The Home Town Curse (feat. Brian Alford)

Josiah is joined by Brian Alford (@SpocksBrian) from The Worst of All Possible Worlds to discuss HGTV's Home Town, the Napier family, and Laurel, Mississippi, alongside Showtime's new series, The Curse.

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References

• The Curse, Showtime. Season 1, Episodes 1 - 5 are out at time of recording.
• Reddit thread about Home Town's race problem, https://www.reddit.com/r/HGTV/comments/il7bet/home_town_seems_like_white_town.
• "Behind the Scenes on ‘Home Town’: A Season 4 Participant Spills the Details," Claudine Zap in Realtor, https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/behind-the-scenes-home-town.
• "The dark side of Home Town," Jim Cegielski in The Laurel Leader Call, https://www.leader-call.com/opinion/columnists/the-dark-side-of-home-town/article_48770330-a7c6-11e8-bbf4-333e68883245.html. In the episode, Josiah flounders a bit because he's dumb and didn't re-read the article before the episode, but the gist is that Greg Burroughs, a man with a repeated history of abuse, had allegedly murdered his girlfriend, Katherine Sinclair. He called the local judge (who he was friends with) before he called 911 and multiple other strings were pulled to get him out of trouble. The author of the opinion piece, Jim Cegielski, claims he had local advertisers pull out because he chose to cover the story. His point is that there is a very clear monied class in Laurel that everyone is pretending doesn't exist. After this article was published, Greg Burroughs was acquitted.
• "Southern Newlywed: At Home with Erin and Ben Napier," Southern Weddings, https://southernweddings.com/2014/06/06/southern-newlywed-home-lucky-luxe. This is the interview that got the attention of an HGTV producer and led to the show.
• "‘Home Town’ Reflects an Incomplete Picture of Laurel’s History of Disenfranchisement," Jonathan Odell in Mississippi Free Press, https://www.mississippifreepress.org/35581/home-town-reflects-an-incomplete-picture-of-laurels-history-of-disenfranchisement.
• "Here's Why 'Home Town' Star Erin Napier Has Been Silent About Black Lives Matter on Social Media," Kelly Wynne in Newsweek, https://www.newsweek.com/heres-why-home-town-star-erin-napier-has-been-silent-about-black-lives-matter-social-media-1508776.
• "'Home Town' Star Erin Napier Gets Flooded With Comments After Sharing Parenting Rule," Katie Bowlby in Country Living, https://www.countryliving.com/life/entertainment/a42321936/home-town-erin-napier-parenting-rule-fan-reactions.
• Napiers' nonprofit to get kids off social media, OSPREY, https://ospreykids.com/about.
• "'Home Town' Star Erin Napier Shares "Terrifying" Instagram Post that Has Fans Flooding Her with Support," Katie Bowlby in Country Living, https://www.countryliving.com/life/entertainment/a39903660/erin-napier-terrifying-instagram-post-fan-reactions.

Episodes of Home Town watched

• S1E1 Big Renovations in a Small Town
• S2E1 Home Town Holiday Special
• S3E10 Small Budget, Big Style
• S4E3 The Church House
• S5E10 Retreat Yourself
• S6E5 Grand Millennial 
• S7E2 The Family Tree (only Brian got around to this one)

Music & audio credits

• Yesterday – bloom.
• In My Dreams – bloom.
• "Home Town" CBS Segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYscsBliWZ8

What is Fruitless?

A series of conversations about history, politics, faith, media, and the internet hosted by Josiah Sutton. Aiming for at least two interviews and one bookclub episode per month. Artwork by Kipp Paulsen. More content can be found on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/user?u=11922141