Episode 84: The eldrich horror of gentrification
An image from Candyman (1992), where a white graduate student tries and fails to understand the ghost of a Black man who haunts the Chicago projects.
Recently there's been a rise in horror stories that deal with gentrification. We talk about real-life urban displacement, and the fictional tales that turn it into cosmic incursions and body-swapping nightmares. Plus, we talk to Sam J. Miller about his new novel The Blade Between, and how he used monsters to explore what happens when a small town in upstate New York gets taken over by urban hipsters and techies.
Notes, citations, etc.
The Blade Between, by Sam J. Miller
Stacey Sutton talks about gentrification at TEDx
Jeff Chang explains what resegregation means in the Bay Area
Rachel Brahinsky, “The story of property: Meditations on gentrification, renaming, and possibility”
Candyman (1992), dir. Bernard Rose
N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became
Sorry to Bother You, dir. Boots Riley
Blindspotting, dir. Carlos López Estrada
Black Panther, dir. Ryan Coogler