Progressively Horrified

The tale of one woman's battle with her evil weave and a film's battle with what the hell it's even about.

Show Notes

Fear Level: Mostly Spoopy with existential dread
Trigger Warnings:  Racism, colorism, trauma, body horror, sexual assault, violence, blood
  • Director: Justin Simien
  • Writers: Justin Simien
  • Stars: Elle Lorraine, Judith Scott, Vanessa William s, Jay Pharoah, James Van Der Beek, Lena Waithe, Kelly Rowland, Usher, Blair Underwood, Michelle Hurd, MC Lyte, Robin Thede, Laverne Cox, Nicole Byer
"Bad Hair" is a politically and socially relevant drama, filled with the real life challenges that black women faced and continue to face in the workplace and in their daily lives. It's a thoughtful consideration of the pressure to conform to traditional Eurocentric beauty standards even in creative fields and the damned if you do, damned if you don't nature of what we as a society demand of black women. It highlights the way in which Anna, a young black woman working in television is overlooked, mistreated and betrayed.

Psych! Actually it's a campy horror movie about a woman that decides to get a weave that turns out to suck blood, physically violates her, and murders her friends. It's "Little Shop of Horrors" if Seymour wore Audrey II around on his head and Audrey II occasionally stuck its plant tentacles down his pants and into his bodily orifices.

Psych! Actually it's both of those movies and we had just as much trouble trying to figure out what it was saying as that description implies. Come be completely stumped with us!

Topics of Discussion:
-Hair drama
-Hair trauma
-Bad Hair/Good Hair/Bad Hair
-If you want to have a magical negro, but your movie is full of black people, do you just have a magical trans woman?
-The late 80's career minded black issues drama that Ben was here for.
-The 80's camp horror movie about killer hair Bre was here for.
-The blood oath that forced Lando to be here.
-Welcome to our podcast about black hair. No, really, this episode contains a lot of discussion about black hair by black women and non-binary folks.
-Jeremy does his best not to talk about his hair. It just makes everyone mad.
-Horror movies and fantasy movies have to have rules.
-Elle Lorraine acts good
-Who cast Blair Underwood as Laurence Fishburne in this movie?
-Witches: who are they and what do they want?
-Can you make a movie about racism and colorist affecting black people and still completely exoticize Native Americans?
-This movie sure tried.
-James Van Der Beak - down or clueless?

Recommendations:
Get Out
Mixed-ish
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Bamboozled
Pose
Good Hair
Nailed It
Eve's Bayou

Follow our guests:

Bre Indigo
Twitter: @ndgoarts
Insta: @ndgoarts

Lando Toothman
Insta: @proflando or @landobakes

Alicia Whitley
Twitter: @aliciawhitley
Instagram: @alburnet

Follow us on twitter @proghorrorpod

Follow Jeremy on twitter @jrome58
Visit his website at JeremyWhitley.com

RSS Feed: https://feeds.transistor.fm/progressively-horrified
Website: https://progressivelyhorrified.transistor.fm/

Join our Patreon at: patreon.com/progressivelyhorrified to support the show, get bonus episodes, early access to upcoming episodes, and a cool Progressively Horrified t-shirt.

Come back next week to talk about Attack the Block!
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What is Progressively Horrified?

A podcast that holds horror to standards horror never agreed to. Hosts Jeremy Whitley, Ben Kahn, Emily Martin and guests watch, read, listen to, and check out movies, tv shows, comics, books, art and anything else from the horror genre and discuss it through a progressive lens. We'll talk feminism in horror, LGBTQ+ issues and representation in horror, racial and social justice in horror, disability and mental health/illness in horror, and the work of female and POC directors, writers, and creators in horror.
We're the podcast horror never agreed to take part in.