Amazon’s ‘Them’ Is Visual Terrorism
Representation isn’t reason enough to bask in Black trauma on television
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
Along the course of writing this essay on Amazon’s new series Them: Covenant — in which I intended to recount my deep history with horror films and how Jaws ruined me for life — Duante Wright was killed by police in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Shortly thereafter, body cam footage from the March 29 shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago hit the internet.
As I write this, Black America is reeling, the bodies of our people shoved through a systemic machine that churns out stacks of Black victims. We hadn’t even gotten to the hashtag part of one killing before we are faced with the gruesome visage of a dying child, shot while surrendering. And it is in the midst of this collective grief and anger that I can think of no better example of why no one should engage with Them.
The horror drama series was a suspicious prospect from the start: The story of an already traumatized Black family moving into a White enclave, beset upon by every corner of society and the very ground their home rests on. It’s a rollercoaster ride of grief and gut punches with no reprieve, each episode…
