THEM: Prime Original Series 4/9/21(Season 2: 4/25/24)

Sghost597

Sghost597

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Well, An Amazon Prime Series misses the mark. What... A... Surprise. :mjlol:


This is just excessively dark with really robotic interaction and dialogue.

:hhh:

Got racist ass neighbors
Got racist ass school kids
Got racist ass boss
Got racist ass police
Got some wack ass mental illness ptsd demons
Got some hating ass brehs
That one dog in the neighborhood is probably racist
Got racist ass everything
Then, even did a rape/child murder scene... Like wtf.
This shyt happens in the span of like two fukking weeks.


Then, you give them mental illness, illusions, and PTSD on top of that:why:

They make our protagonist so mentally broken, frail, and powerless that there is so little Empowerment payoff. They get so little moments to do that. We rarely get that monument to really roll in their favor.

it doesn't balance the racism and supernatural horror. They seem very forced and uneven. It never gets to truly settle. We go overtly in your face racism to ptsd/supernatural manifestations back and forth constantly. There is no character moment. No comedy. No joy.

Cut me some slack, man. It's overkill. Then, they overdramatize certain scene that kind of needs to chill or doesn't get to shine because the whole show is constant anxiety inducing to the point I can't give in...

What a waste of a Shining quality cinematography. It goes to into these Shining scene with loudness and too quickly from one moment to the next. There is no balance and muddle the pace. The crooked ptsd camera angle scene all worn out their welcome.

The dialogue is so robotic. The show doesn't flow. It's forever miserable and this why it is not my jam. It's too unrelenting that it becomes too much white noise and after 6 episodes... Why can't a single character just openly speak how they feel like normal people? Why can't there be an organic conversation?

Worst of all, this show has no Soul. It's just a horrible period piece Shining parody. It's a shame, because there are really good historical accurate depiction of inequality. but it really gets drowned out by the overkill nature of rest of the show.
 
Anwulika

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KingFreeman said:
Yeah Im done with black trauma porn/slavery/drug flicks:yeshrug:

Too many other stories to tell.
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I don't really see this as being trauma porn. Black people have undergone a ridiculous amount of trauma throughout history and the vast majority of it hasn't even been touched upon.

I can understand why some people might feel like it's very traumatic but that's never stopped Jewish people from setting up museums and broadcasting thousands of films and television programmes about the Holocaust. Perhaps the problem isn't that people are making these types of shows; perhaps the problem is that black people have not received any type of healing for the trauma we have faced as a people for the past 400 years or so.
 
FistofJustice

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Card Holder said:
how do you move your family to and all white neighborhood after what happened to your wife and child, just so they can be terrorized again everyday.
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I was just about to comment on this. The husband was a sucker. Yeah, let me further traumatize my wife by uprooting her into a racist crakker neighborhood instead of near family where she might feel more at home and possible heal by being with loved ones. He's a true c 0 0 n.
 
KingFreeman

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Anwulika said:
I don't really see this as being trauma porn. Black people have undergone a ridiculous amount of trauma throughout history and the vast majority of it hasn't even been touched upon.

I can understand why some people might feel like it's very traumatic but that's never stopped Jewish people from setting up museums and broadcasting thousands of films and television programmes about the Holocaust. Perhaps the problem isn't that people are making these types of shows; perhaps the problem is that black people have not received any type of healing for the trauma we have faced as a people for the past 400 years or so.
Click to expand...

Yeah, valid points but Im personally not going to put another dollar into any more movies or shows that showcase what I mentioned. That stuff is targeted, and I know my peoples history so Im cool on seeing black folk harmed on TV.
 
loyola llothta

loyola llothta

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This review is spot on



Lena Waithe’s "Them" Exploits Black Trauma for the White Gaze

The one-note tastelessness of the drama plays into the idea that Black people are defined by their pain.


Langa
April 13 2021
Lena Waithe's highly anticipated drama series Thempremiered on Amazon Prime last week — and was immediately met with criticisms that its depictions of racism vicariously exploited Black trauma.

The limited series is an anthology which promises to be the next American Horror Story. This season, Covenant, follows a 1950s Black family who move to LA during the Great Migration and are subjected to racism and violence by their white neighbors. Judging by its early trailers and advertisements, the show promised to redefine domestic terrorism and give it a new face, exposing just how deep racism is entrenched even in cities like LA.

The mind behind The Chi, Twenties, and the critically acclaimed Queen & Slim, Lena Waithe had been promoting Them on Instagram for weeks using compelling clips and posters in the style of '50s home ads.

The show boasts a stellar cast, and with the help of gorgeous visuals and a chill-inducing trailer, the show premiered on April 9th to much excitement. Fans of Lena Waithe and co-creator Little Marvin tuned in to a show which promised to tell an underrepresented story and showcase the lives of Black people in interesting and imaginative ways.

After all, the show is part of an emerging genre of Black horror, which includes Jordan Peele's Get Out and Us, as well as HBO's fantasy/horror series Lovecraft Country. These iterations of the genre have played on common tropes in horror and in Black representation to subvert audience expectations and present new narratives.

However, Them does not do the same work of subversion as those other plays on Black horror. Instead, Them depicts violence with no payoff, seemingly for the vicarious thrills of the white gaze.

The series is replete with awfully upsetting imagery, which runs the gamut from bloody gore to s*xual assault. Each episode seems to one-up the last in terms of shock-inducing violence, while offering little context to ground the horror in societal behaviors rather than isolated evils.

In an interview for Variety, critic Sonia Saraiya describes some of the more upsetting scenes and her process of trying to come to terms with them, saying: "From a dramatic perspective, I felt frustrated that despite a lot of bodily harm, I didn't have a read on the main characters. There was no dramatic tension."

In an attempt to balance the suspense and drama of the genre with depictions of segregation, corruption, and financial exploitation, Them sacrifices storyline, artistry, and closure for dialed-up racial violence that culminates in nothing much but empty spectacle.
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Full article
Link:
Lena Waithe’s "Them" Exploits Black Trauma for the White Gaze
 
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