To King Bee

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Love the show, and I love Lovecraft Contry so far. Long time listener, first time Emailer. I loved your commentary as usual on the first episode but I gotta say something King Bee said (about 21 minutes in) that struck a chord with me. In his own words “Can sci-fi and horror be a great genre for dealing really heavy racist issues”?

As a black man, who is a fan of genre content, I have to say, YES. YES. A THOUSANDS TIMES YES. George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Candyman, the OG Stan Lee X-Men comics, Black Panther, Us, Get Out.

Scifi and Horror have been used to deal with the darkest pieces of human nature and history, from murder to world war and mass genocide, why would it be less equipped to deal with racism?

I can’t speak for every black person, but I know a good portion of us are tired of what we call “struggle movies”. Films like 12 Years A Slave, and Birth of a Nation, that are sort of dour and somber (and usually made purley made for academy awards). They have their place and merit, but it’s exhausting to have most of your representation in media come from the same genre of film set in the same three time periods, (1800’s America, 1960’s American, Modern day America).

It’s great to see a show where Black people get to be involved in the same sci fi/horror shenanigans that our white counterparts get up to. As a black person who also wants to create genre content, it’s just a little infuriating to still hear the power of Sci-fi and Horror doubted, even after decades of proving itself.

TLDR: Sci-fi and Horror are perfectly suited to explore issues of racism, and the more we have shows like Lovecraft Country the better.

Hopefully I accurately represented Bee’s thoughts, and didn’t make you a strawman, let me know if I did. 🙂

Much love to you all. <3 -Chris Davis[text-blocks id="22303"]