i’ve watched some shit on tv and in movies that had my mind blown.
there were scenes that have disturbed my spirit,
but i watched a disney movie afterward to calm myself down.
i’ve been hearing folks talk about a show on amazon prime titled “them“.
i did peep the trailer a week before it came out and was excited to watch.
it gave me heavy “lovecraft country” vibes.
this show has been the talk of the social media forests,
either great reviews or terrible ones.
the foxholers warned me about this show when i asked about it on my ig stories.
“It’s black torture porn.”
foxhole…
and this comes with spoilers…
so i won’t lie,
the show had me lost af when i was watching it.
above the surface is classic racism in the 50s,
but below the surface touches on trauma and demonic activity.
The rape scene and the murder of the baby nearly got my mind up out of here.
that shit was waaaayyyyyy too intense for my liking.
i’ve never been so disturbed in my life over some shit on screen.
if i was watching this with a wolf,
i think my head would have been in his entire armpit.
the way how they edited this show is absolutely brilliant tho.
the way they provide terror with the little things >
from the color changes,
the shaking of the camera to provide anxiety,
the close-up shots of the actors so you feel their pain…
wow.
just wow.
foxhole,
i’m gonna warn you and say this show is a lot to unpack.
if you check it out,
i’d love to read your thoughts.
i’m taking a break before i start episode 6.
I need a minute.
lowkey: of course it shows just how demonic some white folks can be.
I thought the show was BRILLIANT! I love how they weaved the story with the historical context of Compton. Most of those complaining claiming black trauma porn probably feel some kind of way seeing yt ppl for who they really are. THEM is not black trauma porn it’s about white terror/white supremacy and how wicked they are let’s just call it what it is. There is so much that can be discussed redlining, predatory loans, job discrimination, school bullying, mental health etc Hope that helps anyone who was unsure of the show
Everyone I know that has SEEN the show really liked it. I read all this “it’s not necessary” messaging online. It makes me want to watch because the series seems so polarizing…
From a visual standpoint its fantastic and the acting is great my problem is story & plot. I think that’s where its flounders it targets an audience that’s not black (it feels like) and probably doesn’t care about all of that.
The cat in a bag scene was really it for me and i feel like they needed to trim down so much of the show (a couple episodes to make it tighter) so it could actually not feel like it went on for ever.
^i felt the same way during the beginning episodes.
i was like what’s happening?!
i was so confused and felt i needed direction
I get what you’re saying because some scenes and storyline didn’t line up. All the cat in a bag scenes and leaving down south the main character was acting straight crazy but the early episodes showed her arriving in Compton smoking a cigarette and acting well adjusted. And again I didn’t get the point of the Betty character to end up the way she did. It was so random.
It’s an Anthology so get ready for the same cast with a different story next time. I guess a black centric AHS. Betty’s storyline was silly.
I was disappointed with the last episode, I just was confused
I’m sorry this show was NOT NEEDED!!! I’m tired of black trauma porn. There’s NOT ONE historical record of the “cat in the bag” scene and the creator of the show said he came up with that from a dream… like how sick do you have to be to dream up something like that!
^ a dream?!?!?!?!?!
oh Jesus…
well,
that scene traumatized me 110%
Thanks, I’ll be watching it just because of this comment. Slavery was worse than anything we’ve seen depicted. Have you seen an enslaved African buried alive and watched ants eat them? Pregnant women cut open and a bet on who would die first the mother or the child? I used to avoid anything Black: Hidden Figures, 12 Years a Slave, D’jango Unchained because I “didn’t want to deal with it”. It’s part of life.
I went with my church to see The Passion of the Christ years ago and I didn’t get how people were eating popcorn watching the brutal beating. That’s when I had a “how can people like this horror onscreen?” It’s one thing when it’s fictional. And when you do your research and learn The Messiah is based on enslaved Africans IN Africa under Roman rule and praying that a Messiah would rescue them, suddenly how Jesus was treated makes sense. Then you realize how blessed you are that these people who saw NO hope in sight, persisted. You’d think eventually they would get used to it and see it as life, as it was all they knew. NOPE.
And that’s why you are free to write this “I’m tired of Black trauma porn”. There is a time and place for everything. The problem is besides Insecure (which is ending) there really is no “feel good Black TV”. If it was like back in the day where All of Us, The Parkers, Girlfriends, The Game, Moesha…there were options.
So no, it’s not “stop doing Black trauma”, it’s “stop ONLY doing Black trauma”. And you still have to be informed when writing a Black character. The boss in Wonder Woman made NO sense. There is no world where a Black women (Kelly from Insecure) could treat a white employee like that and not get fired. It’s why we get BS like Bridgerton that is “colorblind”.
You can show Black people being happy, but “if a show has too many Black leads”, white people won’t watch it. Boris Kodjoe had a spy show. Morris Chestnut had a doctor show. Did anybody watch those? But people live for Law and Order: SVU and Grey’s Anatomy.
I genuinely wonder if people realize how tonedeaf they sound complaining when they “won’t watch something just because it has a Black cast, it has to be good too”, and wonder why nothing BUT Black trauma sells. There are other directors besides Spike Lee and Tyler Perry. Who has been given a platform? Tyler Perry, because it makes white people uncomfortable to see us shucking and jiving.
When Black people show up and show out for projects BESIDES Black Panther, then the “Black trauma” can be ruled out, as there will be space for Black EVERYTHING.
I also wonder where all of this outrage was over Lovecraft Country. Was that not Black trauma? People just run with new phrases they read on Twitter.
Everybody lived for Get Out. But once multiple Black people get a shot, it’s time to drag them. Meanwhile mess like Game of Thrones, Lost and Supernatural with no objective gets hella seasons and nobody complains UNTIL it’s over, realizing they gave over a decade of their life to mediocre white writing, but criticized new Black creators for their FIRST major projects.
^i read this and had to ask myself if you were my bff under this name,
she said the same thing to me yesterday.
she was saying she is tired of black folks avoiding the truth about things that have happened to us in the past.
You lost me when you started talking about the fictional character of Jesus as if that CRAP really happened! You can stay brainwashed all you want but I said wtf I said!!
That type of content only gives these white supremacist new ideas to torture the weak minded like you!
But BRAVO for this long azz novel that also WAS NOT NEEDED