#racerelations
Lovecraft Country has irritated me.
What is Lovecraft Country? It’s a new HBO show based on a 2016 novel of the same name. I’ve heard talk that HBO is trying to recapture some of the magic from last year’s stand out hit series The Watchmen. That gained my interest. I saw The Watchmen and thought it was miraculous in that it achieved a level of honesty about America’s past that we haven’t seen before on television. Also, it kept me on the edge of my seat most of the way.
So why is Lovecraft Country irritating me? I watched episode 4 yesterday and as I watched the lead protagonist Atticus Turner bicker endlessly with his father and want-to-be, sort of girlfriend Letitia, it reminded me of Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the movie Pulp Fiction when he described the Superman/alter-ego reverse dynamic. Jackson’s character explained that Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on humanity. He reasoned that since Kal-El/Superman is the real person and Clark Kent is the alias created by Superman to allow him to blend in with humans, it offers a view of how a Kryptonian sees humans, mainly as bumbling, hapless souls who had best get out of the way when something important is happening.
So I’m listening to Atticus (Tic) argue endlessly with with his father and I realize that this offers a possible insight as to how the white author views a typical African American father-son relationship—as hopelessly adversarial. Letitia is simultaneously over and under sexed and she is depicted as courageous one minute and a dainty, helpless female the next. The show-runner can’t seem to make up his mind how he wants to portray these characters but the one thing he is sure of is that they don’t like each other for more than a few minutes at a time. It’s tiring.
While I was considering HBO’s decision not to tone down the tropes ascribed to the black characters when adapting the novel for TV, I realized that whites don’t fare too well either. Pretty much every white person we’ve seen so far is a version of either George Wallace or David Duke, which leaves me wondering exactly who the intended audience for this show is?
Halfway through episode four, I noticed my wife had completely checked out and was browsing Facebook on her phone. I endured the rest but after the “razor incident” at the end of the episode, I pretty much checked out as well. I don’t think I will tune in for this one again. Like I said, it’s irritating.