. She manages to activate it again after getting dunked in the water, but for a brief moment there she could have actually died.

I'm still trying to understand what she was doing in that scene, but I just wanted to point out that she didn't have complete control and if she had gotten knocked out or otherwise been unable to speak then she could have actually died.

Yeah I saw that, but I think my point still stands: Christina knew she had an out, even if it could've been imperfect; Emmett didn't have anything of the sort.

Also, we don't really know what her trigger was. She spoke something to deactivate the protection, but she had planned to go underwater with barbed wire tied around her neck. Presumably she would've planned for a not-being-able-to-speak outcome.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 03:11

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

ruddiger posted:

The Chicago American Giants baseball cap was a nice touch.

Holy poo poo, good loving catch. The stylized C is so close to the current White Sox logo that I didn't even notice.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 05:15

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

This is going to be really self-indulgent and I get it if nobody gives a poo poo.

The Confederate monument featured in this episode is in the city I live in. Pretty sure this whole episode was shot here. The monument is one of those mass-produced Daughters of the Confederacy shits. There's another Confederate monument two blocks away.

Earlier this year, the city council finally got the necessary votes to have it moved. It's in Georgia, which has a pretty strict monument protection law, but there's a nearby Confederate section in a historic cemetery, and it's hoped that site would fulfill the law's requirement of a place of "similar prominence and respect" or whatever the language is. The Sons of Confederate Veterans group--which ostensibly is supposed to be about preserving Confederate gravesites--now has it tied up in court, presumably to argue that they cannot maintain a respectable enough site themselves. In the meantime, it continues to be the city's premier toilet for canines.

This is the second time an HBO show has done a pivotal flashback episode focused on generational trauma where I recognize the streets and buildings and the landmarks (Watchmen's fifth episode is the other one). And it's not like I'm offended or anything; I already know a thing or two about this city's racist history and it's not like my pride is punctured. But it's loving surreal. Like, I know that alleyway. I don't just know it, but I know some poo poo that happened there. I know how this very downtown used to have a lot of thriving businesses, white and black, until a poo poo-gently caress mayor in the 60s-70s turned the whole goddamn thing into an economic black hole with a curfew and cops who were encouraged to shoot to kill. This downtown gave y'all Little Richard and Otis Redding and a slew of soul musicians. Southern rock and especially the Allman Brothers happened here too. This episode is about dads? One of the small gifts my dad gave me is that he taught me who all of those people were before I could ride a bike.

And loving poof.

A buddy of mine who's much older and spends way more time at the library did the numbers. Before that mayor's curfew, there were 20-something black-owned businesses in downtown Macon (and we're talking about a four-by-five block grid, something like that). It wasn't anybody's utopia, but after? Only in the last ten years has this area been somewhere people actually want to go. They built malls everywhere else while gutting the heart of the city's black economy, convinced everyone it was a "high crime area," bought up the loving property, and turned them into lofts, one of which I'm typing in now. The remaining facade of the Capricorn Records studio was incorporated into an apartment building. I was born in this region and have lived most of my life here, and the last 5-10 years is the only time in my lifetime when anyone has had any optimism about this neighborhood at all. It's not like they flew a plane and bombed the city, but they loving might as well have. It's still just racism all the way down. It's not like a lot of the new businesses or bars are black-owned.

Anyway, I feel like I'm on acid during these kinds of episodes. Real history is colliding with portrayed history is colliding with fiction. I don't know if this is old-hat stuff for people who live in commonly-filmed locations, but it breaks my brain in good way.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2020 07:14

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Life could be a dream (shoggoth)
If I could take you into paradise up above (shoggoth)
If you would tell me I'm the only one that you love
Life could be a dream sweetheart
Hello hello again (shoggoth) and hoping we'll meet again (goth-shoggoth)

# ¿ Oct 20, 2020 21:45

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Halloween Jack posted:

Look, in an otherwise great series, episode 8 was bewilderingly bad. They used the murder of Emmett Till as a springboard to talk about literally every type of oppression besides black men and boys being murdered by the cops. His funeral being set to "Cruel Summer" is like an announcement that they don't know how to deal with this very basic issue. I give the show a pass on this because, among other things, I've never seen such a stridently anti-police American TV show, let alone one that acknowledges American war crimes in Korea. But it was a string of bizarre missteps.

It's almost like the terrorist lynching of Emmett Till was an assault on a whole community, not just an individual.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2020 19:56

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 03:21

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:

Yeah, the map heavily implies that in a world where WASPs lost magic that American Caucasians get owned from coast to coast. Really curious to see what's up with New England in this world.

https://twitter.com/MishaGreen/status/1411123731653566466

I mean, on the upside, it looks like they're already very close to a having a ready-to-film pitch for an adaptation of East of West.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2021 05:22

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Lovecraft Country: Racism is the Real Monster (And Also There are Monsters)