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Speaker 1: Welcome one and all to the Professional Homegirl Podcast. Before

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Speaker 1: we begin today's episode, we want to remind you that

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Speaker 1: the views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those

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Speaker 1: of the host and guests and are intended for educational

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Speaker 1: and entertaining purposes. In this safe space, no question is

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Speaker 1: off limits because you never know how someone's storyline can

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Speaker 1: be your lifeline. The Professional Homegirl Podcast is here to

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Speaker 1: celebrate the diverse voices, stories and experiences of women of color,

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Speaker 1: providing a platform for authentic and empowering conversations. There will

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Speaker 1: be some key king, some tears, but most importantly a

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Speaker 1: reminder that tough times don't last, but professional homegirls do

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Speaker 1: enjoy the show.

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Speaker 2: Hey, professional Homegirls, it's Sha girl ebene here and we

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Speaker 2: are back with this series finale of our spooky series. Listen,

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Speaker 2: let me tell y'all something this year spooky series, I

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Speaker 2: didn't play no games, Okay. I feel like this year's

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Speaker 2: spooky series was a real treat, And y'all, I am

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Speaker 2: just super excited for you all to hear today's episode,

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Speaker 2: because baby, the way, I geeked out the entire time

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Speaker 2: I was talking to this lady, Like, y'all, I had

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Speaker 2: the biggest grint on my face, Like she is so cool,

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Speaker 2: and if I known what she did years ago, I

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Speaker 2: definitely would have fallen in her full steps. I mean, hell,

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Speaker 2: who knows, I might even be the next black horror

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Speaker 2: film historian right under the professional homegirl umbrella. Like that's

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Speaker 2: how much I was truly inspired by this lady. In

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Speaker 2: today's episode, we dive into the captivating world of a

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Speaker 2: prominent historian and commentator on black horror films with a

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Speaker 2: deep passion for exploring the intersections of genre. She illuminates

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Speaker 2: the rich nuances of black contributions to the horror genre,

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Speaker 2: often overlook and mainstream narratives. From dissecting classic films to

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Speaker 2: analyzing contemporary works, my guest insights challenge conventions and celebrate

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Speaker 2: the unique voices within this chilling rim. Join me and

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Speaker 2: my guest as we explore her journey, the importance of

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Speaker 2: representation and horror, and how she continues to inspire new

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Speaker 2: generation of creators and fans like myself. So, y'all get ready,

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Speaker 2: because I'm a black horror film historian starts now. All right,

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Speaker 2: to my guests, thank you so much for being on

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Speaker 2: the show. Y'all, we have a whole legend on the air.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: How you doing, how you feeling?

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Speaker 3: I am doing and feeling great. We just did a

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Speaker 3: great scare up the vote campaign event or all these

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Speaker 3: big horror figures icons for vol Stephen King and Mike

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Speaker 3: Flanagan who did Doctor Sleep, and Bryan Fuller who did Hannibal,

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Speaker 3: a bunch of writers. It was amazing.

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Speaker 2: Listen. I was telling you, telling you this off the air,

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Speaker 2: but I think you are so cool because I'm like, yo,

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Speaker 2: I never seen black people, let alone black women exist

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Speaker 2: in this space. So the fact that I saw you

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Speaker 2: talking to Stephen King Jordan Peele popped up in your

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Speaker 2: clash you'd be kiky with Tony Todd. I'm like, yo,

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Speaker 2: who is this lady?

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Speaker 3: I know I'm living like that's life? Yes? Who seriously?

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Speaker 2: So what inspired you to become a central figure in

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Speaker 2: black horror?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Well, you know it was not a player. And

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Speaker 3: I'll tell you that. I started publishing in nineteen ninety five,

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Speaker 3: and back in the mid nineties, publishers were just discovering, oh,

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Speaker 3: black people read right, So there were all kinds of books, mysteries, romances, thrillers,

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Speaker 3: and they just you know, I just got in with

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Speaker 3: that mix, you know. I like to say, on the

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Speaker 3: coattails of Terry McMillan waiting to excel, even though my

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Speaker 3: work is nothing like her work except that it's about

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Speaker 3: contemporary black characters, a lot of it. But other than that,

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Speaker 3: I've just kept at it, my dear. I've been publishing

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Speaker 3: since then, had my first novel and I want to

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Speaker 3: say ten years come out. And I'm also an executive

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Speaker 3: producer on horn Wir. Now that's where a lot of

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Speaker 3: people first heard my name because horn War, A History

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Speaker 3: of Black Horror is a Shutter documentary. In fact, it

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Speaker 3: was Shutter's first original documentary and it is excellent. And

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Speaker 3: as an executive producer, I got to be a talking head,

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Speaker 3: and I've been memed. You know. I said black history

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Speaker 3: is black horror. And I don't mean when I say

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Speaker 3: black history is black horror, I don't mean the inventions.

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Speaker 3: I mean the experience, yeah, the reality, yeah, the reality? Right.

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Speaker 2: What I want to ask you, because I don't want

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Speaker 2: to discredit anybody else, but I feel like, because you

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Speaker 2: asked me, how did I find you found you? And

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Speaker 2: I don't know how it happened, but I did just

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Speaker 2: pop in my and I'm like, it gotta be somebody

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Speaker 2: that as a historian of like horror and scary movies,

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Speaker 2: and you were the only person that I discovered. So

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Speaker 2: is there anybody else in this field that is doing

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Speaker 2: the same thing you're doing, either before you or like.

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Speaker 3: Oh yes, Actually I have to shout out the woman

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Speaker 3: whose book we adapted. She wrote the book literally black

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Speaker 3: hor noir, okay, and her name is doctor Robin Armeines Coleman.

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Speaker 3: I would really call her a pioneer because as an academic,

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Speaker 3: she told me her university wouldn't even accept that manuscript

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Speaker 3: toward her tenure. You know, you have to publish to

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Speaker 3: get tenure. They wouldn't even accept it because they didn't

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Speaker 3: think it was a serious enough topic. And now it's

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Speaker 3: just blown up, I would say, since especially since get

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Speaker 3: Out came out in twenty seventeen, Oh yeah, and it

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Speaker 3: won an Oscar, I think a lot more people are

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Speaker 3: willing to take black horror seriously.

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Speaker 2: Now, your mother had a strong love for horror, So

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Speaker 2: how did that passion for the genre shape your relationship

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Speaker 2: with it growing up?

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Speaker 3: Comfort research.

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Speaker 2: When you told me you had time, He's like, because

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Speaker 2: she was like she's a super busy person, right, So

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Speaker 2: she was like, let me see because she has an assistant.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, listen, we can do this at midnight. Just

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Speaker 2: tell me your time in the date and I was ready.

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Speaker 3: I so appreciate you, and I don't ever get tired

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Speaker 3: of talking about my mom and her impact on me,

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Speaker 3: because first you have to know Patricia Stevens dude, who

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Speaker 3: sadly passed away in twenty twelve. The biggest horror of

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Speaker 3: my life was losing my mother. Let me just say

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Speaker 3: that just out front. Horror is the big loss I

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Speaker 3: think that we all relate to, and some of us

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Speaker 3: that's why we love horror. It is because it helps

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Speaker 3: he all in some ways. But we can get to that.

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Speaker 3: She spent forty nine days in jail in nineteen sixty

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Speaker 3: as one of the Florida A and M University students,

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Speaker 3: including my aunt Priscilla, who refused to pay a fine

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Speaker 3: when they were arrested for eating at a trying to

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Speaker 3: order at a lunch counter during the lunch counter sit

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Speaker 3: ince nearly nineteen sixties. So she was tear gassed by

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Speaker 3: a police officer as a twenty year old college student

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Speaker 3: and for the rest of her life she wore dark

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Speaker 3: glasses I'd say eighty percent of the time, even indoors,

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Speaker 3: because she had this sensitivity to light after suffering this

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Speaker 3: police violence during the civil rights movement, which all people

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Speaker 3: were trying to do was like have the right to

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Speaker 3: in her public spaces, public accommodation, to be treated like

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Speaker 3: a human being basically, and that whole generations sacrifice. And

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Speaker 3: she's also the first horror fan in my life. Like

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Speaker 3: she was all up in those creature features on the weekends, Dracula,

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Speaker 3: the wolf Man. I mean, she literally raised us on

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Speaker 3: that stuff. She gave me my first Stephen K novel,

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Speaker 3: The Shining, when I was sixteen. I still see that

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Speaker 3: silver paperback she gave me back in the day, and

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Speaker 3: I used to think it was this weird quirk. Oh

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Speaker 3: my mom is this very highly celebrated civil rights activist.

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Speaker 3: But she also liked horror. And since she's passed, and

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Speaker 3: after hearing more to testimonials from other like you say,

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Speaker 3: black women who also learned to love horror from their

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Speaker 3: mothers and their grandmothers and their aunties, I'm realizing, Oh,

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Speaker 3: it wasn't like a bug, it's a feature. It's like

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Speaker 3: she loved horror because she had been through this trauma

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Speaker 3: of the civil rights movement, because she went through the

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Speaker 3: trauma of growing up under Jim Crow with these signs

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Speaker 3: saying white only and colored, basically proclaiming to her that

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Speaker 3: she was not a full human being from the time

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Speaker 3: she was young. So that trauma, that pain. I never

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Speaker 3: got the chance to discuss this with her.

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Speaker 2: That was my next question.

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Speaker 3: I never I just you know, you just there's so

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Speaker 3: many things you take for granted when people are with you. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and then you realize all these questions, like, well, why

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Speaker 3: do you think what was the first horror movie you

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Speaker 3: ever saw? Like I, to this day do not know,

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Speaker 3: but I do know out the gate Like one time

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Speaker 3: when my son was what two three, Grandma and grandpa

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Speaker 3: took care of him for about nine days, and he

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Speaker 3: came home talking about demons, and I'm like, Grandma, why,

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Speaker 3: And then of course she was watching horror in front

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Speaker 3: of him. She was watching I forget what it was.

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Speaker 3: She was watching so series that she loved. It was like, mom,

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Speaker 3: come on now, But that's the same thing that happened

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Speaker 3: with me. We were watching these very scary movies from

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Speaker 3: a young age, and I now that I've been through something,

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Speaker 3: not like what she went through the sixties, but like

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Speaker 3: I said, losing her was that thing that that'll grow

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Speaker 3: you up real quick. Now you know you've been through something,

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Speaker 3: and since that time, like dealing with caretaking for an elder.

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Speaker 3: A movie like The Dark and the Wicked, which is

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Speaker 3: also on shutter, it's really really like if you like Hereditary,

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Speaker 3: it's that kind of horror. It's like grim, grim horror,

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Speaker 3: and it's about caretaking. But it makes me feel better

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Speaker 3: because at least there was no demon when I was

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Speaker 3: trying to take care my mom when or when my

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Speaker 3: dad needs help. It just takes life and shows you

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Speaker 3: you know, it could be worse.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it can always be worse.

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Speaker 3: It could be worse. And other than that, I think

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Speaker 3: it's the examples of courage. Honestly. I mean, you don't

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Speaker 3: think about courage all the time when you imagine people

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Speaker 3: in horror movies, characters and books, because we see people

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Speaker 3: trip and fall and get scared and scream. But when

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Speaker 3: you really think about it, the whole point of a

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Speaker 3: horror story is what are you going to do now?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: What are you going to do now? Now you know

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Speaker 3: there's a demon and you know this? Are you allowed

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Speaker 3: to cuss on the show?

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Speaker 2: I had courage in front of you. I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 2: I wanted to be respectful, But now I know that

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Speaker 2: you curse.

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Speaker 3: Now that you have a demon run in your ass,

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Speaker 3: what you're going to do about it? Right? Right? You

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Speaker 3: gotta come up with a plan. You gotta like, you

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Speaker 3: gotta like share information with other people on your party.

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Speaker 3: You don't have to knock on You don't have to

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Speaker 3: answer the door just because somebody knocks on it. Number

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Speaker 3: one people on horror movies, why why are you opening

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Speaker 3: the door?

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Speaker 2: And y'all love to split up?

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Speaker 3: Why he's splitting up? Why are you walking around the

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Speaker 3: house going hello, write out a weapon in your damn hand?

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Speaker 3: What right? What did they answer you? What are you

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Speaker 3: gonna do about it? So? I think it's I know,

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Speaker 3: for someone who writes horror and someone who's a horror fan,

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Speaker 3: what really electrifies me is watching these care I love

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Speaker 3: the monsters and the demons and the zombies, but it's

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Speaker 3: the characters when what they have to discover in themselves?

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Speaker 1: Right right?

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Speaker 2: You know one two things while you're talking, I'm thinking

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Speaker 2: to myself because I always loved like scary shit, and

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Speaker 2: I'm like, how was I introduced to that? I can't remember.

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Speaker 2: I think the first movie I saw that was scary

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Speaker 2: was it with the Clown? And ever since then I

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Speaker 2: just love like even to this day, sometimes I watch

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Speaker 2: scary moves. They helped me relax, which sounds crazy, but yeah,

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Speaker 2: well you get me yet the listeners like this girl

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Speaker 2: is crazy. But I can't remember how I how I

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Speaker 2: was introduced to it?

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, I mean a lot of young people

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Speaker 3: love horror because it's like a roller coaster ride and

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Speaker 3: it's a safe way to feel scared. I think that's

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Speaker 3: what I always thought. Right for me before I lost

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Speaker 3: my mom, it was just fun, It's like we but

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Speaker 3: I should have known there was more to it for her.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's not just an escape. It's that when

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Speaker 3: you're into horror and not everybody is. And I'm sorry

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Speaker 3: for y'all who aren't into horror. I'm sorry you're missing out, but.

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Speaker 2: Fast because I always say that horror, I feel like

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Speaker 2: scary movies have the best character development if it's done right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and they should get more prizes like Lupida and US.

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Speaker 3: She should have been nominated twice for that movie. She

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Speaker 3: should have gotten one nomination for Adelaide and one nomination

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Speaker 3: for Red because she played two whole ass parts in

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Speaker 3: that movie, both excellent and I can't remember. I always

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Speaker 3: forget the name of this actress, but the one who

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Speaker 3: was in Hereditarian, she was also in the mom in

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Speaker 3: the sixth sense. She's an Australian actress. Yeah, she did.

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Speaker 3: She should have. She should have won her Oscar years ago.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think a lot of people should have

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Speaker 2: won the Behave.

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Speaker 3: That's true, but you know, genre doesn't get love usually

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Speaker 3: from the Oscars, so some of those performances I guess

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Speaker 3: don't get the recognition they deserve. But I agree with

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Speaker 3: you if it's done right. Like, there's nothing worse than

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Speaker 3: watching a horror movie where you don't believe in or

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Speaker 3: like the characters. Sometimes that can be because the actors are bad.

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Speaker 3: That's the first thing that will turn me off. I

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Speaker 3: cannot stand bad acting in a horror movie.

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Speaker 2: Fast because Jamie Curtis, she sells me every time in Halloween.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. Oh shoot yeah, Jamie Lee Curtis, Well, I look

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Speaker 3: at her later won her Oscar. She didn't want it

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Speaker 3: for that, but she just won her oscar finally. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: So the characters are the main draw. It's like who

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Speaker 3: they have to become? Seeing images of people stand up

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Speaker 3: to powers that are bigger than they are. Yeah, and

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Speaker 3: that they didn't even know about yesterday, you know, like

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Speaker 3: yes and two. They don't always even have to win.

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Speaker 3: I like to say, could you know sometimes you get

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Speaker 3: that horror movie with a down and ending, sometimes everybody

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Speaker 3: just dies, right, But even that is like not the

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Speaker 3: point because spoiler, we all have a bad vase ye spoiler.

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Speaker 3: It's not about that. It's about who are you while

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Speaker 3: you're in the fight? How hard can you go? I

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Speaker 3: guess whatever it is? And what do you learn about

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Speaker 3: yourself while you're doing it? I love that.

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Speaker 2: I love it. So what are some lessons that you

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Speaker 2: learned from your mother's appreciation of horror that you incorporate

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Speaker 2: into your own work today?

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Speaker 3: Wow? That's a really, really good question.

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Speaker 2: You know what I watched, man, I watched all your interviews.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, no, we're gonna do something different.

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Speaker 3: Wow. You know, the horror she grew up on was

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Speaker 3: very different than the horror we get today. First of all,

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Speaker 3: it hardly ever had black characters, and if there were

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Speaker 3: black characters, you kind of wish there weren't because of

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Speaker 3: all the stereotypes and you know what we would call

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Speaker 3: koone now, which was just what people had to do.

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Speaker 3: Hollywood had an image of what blackness was, and if

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Speaker 3: you didn't fit that image, you didn't get cast, period,

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Speaker 3: so especially in the studio movies. So what I guess

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Speaker 3: what I learned from her was how to extract the

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Speaker 3: experience without seeing myself, if that makes it of sense,

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Speaker 3: Like these characters don't remind me and myself I'm watching,

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Speaker 3: you know, Frankenstein, there's nobody there who particularly reminds me

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Speaker 3: of myself except maybe Frankenstein's Monster a little bit. Frankenstein's

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Speaker 3: Monster is an outcast, misunderstood. All he's trying to do

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Speaker 3: is give a little girl a flower and there's a

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Speaker 3: mob after.

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Speaker 2: So and it'd be nice, I think.

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Speaker 3: For a lot of us who feel like we've been

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Speaker 3: pushed to the margins and pushed outside of society. That

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Speaker 3: is definitely one of the things that probably appealed to

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Speaker 3: my mom is said she saw herself reflected and those

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Speaker 3: who are reviled and those who are rejected, And it's

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Speaker 3: not that you're rooting for the mom But like a

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Speaker 3: good example is like, oh, this is a fun one

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Speaker 3: because I used to watch this as a kid. It's

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Speaker 3: a black and white one, and yes it was a rerun.

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Speaker 3: I did not see it when it first came out,

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Speaker 3: but it's from the nineteen fifties, called them all people

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Speaker 3: m h And I haven't seen it since I was

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Speaker 3: a kid, or I hadn't, so I decided to rewatch

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Speaker 3: it again a couple of years ago, and I'm like,

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Speaker 3: what the heck did I ever see in this movie?

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Speaker 3: Like all these white researchers on a long hike. I mean,

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Speaker 3: this hike went on forever while they're just talking. It's

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Speaker 3: so dry, it's so boring. What appealed to me? Why

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Speaker 3: did I watch this? They got it? Then they got

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Speaker 3: inside the tunnel and they found the mole people. Well

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Speaker 3: guess what. The mole people were being forced to dig,

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Speaker 3: they were being forced to work, they were being whipped.

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Speaker 3: There was I think a deliberate slavery metaphor. I'm not

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Speaker 3: trying to say these producers were super woke, but right,

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Speaker 3: Hollywood does try to pat it stuff on the back

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Speaker 3: for like these messages, and they're all white movies, Like

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Speaker 3: I don't allow it to cast anybody, but they're like

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Speaker 3: wanting to pat themselves on the back for like, oh,

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Speaker 3: they're being treated like they're enslaves right out right. But

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Speaker 3: that was what I saw, and I bet that was

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Speaker 3: what my mom saw. I again, I was relating to

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Speaker 3: the experience of the monster and in that movie, believing me.

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Speaker 3: I was definitely rooting for those more people to have

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Speaker 3: an uprising. Okay, yes, right growing up?

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Speaker 2: Did y'all have any family traditions or like superstitions or

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Speaker 2: folklore that also influence your love, because I think like

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Speaker 2: for me, every Halloween since I was a kid, I

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Speaker 2: get all my favorite nexts I watch all my scary

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Speaker 2: movies from sun up to sundown, So, like, did y'all

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Speaker 2: have any traditions like that?

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Speaker 3: It's so funny you asked that, because all I remember

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Speaker 3: is that my mom was that house that doesn't give

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Speaker 3: away candy. My mom would give away little pads and pencils.

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Speaker 3: You know, that's a wonder we did not get toilet

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Speaker 3: paper wrapped around our house every year because she was

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Speaker 3: that one who's like, oh, all that sugar is bad

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Speaker 3: for you. Here's something healthy here. Those moms and I

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Speaker 3: think just because we were watching horror movies all the

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Speaker 3: time time. We didn't set it aside as like a

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Speaker 3: special time of year to watch horror. Because to this day,

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Speaker 3: I still I celebrate horror all the time. I could

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Speaker 3: watch a horror movie every day. I'm reading horror me too,

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Speaker 3: quite a lot, you know, not all the time, but

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Speaker 3: a lot of the time. So no, not around Halloween.

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Speaker 3: But my mother enjoyed horror movies very very very late

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Speaker 3: into her life.

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Speaker 2: Now, being as you are a strong voice in the genre,

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Speaker 2: what do you think distinguishes between black horror and from

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Speaker 2: traditional horror and why do you think it's so important

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Speaker 2: for our culture?

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Speaker 3: Yes, another great question. I teach a whole course at

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Speaker 3: ECLA called The Sunken Place, Racism, Survival and the Black

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Speaker 3: Horror Aesthetic, which is supposed to be like what is horror?

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Speaker 3: You know what is black horror? And of course the

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Speaker 3: beautiful thing about it is you can probably guess one

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Speaker 3: thing I'm gonna say is it's not the same for

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Speaker 3: every black creator. There's black horror that is get Out,

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Speaker 3: which is social justice horror. Racism itself is the monster.

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Speaker 3: The whole movie is basically about white supremacy and being

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Speaker 3: caught in the web of white supremacy. That's one version.

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Speaker 3: And then there's a movie called Sweetheart, directed by JD.

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Speaker 3: Dillard about a biracial woman stuck on an island with

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Speaker 3: a creature. Now, yeah, oh, you've got to watch that.

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Speaker 3: I love creature movies. There are not many creature movies,

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Speaker 3: certainly not enough creature movies with black leads as far

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Speaker 3: as I'm concerned. So there's that there's a little bit

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Speaker 3: of pinch of race because the white companions she discovers

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Speaker 3: don't believe her, which is one of my biggest pet peeves.

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Speaker 3: And horror, all horror, not just black horror, is gaslighting. Ooh,

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Speaker 3: I cannot stand it. I am a grown, sober person.

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Speaker 3: Like you know how you see a husband a wife

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Speaker 3: in a movie and the wife is sure she just

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Speaker 3: heard a noise and my husband's liked it must be

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Speaker 3: your imagination. Listen that next scene. That would be a fight, right,

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Speaker 3: because if my husband tries to tell me like I

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Speaker 3: am a rational person, I am an adult. And even

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Speaker 3: if I was five years old, if I tell if

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Speaker 3: my son told me he heard something under his bed,

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Speaker 3: you best believe I will be there with a flashlight

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Speaker 3: right rightife, and thank you bring the knife too, because ooh,

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Speaker 3: the gaslighting. So in Sweetheart there's a little bit of

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Speaker 3: that gaslighting. And because she's the only black character, it

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Speaker 3: does feel like it's a little bit about race, it does,

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Speaker 3: you know, or even maybe that she's a black woman

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Speaker 3: even but there are all kinds of black horror. I

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Speaker 3: like to say that it's revolutionary to have a black

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Speaker 3: lead and horror period. Like, it doesn't matter how black

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Speaker 3: ay black. They are, a lot of my characters grew

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Speaker 3: up in the suburbs. It doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: It's about representing our experience and of course sometimes aspects

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Speaker 3: of real life. Like I did a graphic novel called

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Speaker 3: The Keeper with my husband Stephen Barnes, illustrated by Marco

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Speaker 3: finninggen Flex it Hey Steve, Steve and I wrote it

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Speaker 3: as a script. First we came really close to getting

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Speaker 3: it made and then the studio back down and it

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Speaker 3: never got made. But as a graphic novel it has

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Speaker 3: a new life, and it's just an eight year old

401
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:29,399
Speaker 3: girl who who is orphaned and her grandmother dies, and

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Speaker 3: her grandmother told her stay out of the system, whatever

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Speaker 3: you do, and she gave her a real good reason

404
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Speaker 3: to stay in the system. She told her story about

405
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Speaker 3: something that happened to her when she was in the system.

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Speaker 3: So the girl just lets the grandmother stay in her room,

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Speaker 3: doesn't tell anybody she's dead. But grandma conjured a creature

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Speaker 3: to take care of her, called the Keeper. Now this

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00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:53,280
Speaker 3: is an intergenerational creature because her the grandmother's father, also

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Speaker 3: conjured that creature to take care of her. So there's

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Speaker 3: a little bit of history of the black experience with

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Speaker 3: policing is a little bit sprinkled in there. The Black

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Speaker 3: experience with the system is a little bit sprinkled in

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Speaker 3: there well, where the system will literally take children out

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Speaker 3: of a home that is struggling and pay strangers to

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Speaker 3: take care of your children.

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Speaker 2: And that's scary as who excuse me, what right?

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Speaker 3: But that's the sort of contempt that the system has

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Speaker 3: for an intact black family. It's just like, you know,

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Speaker 3: we're just going to disrupt this family. Money could have

421
00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:29,760
Speaker 3: solved all's problem, but we're going to give them money

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Speaker 3: to somebody else. So there's a little bit of contemporary

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Speaker 3: issues in the story, but it's mostly just what I

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Speaker 3: like to say is getting to the universal through the

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Speaker 3: specific right. So, through this very specific story about this

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Speaker 3: kind of child living to Detroit, struggling with now that

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Speaker 3: she's lost your parents, she's lost that bat wealth that

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Speaker 3: her parents also you know, might have passed to her.

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Speaker 3: But the universal story is just at what point do

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Speaker 3: you become the monster? Even if you're just a child,

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Speaker 3: if you have a creature taking care of you, and

432
00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:07,760
Speaker 3: that creature is doing things that creature is not just

433
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 3: you know, cleaning up the house while you're at school.

434
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:11,360
Speaker 3: I mean, it does do that, but it does more

435
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,159
Speaker 3: than that. It feeds off of life force around you.

436
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:18,359
Speaker 3: At what point is she the monster? That's the point

437
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 3: of that story. And I think to answer your question

438
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:24,679
Speaker 3: sort of more specifically, some of the things that we

439
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:28,040
Speaker 3: see typically in black horror, even though as I've said,

440
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 3: there's all kinds ancestors appear in black horror, and that

441
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:36,680
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily mean ghosts that are scary. That could mean

442
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 3: ancestors for guidance, because I think the African American community

443
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 3: sometimes has a different relationship to ancestors, So we see

444
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:49,960
Speaker 3: ancestors retribution, you know, trying to write a wrong through magic.

445
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 3: I wrote a story called The Writer, which is in

446
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 3: Jordan Peele's book out there Screaming. It's a whole anthology

447
00:23:57,800 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 3: of black horse.

448
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 2: You know, list I want to get that book for

449
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:02,679
Speaker 2: so long, so not even order it.

450
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 3: It's a great it's a really great example of how

451
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 3: there is no one thing that is black horror. I mean, NK.

452
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 3: Jemison starts it off strong with some views on policing

453
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:17,199
Speaker 3: that does not hold back. But some of the stories,

454
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 3: it's just like the characters happen yeah, to be black,

455
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 3: and that I think is it's so liberating, you know,

456
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:28,439
Speaker 3: because one of the dangers of black horror, and I

457
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 3: saw some of this. I'm not going to get too

458
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 3: specific because I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but

459
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 3: maybe you can think of some examples of this as

460
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 3: I'm telling you that. Listen, some people, when you get

461
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 3: that megaphone, you get that platform. It's almost like that

462
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:47,399
Speaker 3: Roy Wood Junior joke where he talks about the Civil

463
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 3: Rights Museum guy, if he's a black guy. By the

464
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:51,680
Speaker 3: end of the day, he's like, look what you did

465
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 3: to us, Right, It's like, you want to make the

466
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 3: history itself the horror, but if you delve too far

467
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 3: that it becomes what people call trauma porn, and it

468
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 3: retraumatizes instead of healing. Right, So if you look at

469
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 3: the pilot of Lovecraft Country, Lovecraft Country.

470
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,640
Speaker 2: Is we're so in sync because I was literally thinking

471
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 2: about Lovecraft Country.

472
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 3: Well, it's so in that lane right, like that that

473
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 3: scary empty road and the headlights shoo, that's like out

474
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:27,639
Speaker 3: of my parents' stories. That's out of my nightmares. The

475
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:30,679
Speaker 3: sundown town, the police chasing you out of the diner.

476
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 3: That's some of the scariest stuff in the episode. But

477
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 3: it's not unwatchable because we don't have to watch a lynching.

478
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 3: We don't. You know, in fact, right when you're starting

479
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 3: to maybe feel like you're gonna get triggered, monsters appear, right,

480
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 3: And it's the fantasy element that makes it fun to watch.

481
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 3: And I think sometimes newer horror creators who get that

482
00:25:57,400 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 3: platform and they were like, oh, finally we're going to

483
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 3: get some black horror, or they forget that it's supposed

484
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 3: to be entertainment. Yeah, And the question is entertaining for

485
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 3: who like? Because I have seen some black horror that

486
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 3: was not entertaining that was just based on racist violence.

487
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 3: As the horror. I get it that racist violence is horror.

488
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 3: I get it that lynching is horrific, but I'm not

489
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,360
Speaker 3: going to watch the lynching for farm. You can probably

490
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 3: think of examples from films and television where the racist

491
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 3: violence went too far, and everybody has a different level

492
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 3: where it's going to feel like too far for you.

493
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 3: But I think there's some that are pretty like that

494
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 3: would be too far for just about anybody.

495
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 2: Because if I'm thinking a one particular movie and that

496
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 2: was a lot that it was intense, I'm like, I

497
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 2: don't want to see this.

498
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that the confusing thing. That's what's

499
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 3: brilliant about the remake of Candy Man are not the sequel,

500
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 3: rather the spiritual sequel to Candy Man that Nea the

501
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 3: cost had directed. Oh that was amazing that Monkey Pop

502
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 3: put out, because you know, as I'm going to be

503
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 3: telling my class on Tuesday and next week, there's a

504
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 3: whole bunch of problematic stuff in the original Candy Man.

505
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 3: I love it. It's scary as heck, but it has

506
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 3: some problematic issues, mainly that it's black trauma through a

507
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 3: white lens. If I had to summarize it, that would

508
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 3: be the main issue. That it's like supposed to be

509
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 3: based around black trauma. But why aren't we telling the story.

510
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 2: And killing us? What in the hood he should be

511
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 2: killing them.

512
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 3: So the New candy Man, which I like to call

513
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 3: candy Man Reclamation, tells the story of black trauma through

514
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 3: a black lens. It makes Kabrini green like a neighborhood

515
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 3: in the flashbacks, instead of just like some kind of

516
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 3: like trashy set, which is what it was in the original.

517
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:47,239
Speaker 3: And it's like they weren't even real people. They were

518
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 3: kind of like props. You could see in the New Candyman. Oh,

519
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,440
Speaker 3: he's doing his laundry. This is our neighborhood. This is

520
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 3: where families live here. It looks a real, one small thing.

521
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 3: But the main thing was when it's just describing a

522
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 3: scene of violence, that went to that animated puppetry, like

523
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 3: instead of watching somebody get hurt by violent racists. It's

524
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 3: a very sort of stylized rendering of Candy Man's story

525
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 3: that is not triggering, and it helps you stay and

526
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 3: that once upon a time storytelling state rather than flinching

527
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 3: because it reminds you of something you saw in the

528
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 3: news last week, or something that happened to your grandfather.

529
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 2: Right right now, you got me thinking because I'm thinking

530
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 2: about the end and when Tony Todd appears and you

531
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 2: speaking about how like ancestors come back to sort of

532
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 2: right there wrong. So is that what he was doing

533
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 2: in the end.

534
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that the original spirit of Candy Man,

535
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 3: who inexplicably was killing his own people right right in

536
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 3: the first movie, is announcing himself as an avenging angel.

537
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 3: And that line. When I first heard that line tell everyone,

538
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 3: I was like, I felt goosebumps, right because it's like,

539
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 3: tell everyone, I will be here to beat that ass

540
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 3: if you have an issue, like if like, yeah, he

541
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 3: basically killed whole bunch of police officers at the end

542
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 3: of the movie, you know, which in the wake of

543
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 3: George Floyd and it was actually shot before that and

544
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 3: then delayed in COVID and all that. But but that

545
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 3: was the spirit you know that everybody. There was even

546
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 3: a character named Brianna, you know in the New Candy Man. Yeah,

547
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 3: so that black lives matter theme was very strong. But

548
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 3: also this revenge. So that's something you see in black horror,

549
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,920
Speaker 3: like revenge, uh, not revenge, it's called tales from the hood.

550
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 2: Oh that was a classic man from the nineties. Yeah,

551
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 2: and that was a kid.

552
00:29:55,800 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's all about trying to take power were

553
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 3: when we don't have it in real life, when it's

554
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 3: revenge horror. But that's you know again, there's so many

555
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 3: different kinds, and of course Vodo appears in some black

556
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 3: horror or root magic and you know, conjuring that kind

557
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 3: of thing. We see it. It can be overdone and

558
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 3: it can be done badly, but there's also great projects

559
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 3: that use that too.

560
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 2: I'm just curious because I was a fan of Lovecraft Country.

561
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 2: So what were your thoughts when you heard that they

562
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 2: was counseled.

563
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 3: I was disappointed, you know. Of course, I think that

564
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 3: there were some classic, classic moments in Lovecraft Country. Some

565
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 3: of them had nothing to do with horror, you know,

566
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 3: like just seeing grown folks in bed together, like grown

567
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 3: black people, like you know, that was with Courtney b

568
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 3: Vance and I never got over the loss of him. Yeah, yeah,

569
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 3: those twins were super scary. In the Emmett Teale episode.

570
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've have so many bread crumbs in it, like

571
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 2: it made you want to go back and read on

572
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 2: history about our people.

573
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 3: For me, it did. It's just, you know, I think

574
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 3: in our current environment, TV shows are not getting the

575
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 3: chance they used to. And it's very common, unfortunately for

576
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:19,959
Speaker 3: shows to be canceled after a single season. You might

577
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 3: as well just call that a limited series then if

578
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 3: that's what you're going to do, right, and then more

579
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 3: artists would be able to wrap up the story, you know,

580
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 3: because clearly Love Crowd Country felt like it could go

581
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 3: in like a whole.

582
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 2: Difference, so many different ways direction.

583
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 3: At the end. But yeah, it was disappointing, but honestly

584
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 3: not surprising. Yeah.

585
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 2: Facts, Now, what's a horror film you think everyone should

586
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 2: watch to better understand black experiences through the genre lenses?

587
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 3: All right? Now, get out is my usual standard answer,

588
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 3: so I have to say get out. But and hear

589
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 3: me out on this, The Blackening. The Blackening, Dwayne Perkins

590
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 3: just spoke to my class virtually, and he is he

591
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 3: is a really bright brother actually, and he co wrote

592
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 3: the movie, so he didn't just star and he co

593
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 3: wrote it. And what I love about The Blackening is

594
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 3: that it is such blackety black horror. I mean it's

595
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 3: like it's got the tongue in cheek references to the

596
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 3: things that we as audience members say we would never do,

597
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 3: like let's not split up there's a whole joke around

598
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 3: that because we're watching the movie going what is wrong

599
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 3: with these people? You know, So it carries our sensibility

600
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 3: into the story. M h. And because it's literally a

601
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:44,239
Speaker 3: Juneteenth themed movie, right, they incorporate black history into this

602
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 3: game in a way that I truly appreciate, like the

603
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 3: second verse to lift every voice and seeing now, I

604
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 3: admit I would have been dead, but I would have

605
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 3: got him like first verse and third verse. I could

606
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 3: have handled that, but it's that second verse. I don't know, right,

607
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 3: And if you don't know how to play Spade, you

608
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 3: don't know how to play Bidwist. But all this is

609
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 3: just sort of their historical references, their cultural references. The

610
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 3: movie makes a point, I think a very strong point

611
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 3: again that blackness is not a monolith because these are

612
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 3: all very different characters. One woman is biracial, one of

613
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 3: the characters is his family is from the continent of Africa.

614
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 3: One of them was kind of a thug back in

615
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 3: the day, but he's loosened up. I mean, there are

616
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 3: all these different personality types and it's not only as

617
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 3: a funk, but it's actually scary. So I'm gonna say,

618
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 3: you know, obviously get Out, but don't sleep on the blackening.

619
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 2: So would you say get Out had the most significant

620
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 2: impact on the genre?

621
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 3: Woo? It really did. Yeah, it really did. It's even

622
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 3: hard to explain the difference between the pre get Out

623
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 3: world and the post get Out world, especially when it

624
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 3: came to pitching in cinema, like, believe me, I've been

625
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 3: publishing since ninety five. I'm nineteen ninety five. I've been

626
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 3: pitching since nineteen ninety five, And the executives would say,

627
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 3: to your face, oh, I love that idea, but did

628
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 3: the characters have to be black? I mean they would

629
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 3: literally say that instead of just thinking it, which I

630
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 3: actually appreciate when people say things out loud. But that's

631
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 3: where their heads were at because there was no demonstrated

632
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 3: market for black horror and one of the most you know,

633
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 3: I think it's it's a difficult watch, but it's a

634
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 3: masterful film beloved, Oh b Love, stars Oprah Winfrey and

635
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 3: was directed by Jonathan Demi. I think unfortunately it just

636
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 3: didn't make its budget back. It was an expensive movie,

637
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of horror like get Out was

638
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 3: four point five million. Yeah, so of course get Out

639
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 3: made it's money back, and I think if Beloved had

640
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 3: been closer to like twenty million. But it's hard with

641
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 3: a historical you got to have all these like set

642
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 3: you know, all these sets and old costumes, and it's

643
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 3: expensive to make period pieces. So Beloved and that was

644
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 3: what Hollywood thought of first, Like I used to pitch

645
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 3: and they say, oh, like beloved, and in Hollywood speak

646
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 3: that means we're going to lose our shirts, like weird, like,

647
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 3: and executives are very risk averse. They get fired when

648
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 3: they make decisions that lose money for the company. So

649
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 3: it's so easy for execs to say no, no, no, no,

650
00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 3: no to black creators. But after get Out, yeah, I

651
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 3: mean there's a combination of things. There's get Out, there's

652
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:39,439
Speaker 3: Black Panther and George Floyd between all those things, over

653
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 3: liking like out of their way, like like inserting blackness

654
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 3: where just you know, I mean, and of course they

655
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 3: go overboard on one way and then they want to

656
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 3: snap back to the way it was, so we're in

657
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 3: the snap back time. Oh, we're definitely in the snap banks.

658
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 3: We're like that was cute. That was a cute experiment.

659
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 3: But I will say this, even though it has snapped back.

660
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:08,919
Speaker 3: And when I say that, I mean it is once

661
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 3: again difficult to mount projects with black leads. It's not

662
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 3: nearly as difficult as it was before Get Out in

663
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 3: Black Panther, I have to give credit. Jordan Peel opened doors.

664
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 3: He didn't even know he was opening. He opened doors

665
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 3: for like we did that Black Horror documentary. I showed it.

666
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,240
Speaker 3: It got the green light the day he won his oscar,

667
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 3: and then they followed up with Queer for Fear, which

668
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 3: was a queer So queer creators are getting doors open,

669
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 3: Indigenous creators are getting doors open. I mean, look at

670
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 3: where indigenous horror is or Indigenous people period, because I

671
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 3: never saw them except in historicals, you know, playing historical roles.

672
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,800
Speaker 3: Now we see contemporary Indigenous people and all kinds of projects.

673
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 3: And I really do credit, especially in horror. I do

674
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 3: credit get Out for opening a lot of minds in

675
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 3: terms of what can and cannot be profitable, because trust me,

676
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 3: that's all they are thinking about is, well, it's my money.

677
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: You know.

678
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 2: When I was a little girl, my grandma used to

679
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 2: always tell me about how into the white listeners not y'all,

680
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 2: but my grandma used to always tell me how white

681
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 2: people back in the day or even now in the

682
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 2: black market, they'll take our different body pars and all

683
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 2: these things like that.

684
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 3: Oh really, whoa, Oh shoot, you just woke up a memory.

685
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 2: Remember if she used to always telling us when I

686
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 2: was a kid. I'm like, Nana, what are you talking about?

687
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:36,399
Speaker 2: So my grandmother passed ten years almost ten years ago,

688
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 2: but when I saw get out all these conversations that

689
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 2: she used to have when we were coming back, and

690
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 2: I'm like, yo, this is crazy, and to let me

691
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 2: know that. Okay, I'm not the only one who heard.

692
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 3: This, but yes, And you know what, the memory that

693
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 3: came back for me was when I first got my

694
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 3: driver's license, maybe sixteen seventeen years old, and I said,

695
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 3: I would be willing to donate my body parts to

696
00:37:57,640 --> 00:37:59,359
Speaker 3: science if I was in an accident, because you can

697
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:03,839
Speaker 3: check that. She said, no, yeah, you should never check

698
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 3: because in her mind, they would let you die to

699
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:08,359
Speaker 3: take your body parts.

700
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 2: Absolutely.

701
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 3: So yeah, crazy, it is crazy.

702
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 4: Yeah.

703
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 3: And between that the Tuskegee experiment, you know, we're like,

704
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 3: we's in with the medical system. Yeah.

705
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 2: Why do you think so many black people don't like

706
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 2: horror movies or scary movies? And the reason why I

707
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 2: ask because I feel like all these movies like Candyman,

708
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 2: Ease By, You, Belove It, Get Out, they all are

709
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 2: talking about the collective fears of black communities. So why

710
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 2: do you think black people don't like scary shit?

711
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:38,720
Speaker 3: I don't know any black people who don't like scary

712
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 3: shit my friends. My friends love horror.

713
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 2: I'm the only one that likes scary movies.

714
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 3: Well, I will tell you what experience I had on

715
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:49,919
Speaker 3: book tour, and that might help answer the question. Because

716
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 3: when I started publishing in the nineties, I had a

717
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 3: book called The Living Blood, which is about Ethiopian immortals.

718
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 3: They're like the opposite of vampires. People want to steal

719
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 3: their blood because it can heal any one drop. Right.

720
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 3: So it had a cover of this figure covered with bees.

721
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 3: And as I think about it, I probably was influenced

722
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 3: by Candy Man, and I think about how I use

723
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 3: bees in that story. But people were taking that book

724
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 3: cover off when they were reading the book. And I

725
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 3: do think that, and this is a broad statement, I

726
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 3: do think that because so many of us have come

727
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 3: from such a deep religious background, there is an actual

728
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 3: fear that reading some of these horror stories is inviting

729
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,359
Speaker 3: forces into your life, right, you know, I think that

730
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 3: might be part of it. Like I didn't grow up

731
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 3: with my grandmother throwing salt or with red clay or

732
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 3: any of that stuff. There was no folk no folk

733
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 3: beliefs that were part of my upbringing. But for a

734
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 3: lot of people they were.

735
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 1: Yeah.

736
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 3: True. They brought it from the islands, you know, they

737
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 3: brought so so I think that might have something to

738
00:39:59,400 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 3: do with it.

739
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 2: You know, the Caribbean people, they not messing with that

740
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 2: scary shit. Okay, So I'm just curious. What is your

741
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 2: favorite scary movie of all time?

742
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:10,800
Speaker 3: Oh? Come, well, that's so hard.

743
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 2: The favorite scar both black and traditional.

744
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,720
Speaker 3: Okay, so I get too then mm hm, Getout's always

745
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 3: my favorite. For black. It's just gonna have to be

746
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 3: that way for a while. It's gonna be hard. I mean,

747
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 3: it literally had an impact on my life. You know.

748
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 3: I got my first TV credit from Jordan Peel. We

749
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 3: Steve and I wrote a Twilight Zone episode, season two,

750
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 3: episode eight, a small Town. So I'm like all up

751
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 3: and get out, and plus I teach a Courus about it.

752
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 3: You can watch it eight hundred times. In terms of

753
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 3: traditional non black horror, my favorite the scariest or the

754
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,879
Speaker 3: one I go back. I think, all right, here's how,

755
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 3: here's how I'm gonna do it. Probably it could be

756
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 3: The Exorcist. You know, I love children and horror. It's it's,

757
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,439
Speaker 3: it's and excisis three. Don't sleep on that one. Skip

758
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 3: the second one, but the third one also very scary.

759
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 3: But if I have to be honest about the one

760
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:11,240
Speaker 3: that had the most impact on me in the theaters,

761
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 3: because Exercist was a little bit before my time in

762
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 3: terms of seeing in that movie theater, the one I

763
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,759
Speaker 3: saw in the theater that really got under my skin was

764
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 3: Nightmare and elm Street.

765
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:27,760
Speaker 2: Freddy was hands down, Yeah.

766
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 3: That idea that something could attack you while you're dreaming,

767
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 3: Oh how do you fight that?

768
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 2: And his storyline was amazing.

769
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 3: Yes, I think night Mare and el Street would have

770
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 3: to be my number one, just traditional scary movie, and

771
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 3: get Out is my favorite Black movie.

772
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 2: I think for me my favorite traditional hands down Halloween.

773
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:50,399
Speaker 2: Oh of course, of course I love Halloween. I love

774
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 2: the fact that we got to see the ending of

775
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 2: it like there's no more. That's it, right, And I

776
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 2: think for Black I would have to say, I don't know,

777
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: maybe either Obviously get Out or Ease by You.

778
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:10,240
Speaker 3: Eves by You is a beautiful, beautiful and very disturbing film.

779
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 3: You know, when I first saw eves by You, and

780
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 3: I did see that in theaters, and we were so

781
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 3: spoiled in the nineties by the way, we just thought.

782
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 3: We just thought this is how it was going to be,

783
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, we didn't know, we didn't

784
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 3: know what they were going to read that line back

785
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,879
Speaker 3: he right, we're going to have any any more black

786
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 3: movies in two thousands. For a long time, it was

787
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 3: really bad until twenty seventeen, really, until we started having

788
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 3: more black movies. But but back in the day, I

789
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 3: saw Eased Bayou in the theater and it so disturbed

790
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:42,240
Speaker 3: me that I never watched it again until I started

791
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 3: teaching my black horror class. Oh wow, isn't that crazy,

792
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 3: Because now I look at it, it's like beautifully shocked. Yeah,

793
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 3: I can't believe Casey Lemon's got to direct. Well that

794
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 3: was the nineties, man, You just like people getting opportunities,

795
00:42:55,360 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 3: people getting chances. How she found the these young actors.

796
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:06,240
Speaker 3: I mean, this whole movie rests on a child actor

797
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 3: and that is my jam. Yeah, Oh my god, what

798
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 3: is her first name Smollett. What is her first name, Journey,

799
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 3: Journey Smollet, Like just introducing Journey Smollett, and she was

800
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 3: already a fully formed young actor. She carries that movie,

801
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 3: she did beautifully. And then she got Samuel L. Jackson.

802
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 3: Y'all don't even know. I mean, Samuel L. Jackson was

803
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:31,799
Speaker 3: like the biggest box office star or one of them

804
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 3: in the world. Took that part, and it is not

805
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 3: a very flattering part. It is like not gonna make

806
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 3: you leave the theater feeling super good about him? Right right?

807
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 2: Why so much?

808
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 3: I think it's that incest theme, you know, because that's

809
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 3: the part of the movie. Like some people don't even

810
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 3: consider it used by horror, They consider it a drama.

811
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 3: But I think it is horror because well, first of all,

812
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 3: horror is an emotion, and it fills me with horror.

813
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 3: Like when when Journey has is sitting on his lap,

814
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is horrific. Not because of supernatural reasons,

815
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 3: but there are enough hints at mysticism and the supernatural

816
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 3: that her aunt has future sits. She can literally see

817
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:19,439
Speaker 3: the future except for herself, And you wonder, did this

818
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:22,399
Speaker 3: girl really curse her father? You don't know for sure

819
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 3: if it was her curse or his bad choices that

820
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 3: led to his death. But when you mix that in

821
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 3: with that question of what really happened between this father

822
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 3: and daughter, and just enough like where you're like just

823
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 3: about to close your eyes. I can't watch this anymore.

824
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 3: That you know, you cut away and the rest is

825
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:45,279
Speaker 3: imagination like, and it really rests. I don't think it's

826
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 3: too spoilery. I mean, yeah, I should have seen the

827
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 3: movie by now.

828
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 4: Oh now, it's such a beautiful film and it's so

829
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 4: rich that even if I tell you this, it just

830
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 4: better prepares you to see it, Like who kissed who first?

831
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 3: Did this child kiss her father? Or did his father

832
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 3: kiss his child? And that is a question I'm still

833
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:11,279
Speaker 3: trying to answer, and I've seen it about a half

834
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 3: dozen times.

835
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 2: So why do you think horror is such an effective

836
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 2: medium for conveying these deep social issues? Because I didn't

837
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:29,839
Speaker 2: even think about that. I see this movie thousand times,

838
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 2: But technically that was incesse right.

839
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,919
Speaker 3: Well, but through that lens of just enough of that mysticism,

840
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:39,279
Speaker 3: and you know it doesn't quite hit the same way.

841
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 3: You know, there was a study during COVID that was

842
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 3: published in the New York Times, basically saying that people

843
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 3: who love horror tended to cope better under a crisis situation.

844
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:55,839
Speaker 3: And I think it's because we're always dressed out. We

845
00:45:55,880 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 3: are rehearsing for catastrophe all the time, right, Like, it's

846
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 3: not a shock when things go wrong. On one level,

847
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 3: I kind of expected people to be bursting through my

848
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:10,399
Speaker 3: house during the last presidency, you know, because people were

849
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 3: losing their minds and feeling empowered and enabled and just

850
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:17,360
Speaker 3: proud with their racism. So if a mob of angry

851
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 3: racist had broken into my house, I would have been,

852
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 3: you know, sort of shock in the moment, but not surprised,

853
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 3: like of course, it's like right on time, and I

854
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 3: would have my plan. I know where my baton flashlight is.

855
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 3: I can knock somebody over the head. I know where

856
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 3: I keep the steaks, knives, and the kitchen. I'm not

857
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 3: going to be, at least in your head you think

858
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:38,239
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be one of those people who

859
00:46:38,239 --> 00:46:40,840
Speaker 3: trips and falls and just covers my head and screams.

860
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 3: I'm going to be one of those people who has

861
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 3: sense enough to hide, which not enough horror characters do,

862
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 3: by the way, right, like especially if you're running in

863
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 3: the woods at night, are you kidding me? You have

864
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 3: so many places you could hide.

865
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 2: Papa squat and be quiet.

866
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 3: Why are you on the Oh, that's like the one

867
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,879
Speaker 3: place he's gonna look right. But I think that we're

868
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 3: rehearsing these survival behaviors in our head, but we're doing

869
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:11,279
Speaker 3: them in a safe context because nothing can hurt us

870
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,760
Speaker 3: or touch us from a movie. I have a harder

871
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 3: time reading news. I have a harder time true crime.

872
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 3: You know. I shoot, I made the mistake of watching

873
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 3: that documentary about Jared from Subway. I'm like, I was like,

874
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:26,799
Speaker 3: I gotta I'm I gotta wash that out of my head.

875
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 3: That that was something I did not need to put

876
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 3: myself through. But a horror movie, I think, and it

877
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:35,879
Speaker 3: happened with my mother. I think too, is that when

878
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 3: you see these scares on a screen, it helps validate

879
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,839
Speaker 3: the part of you that knows that horror is real. Right,

880
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 3: Like maybe Jocula is not real, but that fear people

881
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:51,960
Speaker 3: feel when they're around tragedy, loss, chaos, that is real,

882
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,800
Speaker 3: and so it validates us. It validates our fear experience

883
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 3: when we see monsters and zombies and ghosts, and we

884
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 3: can kind of exhale you read it out.

885
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:06,279
Speaker 2: We're are so instinct. Because that's my next question. Do

886
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:09,919
Speaker 2: you think black audience find therapeutic value in watching black horror?

887
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 2: And I agree. I feel like when you can validate

888
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 2: your fears, it makes you feel more comfortable.

889
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, And get Out is one way. I

890
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 3: mean it can be like, Okay, this movie perfectly describes

891
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 3: how some people might feel at work, like they're the

892
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 3: only black person at work, And there's something about get

893
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 3: Out that scratches that. It's just right, like so you

894
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 3: can kind of laugh at it. You can see it

895
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:36,600
Speaker 3: through a different prism. The same thing with being chased.

896
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know. I've been very blessed. I

897
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 3: have never been through a trauma where someone was chasing me,

898
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 3: and I don't want to go through that either. Yeah,

899
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:47,800
Speaker 3: nobody wants to do that for real. I have heard

900
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,960
Speaker 3: people who have been abused say that they do find

901
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 3: it therapeutic, so I will take their word for it.

902
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 3: But that's not where I'm coming from. My traumas were

903
00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 3: more societal traumas being raised by civil rights activists went

904
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:05,840
Speaker 3: too much here and too much that. Seeing my mother's

905
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:09,760
Speaker 3: trauma from her activism in the dark glasses she wore.

906
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 3: That's that was my trauma. It was almost like sort

907
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:16,600
Speaker 3: of residual trauma from them that was also touching me.

908
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 3: But I do feel like, especially for black like if

909
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 3: you're listening to this and you've never really given us

910
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 3: any thought, like you maybe not have even seen it out,

911
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 3: start with that one there there. Frankly, there are a

912
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 3: lot of good ones. This one called His House, which

913
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:36,320
Speaker 3: is an immigration story.

914
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 2: On Netflix, right, Yes, yeah, that one, Yeah.

915
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:41,840
Speaker 3: That was really really good. It's not set in the

916
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 3: United States, but it's also black horror, Sweetheart, Like I

917
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,719
Speaker 3: said JD. Dillard, it's just a creature story on an

918
00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:52,879
Speaker 3: island happens to have a black lead. That's it. Just

919
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:56,359
Speaker 3: Just try some of these movies out for size and

920
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 3: see if it doesn't help you, because I swear horror

921
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:00,840
Speaker 3: be very healing.

922
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:04,359
Speaker 2: But do you think there's a danger and overexposing black

923
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 2: audience to horror narratives that center on black pain and trauma.

924
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 3: Well, that goes to the trauma porn piece. You know.

925
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,760
Speaker 3: It's a it's a hard line to walk because horror

926
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 3: movies famously always have loss in them. So for certain

927
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 3: kinds of horror stories, like a family on vacation horror

928
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 3: story if that's a black family, or any family, let's say,

929
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 3: but especially a black family. No one is expendable, like

930
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 3: even the dogs. It's not expendable, like because there's no

931
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,319
Speaker 3: like this is what Dwayne Perkins said, like he was

932
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 3: walking a line with the Blackening because you want it

933
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 3: to be horror, but he didn't. This is a friend group. Yeah,

934
00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:49,319
Speaker 3: how do you kill off one of these characters that

935
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 3: we love so much? And I do. The double edged

936
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 3: sword is it does cut deeper and harder when the

937
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 3: character who dies looks like you. That's the secret. Now.

938
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's true for white audiences because

939
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 3: for the history of Forever Horror, most of the victims

940
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,720
Speaker 3: have been white people. Do they take that as personally

941
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:11,320
Speaker 3: as I do? I doubt it somehow because it's so unusual,

942
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:13,960
Speaker 3: like what a black character shows up When I noticed that,

943
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 3: they kill the black Eye off like immediately, or they

944
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:20,440
Speaker 3: made it a spectacle death, so all the white characters

945
00:51:20,480 --> 00:51:22,399
Speaker 3: could be horrified and be like, we will avenge you.

946
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:28,919
Speaker 3: But I feel it deeper. So that's why I think

947
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:34,399
Speaker 3: it's so important a to be mindful of how you

948
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 3: treat those characters, who if someone's going to die, who's

949
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:40,799
Speaker 3: going to die, and how they're going to die, but

950
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:43,920
Speaker 3: also if it does happen, to make sure it happens

951
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 3: because of a fantasy element, Like I can watch people

952
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 3: killed by zombies all day long. I don't want to

953
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:55,240
Speaker 3: watch a lynching once.

954
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:58,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to see that.

955
00:51:58,760 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to see that.

956
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 2: But you know what I was thinking about, like what

957
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 2: kind of impact do you think black horror has on

958
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 2: like white people? Like I always wonder like do they

959
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 2: get what we get? Like do they see what we see?

960
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,959
Speaker 2: And I know they probably won't always fully understand because

961
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:14,799
Speaker 2: they're not black, But I always wonder, like when they

962
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 2: see get Out, Like what are your thoughts? Like, have

963
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:18,720
Speaker 2: you ever had a conversation with somebody.

964
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:20,839
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh when get Out came out. I must

965
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 3: have done five or six panel discussions, a lot of

966
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:27,480
Speaker 3: them in front of mostly white audiences honestly wanted at

967
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 3: like a very hoity toity private school, and it was

968
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 3: like they, I mean, honestly, some of the experiences are

969
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 3: not going to hit the same way, and they might

970
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:41,320
Speaker 3: find humor in some situations where a black viewer doesn't

971
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 3: think that's funny. You know what I mean, right, But

972
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:49,359
Speaker 3: it was interesting to watch kind of this enlightenment, like

973
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 3: floating over the audience. Like like Jordan Peele said when

974
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 3: he came to my class once, people like white people

975
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 3: watch the movie, go dang. I did bring up Tiger

976
00:52:56,480 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 3: Woods that time because one of the things that happened

977
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 3: and get out is the white characters are struggling for

978
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:05,280
Speaker 3: things to say, especially Dean the father. He's like, oh, okay,

979
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 3: black boyfriend, I want to look cool. I would have

980
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:09,600
Speaker 3: voted for Obama for a third term. I's like, you know,

981
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:12,399
Speaker 3: just out of nowhere. We were not talking about politics, sir,

982
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 3: but the only thing he could think to say was

983
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 3: like to mention some random black person, right, Like so

984
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:22,800
Speaker 3: that's something that happens that in situation, right, and like

985
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 3: white people like, well, I brought up Tiger was I

986
00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 3: shouldn't have said, I see okay, I did do that.

987
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:31,239
Speaker 3: And I am like this person at the party who's

988
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:34,879
Speaker 3: asking Chris all these personal questions. And so I do

989
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 3: think that white audiences can absorb it. I think that

990
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:40,879
Speaker 3: a white audience would really love the blackening. I mean,

991
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:43,840
Speaker 3: the reason these movies are succeeding so much, make no mistake,

992
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:46,800
Speaker 3: is because they are crossing over to a white audience.

993
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm. And you mentioned comedy, so I feel like

994
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:53,319
Speaker 2: horror in comedy they often overlap, especially a few us

995
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 2: like get Out. So role do you think humor plays

996
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:58,240
Speaker 2: in black horror and how does it enhance or shift

997
00:53:58,239 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 2: the tone of the drama.

998
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 3: I love a good humor line and horror comedy. Horror

999
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:08,319
Speaker 3: is hard to pull off. It's very hard to pull

1000
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 3: off because either it's not funny, yeah, or it's not scary,

1001
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:15,400
Speaker 3: you know. And I think the Blackening is both funny

1002
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 3: and scary. I think get Out has both humor and

1003
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 3: scariness as well. And Jordan Peele talked about this when

1004
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 3: he skyped in. I also have, by the way, an

1005
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:29,399
Speaker 3: online version of my black Horror class that anybody can take.

1006
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 3: And y'all because he had come into my classroom from

1007
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 3: my UCLA class. Now this is going to date me,

1008
00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:40,320
Speaker 3: but this was back in skype. Remember Skype. He actually

1009
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 3: skyped in to talk to me and Steve Stephen Barnes,

1010
00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:47,120
Speaker 3: my husband, and we talked about that literally, that relationship

1011
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:49,759
Speaker 3: between horror and humor, because you know, some of y'all

1012
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:53,520
Speaker 3: may not remember, but nobody knew Jordan Peele liked horror.

1013
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:55,440
Speaker 3: I mean he was on Key and Peele, he was

1014
00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 3: on Mad TV. They did a few like little horror

1015
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:00,839
Speaker 3: sci fi sketches, but we did not have a lot

1016
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 3: of warning. Yeah, he just popped out, popped out the

1017
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:08,359
Speaker 3: gate and like, oh shoot. But for him, like you said,

1018
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:11,480
Speaker 3: it is kind of two sides to a coin, and

1019
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:14,879
Speaker 3: the way he described it is the way you set

1020
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 3: up a laugh and the way you set up a

1021
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:21,920
Speaker 3: scream are very similar because you're going against the audience expectations. Right.

1022
00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:24,760
Speaker 3: That's what makes it funny is that you said something

1023
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 3: no one expected you to say, just like a jump

1024
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 3: scare is scary because you weren't expecting that to happen.

1025
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 3: So he sees it very clearly as part of the

1026
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 3: same thing. I think the function of humor and horror

1027
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:39,520
Speaker 3: also gives the audiences a moment to breathe and relax,

1028
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:40,720
Speaker 3: let the guard down.

1029
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:42,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you.

1030
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 3: Don't want that guard up the whole time. You don't

1031
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:45,799
Speaker 3: want to be tense the whole time. You want to

1032
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 3: have at least a minute who you breathe it out

1033
00:55:48,719 --> 00:55:51,240
Speaker 3: and then you're primed up for the next jump scare.

1034
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, what role does black horror play and challenging

1035
00:55:55,640 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 2: long standing stereotypes such as the magical Negro or the

1036
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:04,719
Speaker 2: black sidekick and both horror and broader genres.

1037
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 3: Wow. You know when Horn Noir came out in twenty

1038
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:12,360
Speaker 3: nineteen and it was received so well by the horror community,

1039
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 3: I thought the horror community would be mad because we

1040
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:16,359
Speaker 3: were kind of like scolding, like, look what y'all dealing

1041
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:20,719
Speaker 3: to us, like talking about all these tropes. First to Die,

1042
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:23,600
Speaker 3: Sacrificial Negro, that's the one that gets me, like you

1043
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:27,720
Speaker 3: think I'm gonna risk my life or give my life

1044
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 3: for you random white person I don't even know in

1045
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:33,880
Speaker 3: the movie like Annabelle. I love the annibl movies, But

1046
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:37,799
Speaker 3: that first one, Why did Alfred Woodard grab that doll

1047
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 3: and jump out of the window to save those people

1048
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:44,800
Speaker 3: she barely knew? Please? Why? And I think there hasn't

1049
00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 3: been enough of interrogating of that question. Why? And it's

1050
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:51,320
Speaker 3: a pretty ugly answer. No shade to any individual filmmaker,

1051
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 3: because I don't think anyone's doing it consciously. But way

1052
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 3: back in nineteen fifteen, when D W. Griffith made a

1053
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:00,279
Speaker 3: movie called Birth of a Nation. There were two two

1054
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 3: kinds of black people.

1055
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:02,160
Speaker 2: That's the movie.

1056
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:06,319
Speaker 3: Yep, monsters who will chase you through the woods and

1057
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:08,799
Speaker 3: try to take your women. Black people, you know, white

1058
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:11,680
Speaker 3: actors and black face pretending to be black, monstrous black

1059
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 3: men or faithful servants. And I really feel like that

1060
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 3: faithful servant trope, that mammy trope, that feeling like, oh,

1061
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 3: they're not mad at us over everything that happened, they

1062
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 3: forgive us, Yeah, is what drives that sacrificial negro trope,

1063
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:31,480
Speaker 3: Like really wanting to believe in your heart of hearts

1064
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 3: that I deserve for you to give your life for me. Yeah,

1065
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:41,920
Speaker 3: I mean, what kind of privilege something I don't want

1066
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:45,480
Speaker 3: to screw my life save you. And Rachel True was

1067
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 3: hysterical because she was in the craft and she said

1068
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:52,840
Speaker 3: when she was, you know, an actress coming up, like

1069
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:54,440
Speaker 3: all the scripts she got were for sort of the

1070
00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:58,000
Speaker 3: sassy best friend, and her dialogue was different ways of

1071
00:57:58,040 --> 00:58:01,960
Speaker 3: saying are you okay? Yeah, okay? Are you okay? But

1072
00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 3: she says she had to learn a million ways to

1073
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:07,440
Speaker 3: say that because that was her role. She was relegated

1074
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:10,439
Speaker 3: to a side role. And I think, what's happening now

1075
00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 3: when you have black actors in the lead is obviously

1076
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:17,280
Speaker 3: we got to subvert all of those tropes. The blackting

1077
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 3: does it like intentionally, it's playing with the white savior trope,

1078
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 3: it's playing with fear of policing, it's playing with a

1079
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:31,640
Speaker 3: lot of old horror tropes. But you know, surviving is

1080
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:37,200
Speaker 3: still revolutionary. Not having to sacrifice yourself is revolutionary. Yes,

1081
00:58:37,320 --> 00:58:41,920
Speaker 3: honestly being a person with a family like no Shade again,

1082
00:58:42,080 --> 00:58:45,440
Speaker 3: if you remember the first season the Stranger Things who

1083
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 3: did not have a family, of course, little boy exactly,

1084
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:54,720
Speaker 3: and it's it's not again, I don't think it's intentional.

1085
00:58:54,800 --> 00:58:57,000
Speaker 2: It's just we don't see that.

1086
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 3: Well, they don't see it. They don't see it, and

1087
00:59:01,200 --> 00:59:04,680
Speaker 3: I mean they corrected it. And even Fear the Walking

1088
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 3: Dead started out shaky season one, I mean pilot, even

1089
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:12,280
Speaker 3: white people were calling that pilot racist and you get

1090
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 3: round up. But they corrected it. And I think, you know,

1091
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:22,240
Speaker 3: I give people credit for fixing issues. I give people

1092
00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:24,840
Speaker 3: credit for changing so I don't want to harp on

1093
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 3: it too much. But I thought it was a rap

1094
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:30,040
Speaker 3: after Horn Noir and we told people all these tropes

1095
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:32,520
Speaker 3: keep away from me. I thought they would go away, like, no,

1096
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:35,280
Speaker 3: that's not what happened. Like a new generation of filmmakers

1097
00:59:35,280 --> 00:59:39,000
Speaker 3: comes up. They're still watching the same old movies from

1098
00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:41,960
Speaker 3: back in the day, and what do you know, here's

1099
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:45,160
Speaker 3: a new movie that has a sacrificial negro first to

1100
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 3: die Trope and nobody even thinking.

1101
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 2: About it right, right, And speaking of Rachel true, because

1102
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:54,160
Speaker 2: when I was watching Horror New York, I was like,

1103
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 2: what about the representation of Black women in horror? Like

1104
00:59:56,680 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 2: I feel like we're never fully represented in these movies.

1105
01:00:00,320 --> 01:00:01,960
Speaker 2: And it's not a lot of us in these movies.

1106
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:06,440
Speaker 3: No, there are some standouts like Jada Pinkett and uh

1107
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 3: Jada Pinkett Smith and Demon Knight. Ernest Dickerson directed, and

1108
01:00:11,600 --> 01:00:17,200
Speaker 3: a Sweetheart is won Us. Obviously, Jordan Peele intentionally wanted

1109
01:00:17,240 --> 01:00:20,560
Speaker 3: to create a role, a powerful role for a black

1110
01:00:20,560 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 3: woman of Lupita and Jungo's stature as an actor. But yeah,

1111
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 3: there's not enough. I would absolutely agree, And that's what

1112
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:32,520
Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep trying to get my movies made.

1113
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 2: We're gonna definitely support you.

1114
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 3: So listen, I was talking about my Sunken Place class

1115
01:00:37,720 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 3: and Jordan Peele came and talked to it. It's a

1116
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:44,200
Speaker 3: Sunken Place class dot com Sunken Place class dot com

1117
01:00:44,240 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 3: any it's a digital download. You can take it at

1118
01:00:46,520 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 3: your own pace, and it's very much based on my

1119
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 3: UCLA course. And it does have that interview with Jordan Peele.

1120
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:54,160
Speaker 3: It's like a time capsule now because he had not

1121
01:00:54,280 --> 01:00:57,600
Speaker 3: won his oscar yet, he was just a baby.

1122
01:00:57,680 --> 01:01:00,440
Speaker 2: Jordan Peele, do you ever look back through your and

1123
01:01:00,520 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 2: just be like, nah, I'm really cool, Like you got

1124
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 2: Jordan Peel, you got Tony Taz.

1125
01:01:05,560 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm pretty proud of that scare up the

1126
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 3: vote event that happened recently, because that, to me is

1127
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:16,280
Speaker 3: sort of a testament to huh. I have been on

1128
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 3: this planet for a while, and I have met a

1129
01:01:19,080 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 3: lot of people, and if I haven't met them, I

1130
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:26,400
Speaker 3: know someone who has. And to be able to gather

1131
01:01:26,520 --> 01:01:28,560
Speaker 3: all those people together, I mean, of course, we all

1132
01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:30,560
Speaker 3: want Kamala Harris to win the election, and we all

1133
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 3: had a lot of sense of purpose. But it did

1134
01:01:33,600 --> 01:01:35,160
Speaker 3: it felt like it like one of those this is

1135
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:37,880
Speaker 3: your life moments. It's like, oh my gosh, I know

1136
01:01:37,960 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 3: these people, like a lot of these people. There are

1137
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:42,400
Speaker 3: twenty five more people I could have invited if we

1138
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 3: had more time. That feels good to be a part

1139
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 3: of a community. And one thing I will say, you know,

1140
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 3: all communities are problematic on some level in some instances,

1141
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 3: but the horror community is so welcoming and loving. And

1142
01:01:57,160 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 3: I think it's because we still remember being those scared

1143
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:05,439
Speaker 3: little kids. We all have similar journeys to horror, and

1144
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:07,760
Speaker 3: I think we all have a lot of empathy. That's

1145
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 3: one of the things that came up again and again

1146
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:12,560
Speaker 3: during the Scare Up the Vote campaign, which, by the way,

1147
01:02:12,560 --> 01:02:13,840
Speaker 3: if you miss it, you can still see it at

1148
01:02:13,880 --> 01:02:16,440
Speaker 3: scaupthvote dot com. That's the replay link to see Stephen

1149
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:19,320
Speaker 3: King in a conversation with his son Joe Hill. I

1150
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:22,640
Speaker 3: don't even know that I've ever seen them in conversation together,

1151
01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:27,200
Speaker 3: but they were there. We're there, but we get each other.

1152
01:02:27,520 --> 01:02:31,760
Speaker 3: And the horror community overall has been very open to

1153
01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:36,880
Speaker 3: new voices. And I think here's why. I think when

1154
01:02:36,960 --> 01:02:39,680
Speaker 3: you grow up loving horror, you've seen it all. You've

1155
01:02:39,720 --> 01:02:45,840
Speaker 3: seen the European Castle Monster story one hundred times. Yeah,

1156
01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 3: but you haven't seen foreign language horror like The Ring

1157
01:02:51,360 --> 01:02:54,400
Speaker 3: from Japan and all that. You haven't seen black horror.

1158
01:02:54,440 --> 01:02:58,160
Speaker 3: So I think because the whole notion of being scared

1159
01:02:58,160 --> 01:03:03,920
Speaker 3: relies on novelty surprise. There is nothing more exciting than

1160
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 3: someone on some horror from a different culture, a different perspective,

1161
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:10,640
Speaker 3: and it scares you in a deeper and different way.

1162
01:03:10,920 --> 01:03:15,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. And as black horror continues to expand, what stories

1163
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:18,120
Speaker 2: or themes do you feel still need to be addressed

1164
01:03:18,120 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 2: in order to push the genre ford?

1165
01:03:21,240 --> 01:03:25,439
Speaker 3: I think we just need more consistency. Consistency. Frankly, I'm

1166
01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:28,800
Speaker 3: all in favor of all the things. I want to

1167
01:03:28,840 --> 01:03:33,040
Speaker 3: be surprised. I want to see more more directors like

1168
01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:37,520
Speaker 3: Boots Riley, Like who's doing Afro surrealism, Like really pushing

1169
01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:40,080
Speaker 3: the horror space, Like what's the craziest thing I can

1170
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 3: see in black horror? I would love to see more

1171
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:47,680
Speaker 3: historical black horror too, because again I don't want to

1172
01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:51,400
Speaker 3: see a lynching as horror. But if there's a creepy

1173
01:03:51,400 --> 01:03:54,240
Speaker 3: old tree in the backyard that does creepy things because

1174
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 3: it was a lynching tree, that's different, right, That's different.

1175
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:00,200
Speaker 2: So fine, Oh you might need to keep that one.

1176
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:01,000
Speaker 2: That's a good one.

1177
01:04:01,560 --> 01:04:07,400
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take that one out. Just me. I'm like

1178
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:12,280
Speaker 3: season it just a little bit the historical horror, but

1179
01:04:12,480 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 3: then open it up to a fantasy realm that helps

1180
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:20,440
Speaker 3: us revisit and imagine sort of that historical horror without

1181
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:24,000
Speaker 3: re traumatized by it, because nobody, nobody wants to do that.

1182
01:04:24,360 --> 01:04:27,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, and last, but not least, how would you like

1183
01:04:27,400 --> 01:04:30,439
Speaker 2: your work in black horror to be remembered? What kind

1184
01:04:30,480 --> 01:04:32,920
Speaker 2: of legacy do you hope to leave in the genre.

1185
01:04:34,640 --> 01:04:39,080
Speaker 3: I am honestly just still grateful to be publishing after

1186
01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:42,680
Speaker 3: all these years. A lot of has come and gone.

1187
01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:47,760
Speaker 3: I've lost friends Elin Harris, La Banks who were writers

1188
01:04:47,760 --> 01:04:51,600
Speaker 3: and contemporaries back in the nineties. Tina McElroy answer just

1189
01:04:51,640 --> 01:04:55,080
Speaker 3: passed away. So honestly, I'm just still happy to be here.

1190
01:04:56,080 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 3: I'm very grateful that my latest novel, The Reformatory, got

1191
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:03,040
Speaker 3: the best reviews of my career, hands down from the

1192
01:05:03,040 --> 01:05:05,200
Speaker 3: New York Times. It won the LA Times Book Prize.

1193
01:05:05,200 --> 01:05:07,160
Speaker 3: It got a Bram Stoker Award, first time. I've never

1194
01:05:07,200 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 3: gotten a Bram Stoke Award. I've never gotten to Shirley

1195
01:05:09,920 --> 01:05:13,400
Speaker 3: Jackson Award. I've never so this book, which is historical

1196
01:05:13,440 --> 01:05:15,600
Speaker 3: horror set in the Jim Crow South, but it's a

1197
01:05:15,600 --> 01:05:17,720
Speaker 3: ghost story. So I was trying to practice what I preach,

1198
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:23,400
Speaker 3: no litchings. Yeah, I guess I want to. I want

1199
01:05:23,440 --> 01:05:27,280
Speaker 3: to be remembered. I hate saying that because I'm morbidly

1200
01:05:27,480 --> 01:05:32,360
Speaker 3: obsessed with death. I'm not dying, frankly, but if I

1201
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:35,280
Speaker 3: have to put my mind there, I want people to

1202
01:05:35,280 --> 01:05:37,960
Speaker 3: be able to look at my work as something that

1203
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:40,720
Speaker 3: moved them and touched them and taught them like, oh,

1204
01:05:40,840 --> 01:05:43,840
Speaker 3: I could write, like the way Stephen King taught me

1205
01:05:43,960 --> 01:05:48,320
Speaker 3: the importance of characterization in storytelling. I would like to

1206
01:05:48,320 --> 01:05:51,360
Speaker 3: think that other people would learn other craft lessons from

1207
01:05:51,400 --> 01:05:54,160
Speaker 3: me and remember me as a community builder, like I

1208
01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:56,800
Speaker 3: was someone who helped try to bring the horror community together.

1209
01:05:57,440 --> 01:06:00,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, y'all. When I tell y'all, hands down, my

1210
01:06:00,440 --> 01:06:03,600
Speaker 2: audience knows I love scary shit. So to see someone

1211
01:06:03,600 --> 01:06:05,680
Speaker 2: that looks just like me, to have this conversation because

1212
01:06:05,720 --> 01:06:07,160
Speaker 2: I don't get to have this conversation at all with

1213
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:09,360
Speaker 2: any of my friends. They think I'm crazy, it has

1214
01:06:09,440 --> 01:06:12,080
Speaker 2: been truly an honor. So I'm definitely about to order

1215
01:06:12,120 --> 01:06:15,800
Speaker 2: all your books and when I'm in LA I'm gonna

1216
01:06:15,800 --> 01:06:21,600
Speaker 2: pull up on you. But this has truly been such

1217
01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:23,240
Speaker 2: a pleasure to have you on the show. So I

1218
01:06:23,280 --> 01:06:24,160
Speaker 2: really appreciate you.

1219
01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:27,040
Speaker 3: Really great to talk to you too. Thanks for having

1220
01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:28,120
Speaker 3: me on of course.

1221
01:06:28,120 --> 01:06:29,640
Speaker 2: Okay, one more question than I'm done, because I'm like

1222
01:06:29,680 --> 01:06:34,320
Speaker 2: so fascinating with you. What's your favorite Stephen King scary

1223
01:06:34,400 --> 01:06:35,080
Speaker 2: movie or book?

1224
01:06:36,280 --> 01:06:42,400
Speaker 3: Movie or book? Yeah, you know, it's so funny because

1225
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:45,680
Speaker 3: he has so many iterations, like there's old school Stephen King,

1226
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 3: there's new Stephen King. My favorite New Stephen King is

1227
01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:55,560
Speaker 3: The Outsider, which a lot of people might not have

1228
01:06:55,640 --> 01:06:59,480
Speaker 3: caught it was it was I believe, so it was

1229
01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:03,000
Speaker 3: like a mini It was like a series. Yeah, yeah,

1230
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:08,640
Speaker 3: Cynthia Rivo, wasn't it? And it is so good about

1231
01:07:08,640 --> 01:07:11,760
Speaker 3: that moment when you have to accept the supernatural. That's

1232
01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:14,640
Speaker 3: like my favorite moment in every horror movie is when

1233
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:19,720
Speaker 3: the character who's gaslighting you finally believes you and you

1234
01:07:19,840 --> 01:07:22,160
Speaker 3: figure out, now, what are we going to do? Like

1235
01:07:22,240 --> 01:07:25,720
Speaker 3: that's the meeting, Like that's it, what are we going

1236
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:28,480
Speaker 3: to do? So The Outsider is my favorite contemporary although

1237
01:07:28,480 --> 01:07:31,400
Speaker 3: his new short story collection You Like It Darker is

1238
01:07:31,400 --> 01:07:35,280
Speaker 3: also excellent, and I think in terms of old school

1239
01:07:35,320 --> 01:07:42,320
Speaker 3: Stephen King, his scariest book to me was pet Cemetery. Yeah,

1240
01:07:42,320 --> 01:07:46,320
Speaker 3: and I just rewatched the Mary Lambert film where she

1241
01:07:46,440 --> 01:07:50,280
Speaker 3: literally was directing a two year old baby. This baby

1242
01:07:51,080 --> 01:07:54,160
Speaker 3: was acting in her movie and he was acting acting. Okay,

1243
01:07:55,520 --> 01:07:59,320
Speaker 3: it's a pretty good adaptation. That's the scariest one. There

1244
01:07:59,320 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 3: are so many great Stephen King adaptations and books, but

1245
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:06,080
Speaker 3: I would say pet Cemetery is the book I found

1246
01:08:06,320 --> 01:08:07,520
Speaker 3: just the scariest.

1247
01:08:07,800 --> 01:08:11,240
Speaker 2: So a please for me. The Old the first it

1248
01:08:11,840 --> 01:08:13,720
Speaker 2: that was hands down, like, I didn't really the new it.

1249
01:08:13,760 --> 01:08:17,439
Speaker 2: I was like, uh, but the old it fire. And

1250
01:08:17,640 --> 01:08:20,439
Speaker 2: also what was the movie with the Werewolf the pastor

1251
01:08:20,439 --> 01:08:21,880
Speaker 2: the preacher was Werewolf and.

1252
01:08:22,200 --> 01:08:26,120
Speaker 3: Samum slot silver bullet of silver bullet, silver bullo.

1253
01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:30,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh I love silver bullet, love love love great.

1254
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:32,400
Speaker 3: Well, there's some honestly, you could pick five, like your

1255
01:08:32,439 --> 01:08:36,479
Speaker 3: top five Stephen King, right right, because honestly, there's just

1256
01:08:36,520 --> 01:08:38,880
Speaker 3: so many. And that's why it was such a joy

1257
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:42,920
Speaker 3: to uh to do the the event with him. And yeah,

1258
01:08:43,160 --> 01:08:45,439
Speaker 3: so thank you for having me on.

1259
01:08:45,760 --> 01:08:47,559
Speaker 2: No, thank you, And to the listeners. If you have

1260
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:50,240
Speaker 2: any questions, comments, so concerns, please make sure to email

1261
01:08:50,280 --> 01:08:53,759
Speaker 2: me at hello at the phgpodcast dot com. And until

1262
01:08:53,880 --> 01:08:56,360
Speaker 2: next time, everyone, y'all know, I'm like super excited and

1263
01:08:56,360 --> 01:08:58,840
Speaker 2: it's out on Halloween. So once again, thank you so

1264
01:08:58,920 --> 01:09:01,080
Speaker 2: much for coming into the show and until next time,

1265
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:12,760
Speaker 2: everyone later, Bye bye. The Professional Homegirl podcast is a

1266
01:09:12,800 --> 01:09:16,400
Speaker 2: production of the Black Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts

1267
01:09:16,400 --> 01:09:20,160
Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, app a podcasts, or

1268
01:09:20,200 --> 01:09:22,559
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Don't forget to

1269
01:09:22,600 --> 01:09:25,519
Speaker 2: subscribe and rate the show, and you can connect with

1270
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:28,280
Speaker 2: me on social media at the PAG Podcast