From Portside Culture <[email protected]>
Subject Lovecraft Country Failed to Give Ruby the Love She Deserved
Date October 26, 2020 12:00 AM
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[To see one of the few dark-skinned fat queer women on HBOs
Lovecraft Country killed off by their white racist lover was just so
deeply upsetting.] [[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

LOVECRAFT COUNTRY FAILED TO GIVE RUBY THE LOVE SHE DESERVED  
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Princess Weekes
October 20, 2020
The Mary Sue
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_ To see one of the few dark-skinned fat queer women on HBO's
Lovecraft Country killed off by their white racist lover was just so
deeply upsetting. _

,

 

One of my biggest concerns, when it came to HBO’s _Lovecraft
Country_, was that by having the lighter-skinned Black actress as the
main female lead would lead to the reduction of the darker-skinned
women in the cast, Ruby especially. Sadly, as I cringed through the
finale, I found those fears coming to life in a really pretty
disturbing way.

_**SPOILERS FOR _LOVECRAFT COUNTRY_.**_

Ruby is a very special character, played to perfection by Wunmi
Mosaku, because it’s so rare to see a sexual, fat, dark-skinned
Black woman onscreen in a genre like this—especially styled so well,
flattering her curves and talking candidly about the deep
disillusionment she feels.

Yet, from the moment her path became interlinked with
William/Christina, it was a huge-ass mess.

When it comes to the relationship between Leti and Ruby, I think that
there is a lot that is unsaid. We know that Ruby has accused Leti of
being selfish, and that is certainly a character flaw, but as a Black
viewer, I also know that color plays a role in this, as well. When we
see Leti’s half-siblings, they are both darker skinned, and Leti,
being played by Jurnee Smollett, who is herself a biracial Black
woman, is much lighter.

Leti is obviously not white-passing, but as a lighter-skinned, thin,
and looser textured Black woman, she has privileges that come from
that. Leti is framed as an object of desire from the beginning, but
also with this deeper innocence. She’s a virgin and loses her
virginity to Tic, the man she’s in love with, and has his son,
wrapping her up in this very traditional, heteronormative bubble of
Black love.

None of this reduces Leti as a character. I love her, and I’m to see
everyone appreciate Jurnee’s range, because she’s had that from
the jump.

However, let’s look at Ruby.

Ruby’s entire vibe in the series is a mixture of self-confidence,
exhaustion, disillusionment, and ambition. When she meets William,
goes home with him, and takes a potion that turns her into a white
woman, she sees all the things that have been denied to her because of
her age, her Blackness, and her body type. When another Black woman is
hired at the same store she applies to, and the woman is younger,
smaller, and under-qualified, it stings.

Ruby is a character brimming with rage, just like so many, but unlike
a lot of them, the story seems to turn against her at some point
because of her relationship with Christina—a relationship that is
ultimately one-sided and manipulative.

There is a cult of fandom that has emerged around Christina, through
the sheer will of her being queer. We are supposed to empathize with
her not breaking the glass ceiling of white supremacy, and many have
found ways to feel more sympathy for her than the generational trauma
of Montrose.

It is not necessary to excuse or limit the pain that Montrose
inflicted onto Tic, but I find it very interesting that there is this
ability to empathize with a white woman who uses Black bodies for her
own means just because she is queer-ish and also happens to hate white
men. Yet, we have Montrose—a man who was beaten by his father for
being gay, who survived the Tulsa riots, and who had to drown his
sorrows in a powerless alcoholic stupor to suppress any of the
kindness that wasn’t beaten out of him—reduced to being just
abusive, but parts of the discourse.

Ruby and Christina are bonded by a sense of being denied what they
have felt entitled to. Yet, in this situation, Christina has _all the
power_. There is a clear imbalance, and it should be easy to
understand why. Ruby has not felt supported. Ruby has not felt cared
for. Her final act of caring for her sister and putting her first
leads to her death. So, we see a character who has given, been asked
to give, and put aside her own desires and is rewarded with a cruel,
meaningless death at the expense of helping her sister.

To have the last time we see Ruby be a body-snatched version of
Christina, implying that she has been rendered to this forever dead
state … I hated it.

Who was looking out for Ruby? Who was protecting her? Who was truly
loving her? Not Leti.

Leti is the lead, and that plays a part in their narrative
differences, but she is also the one who is uplifted, put in multiple
positions to survive no matter what, and loved deeply and truly.

For those who might say, “Well look at Dee and Hippolyta. They are
darker-skinned.” Alright, let’s look.

Dee spends the series being ignored and adultified to the point where
she kills Christina. For me, that isn’t a victory for her; it is the
total death of her innocence. Hippolyta has to literally escape the
main story to self-actualize because if she didn’t, there would be
no space for her to do that. As soon as she returns, she has to become
a living battery to help the other characters.

Ruby was a complicated character among a sea of complicated Black
characters. She was morally grey, and I felt like she was punished for
it in a way that many other characters were not.

To see one of the few dark-skinned fat queer women on television
killed off by their white racist lover was just … so deeply
upsetting.

I have enjoyed _Lovecraft Country_, and I think that it was an
ambitious show. Yet, as it started to wrap up, a lot felt unfinished
and underwritten. I am excited to see what comes next for this team,
but I think they need to maybe take stock of the response to Ruby’s
treatment, the treatment of Yahima, and really hear what was being
said.

(image: HBO)

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