If you clicked this link, you probably watched “Sundown,” the first episode of Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country on HBO last Sunday (if not, go watch). Now, ahead of next Sunday’s episode, you’re interested in becoming more than a casual viewer as you recognize that the series is an incredibly subversive piece of historical fiction with literary and visual references aplenty.
Well, I’m Dr. Kinitra Brooks, a professor and horror scholar, here to be your guide into the deep universe of Lovecraft—and this shit goes deep. Like, white boys roleplaying Call of Cthulhu until 3 am deep; like busty white chicks dressing up like Dejah Thoris deep. Now, I promise I won’t go that deep—I also prefer the Blacker Harlem Unbound (which we’ll dig into later)—but I have immersed myself in all things Lovecraftian so you don’t have to (and I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum—but again, you should watch).
“Shoot the Motherf*cker!”—I know we’ve only seen one episode so far, but this is officially my favorite quote of Lovecraft Country. (A close second is Jurnee Smollett’s Leti clapping back at Courtney B. Vance’s Uncle George with “My name is not ‘girl!’ It’s Letitia fucking Jackson!” as she maniacally drives to save them from the racists on their tail after daring to eat in an all-white diner.) Yes. FINALLY. We have our protagonist, Tic (Jonathan Majors), yelling at the person with the gun exactly what us LoudBlackFolks™ have yelled at televisions and movie screens since time began.
The command to shoot comes at the climax of the first episode of HBO’s new series, which places Black folks in the midst of pulp fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft’s vast mythological world. Lovecraft Country, based on the novel of the same name by Matt Ruff and adapted by Misha Green, is a part of the contemporary arts movement that media professor John Jennings coined as “Racecraft,” adapted by Karen and Barbara Fields in their 2014 book, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life.
Source: The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: ‘Sundown’
