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HBO long-awaited adaptation of Lovecraft Country kicked off tonight, bringing viewers face to face with dozens of heinous monsters – both supernatural and far too real. Sure the first episode, we met many of the show’s key players, but none as intimately as George and Hippolyta Freeman, who rocked walls (and hearts) with their fervent declarations of love. Represented with power and force by Courtney B. Vance and Aunjanue Ellis respectively, George and Hippolyta are at the center of their South Side Chicago universe, fixing cars, delivering mail, and even publishing a green book helping their black neighbors find refuge on their road trips. With George now gone on one of those road trips and into some deep shit, we wonder what Hippolyta does around the house and who she really is, other than just George’s wife.
The AV club spoke with Vance and Ellis about it all, from how Hippolyta deals with George’s absences to why George feels responsible to help and serve both his family and his community. We also talked about how the show’s plots relate to 21st century black life, and even picked up a few book recommendations from the two voracious readers. Snippets of that conversation can be found in the clip above, but the full transcript is below for those who want to dive deeper into the show’s twisted universe.
The AV Club: When we meet George and Hippolyta it is immediately clear that they are in love with love, but George’s job is dangerous and on every trip he takes he might not return. How do you think Hippolyta is handling this?
Courtney B. Vance: Not good.
Aunjanue Ellis: I think it’s double with her, you know. I think she loves her husband and she knows that every time he leaves the door… in fact, I think I relate to that now. When my beloved leaves my house, I worry about him. I’m worried about him and hope he comes home, so imagine that in the 1950s.
I don’t have to imagine it. I know what it is. I am experiencing this now. I experience this when my boyfriend tells me he’s going to the grocery store after 10 at night. I’m on pins and needles until he gets home. He walks every day and I want to tell him, “don’t do it. Don’t walk in a park. I’m afraid of dying every day. Until he comes home and until he gets back to his apartment, I’m not okay. So I don’t have to imagine how Hippolyta feels. I know how Hippolyta feels.
The other part is that she is a frustrated traveler herself. She is in a repressive situation because it is in the 1950s, and because of the community, the culture and the marriage in which she is. She’s an astronomer, and there weren’t many black astronomers at the time. There aren’t many black astronomers around right now, other than Neil deGrasse Tyson, as far as I know. So she wants to be on the road. She is a traveler, an astronomer. Its area of expertise is each constellation, each galaxy, each universe.
So, yes, George’s absence causes fear, but it also stokes his desire for more for his life.
Stroke: George writes the Black Travel Guides as a way to support his family, but in some ways he supports millions of other people as well, so they can travel safely from one place to another. to another. How did you think about this aspect of your character, Courtney?
CBV: It was about being part of the community, because that’s what we had to do to survive. At that time there was a village. Everyone knows that our house is a center of the community. We’re not just writing the travel green book. We repair cars. We post letters because everything was separate at the time. You had black water fountains, black post offices, black grocery stores, everything was separate. So we had to be everything to each other.
If we did it really well, like they did in Tulsa, they slaughtered you in 1921 – or as they did in Wilmington, Delaware, as Aunjanue let us know. You couldn’t tell how white people were going to feel. If you stayed in your place, they were angry with you because you stayed in your place and turned your place into a business – a mecca – and then they are angry with you for having become “haughty” in. remaining place. It’s like, “We have our own thing and you’re crazy, and if we go to your place you’re crazy.”
That’s what needs to be understood: that there was no room for black people to turn to any wrongdoing, or any sort of injustice. Blacks had nowhere to turn. I hope that Lovecraft and other shows like ours are able to give people an understanding of this feeling of hopelessness. And that even though people have come to the end of their rope, they haven’t given up hope. We went on and supported each other and even though someone’s uncle was killed last week the village surrounded the family and took collections to the church and made sure that the children were taken in by other families.
Watching the village take over is something. When they try to say that black people are inferior and they don’t take care of their families, you don’t know the black family. You don’t know where we came from, and how we survived when there was no other place to turn, when no one cared about black people or black children. I mean, it took a documentary about 150 black kids killed and before the whites realized, “Oh, there are black kids killed in Atlanta,” as opposed to a white girl being killed and all of a sudden it is on the milk cartons and it is an Amber alert.
When you really look at it, you see that’s why we think black life doesn’t matter. And that’s why people are so upset that whites are finally starting to see what we’ve known for 450 years: that black lives don’t matter. We’re at the end of our rope with her, and something has to turn.
AVC: You mentioned Tulsa, for example, and a lot of people only hear about this massacre almost 100 years later because of Guardians. Is there one element of this show that you hope people see and deepen? These people say, “I can’t believe this happened on this show and I’m going to learn a lot more about it and absorb it into my life.
CBV: I just hope people start to see different people. Trans people, gays, blacks, natives, East Indians. I mean, people are different.
I am always intrigued by how people got to where they are. I am intrigued by the differences we have, as we [Vance and Ellis] were brought up to treat people equally. So I am not threatened by this. We did not raise our children to be threatened by different people. But some people are threatened by it and have raised their children to be threatened by anything. Therefore, they continue to teach hate. So young people don’t learn, and they don’t learn anything about different cultures at school, and hatred is perpetuated.
What will it take for us to realize that we need each other? We cannot continue to encourage hatred. We have to start teaching love somewhere. No one teaches history in schools, no one teaches it at home. And in the information age, the fact that we don’t know each other is just ludicrous.
Stroke: George and Hippolyta clearly love to learn and they love books. Do you have a favorite book?
AE: Oh my god, girl, you just fucked up.
CBV: She messed up badly, didn’t she? She doesn’t even know.
AE: My colleague and I are big book lovers, so you just opened a box of worms.
I read a lot. I am an aggressive reader. I’m in a lull right now, but I would suggest writers over my favorite book. I think Beloved is one of my favorite books, by Toni Morrison. the Bluest eye by Toni [Morrison] is an excellent book. And then there are a lot of writers that I love. I love Lauren Groff. She’s a short story writer, I try to read everything she writes. I read Karen russell now. This is another very great short story writer. I read this great book called Perfect peace by Daniel Black about that black family in Louisiana that had queer members in the early 1900s. So anyway, like I said, you opened up a box of worms. I like to read.
CBV: I love Stamped from the start by Ibram X. Kendiand I loved it Mary L. Trumphis uncle’s book. Stacey Abrams, Our time is now.
I am a big reader of biography. I loved [Ron] Chernow’s Grant and of course, Hamilton and Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs. The fact that I read Chernow’s 900 page book on Ulysses S. Grant and at the end of the book I cry over this man, I mean, that’s what books can do.
But in this country, we’ve moved away from reading and the importance of being able to let your imagination sit and take you, or how to let another author’s experience take you. People don’t have the patience to sit there and not do everything for you with the movie or the show. They can’t just sit there with a book.
AE: Can I say one more? As a Mississippian I must point out Memoirs of Kiese Leymon Heavy. I highly recommended Heavy.
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