Y'all I'm watching the first few episodes of 'Them'. It is really starting to get on my nerves... the pacing is really off and the characters aren't written sensibly. Esp the two opposing wives. There's surrealism and there's this.

Mostly the Black parents are acting super irresponsibly. Like you know all the white people hate you here and they keep pushing it and some of the poor decisions they're making I wouldn't do with white folks today let alone Jim Crow.

I can't stand characters in horror media acting dumb for the sake of putting them in fearful scenarios. Then a show where Black ppl are living in the height of Jim Crow surrounded by hostile white ppl? It's just taking me out of the story.

The only thing I like is that the racist leader is a white woman. White supremacy often wrongly portrayed as the acts of white men and white women were just bystanders. But during Jim Crow WM were working and a lot of white housewives led the harassment of schools/homes.

A couple of things that's bothering me is how they're portraying horror. The horror is unnecessarily violent to the women. In the 1st episode they choked the 5 to girl out. The music gets really distracting. And their only white ally is the fucking cop? Put Lena is Jail! LMAO!!!

Also the same old wife sees the supernatural forces, husband's a skeptic and everybody thinks she's going crazy. This is extra unsavory since it's the Black woman being shown to be angry, violent and insane. The evil housewife across the street is more compelling then the ghosts.

Okay the Black mama is way too stupid to still be alive at this point. You can't keep threatening white women is broad daylight multiple times in the last couple days and not get your ass beat. Especially when the cops have been called on her TWICE already?

Now the milkman gonna go full klansman for some racist coochie? LMAO!!!

So the only other Black woman who could emphasize with Lucky (wife's name) is already full crazy. And they casted Princess Tiana! Hoa dare you traumatize our Black Disney princess.

Also the older daughter is lesbian but also crazy. The 5 yo is extra crazy. Dad got PTSD.

That's not even... I'm about to turn this shit off. The only other Black family in a white Compton neighborhood wife (Princess Tiana) cannibalized her babies and is slowly eating her husband? And nobody noticed.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

So everybody is just severely mentally ill and losing their shit slowly. That's the theme here? Are the ghosts even real or is Lena's message just "when you try to succeed in a white man's world you're asking for a mental breakdown until one day you just eat your kids"?????

TW: SA

The evil housewife (Betty) is so extra evil bc she's... infertile and her Dad molested her *pretends not to be shocked by this violently misogynist trope*.

Also the Latina maid at Betty's rich parent's home name is Consuela???

JAIL LENA IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!

And Betty's husband is probably cheating on her? I refuse to feel bad for Miss. Klansman in chief. Why do they want me to feel bad for her?

Also stop gaslighting every single Black female character OMG!!!

And then they totally cheated us on the sex scene. You don't get to torture us for several episodes then be stingy with the first break we can get.

At least they're being honest about redlining and banks swindling Black veteran families.

MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING
Rape and infanticide

So no Black person should watch this series it's absolutely disgusting. They had a very extended scene where Lucky was being raped as two white ppl played "cat in the bag" w her infant, slowy murdering the baby.

MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING
cont

The only consensual sex scene was implied off camera but they showed 10-15 min of a BW being tortured and raped. The funeral was right before they moved to Compton which is why the mom's behavior has been so crazy this far. Sickening.

TW: rape

Ep 5 of "Them" had that sickening scene. -20/10 stars. This isn't a horror story it's just emotional abuse of grieving, traumatized Black family and a Black mother/rape survivor being tortured by a infertile white woman rape survivor then sometimes there's a ghost.

In conclusion, fuck you Lena Waithe and your writer's room are unfit to write Black characters. Please leave the community alone.

I stopped in episode 5 out of 10. After I went upstairs my Dad binged the rest of it. Apparently it gets even more violent and wild so I'm glad I stopped where I did. So if you think you can stomach or push through the rest of Them just know it gets worse.

The horror is surreal but the crimes and murders, particularly what happens in episode 5, are based on real cases that happened to Black people. And viewers should approach this series with the understanding there's living people still grieving and maybe triggered by its content.

TW: murder, infanticide, rape, gore, burning, gouging, racism
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Annnnnnd...this is why I stopped at 5. I can't get that scene out of my head and I certainly don't want the death scene in the finale stuck in there with it.

Lena Waithe isn't kinfolk.

Full article here. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-04-09/amazon-them-covenant-little-marvin-lena-waithe-violence?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

The creator and executive producer name is Little Marvin and he ain't kinfolk either. He wrote ep 5 scene from a nightmare. Horror needs to be done responsibly, if he had such a visceral reaction he wrote it down for his therapist not for his viewers.