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‘Lovecraft Country’ Shows Why We’ll Never Shrink From Sci-Fi Fantasy Horror Again
We have a right to inhabit SFF too, even if the critics don’t ‘get’ it
Being a Black woman with bold ideas centering Black women in spaces we’ve never occupied on screen—especially not all at once—is clearly Misha Green’s calling. With the close of what we hope is Lovecraft Country’s first season, the producer has emerged not just triumphant but transformative.
After living through 10 episodes with Leti, Hippolyta, Ruby, and Dee in a sci-fi fantasy horror series infused with witchcraft, injustice, and Black love, how can we ever go back to seeing our TV Black women, to paraphrase Hippolyta, as “small”?
“We come from resilient people, and oftentimes we’re portrayed as the meek wife in narratives or we’re portrayed as set dressing; we’re no more important than the curtains in the narrative,” says Jurnee Smollett, who portrays Leti in the show. “And I know that’s a fallacy. I know that’s not true.”
Smollett went on to discuss her pivotal role in the series, which wrapped its first season in mid-October.
“Being Black and female and having to navigate that duality in the 1950s, that’s something that intrigues me,” she says. “How were you able to get up every day and…
