Lovecraft Country was a dark fantasy horror series on HBO, adapted from the 2016 novel of the same name by Matt Ruff. This hour-long drama puts the spotlight on the family of the Turners, a black family in Chicago who are forced to navigate both the Jim Crow-era racial inequities of 1950s America as well as interact with H.P. Lovecraft-esque supernatural creatures and mystical forces that have bled into their plane of existence.
While the show is filled with fascinating characters, of particular note is Ruby Baptiste (Wunmi Mosaku), a singer, salesgirl, and sister to main character Atticus Turner (Jonathan Majors). She is often seen either in Sister Rosetta Tharpe-esque stage outfits of feminine dresses with flowers in her hair when she performs or era-accurate streetwear, and wears relaxed hair in a 1950s bob.
Perhaps more than any other character, Ruby’s journey throughout the season runs both major events, turning points, and a huge emotional gamut. From experiencing racism, colorism, and sexism (often multiple isms at the same time) to getting a glimpse through extraordinary events to see how the other side lives through supernatural race switching, Ruby’s characterization gets more dimensions than most supporting characters in major series ever get to experience — from rage to vulnerability and everything in between.
Yet she is also a confident queer woman often restrained by the painful constraints of the time she lives in, who often and in unexpected ways gets to buck them and live the life she wants — even if that veers into morally gray territory. When we first see Ruby engage in a relationship with a white man, William (Jordan Patrick Smith), when he morphs into the powerful heiress Christina Braithwaite (Abby Lee Kershaw), after the initial body horror shock, Ruby continues the affair with her.
This shows (in its own warped way) that for Ruby, her attraction to a person does not necessarily depend on their sex. Since we get to see so much else about Ruby that has nothing to do with her queerness but rather her relationships with her family members, her hopes and dreams and fears, and her philosophies, she does not serve as merely a queer character, but a queer character of consequence to the overall narrative.
Unfortunately, in the season finale, Lovecraft Country does s Ruby offscreen, which launches the show into the over-used #KillYourGays trope. This is a shame; Ruby was tossed aside by Christina (which, like, just as well because she was a Terrible Person, but), and it would have been lovely to see Ruby get the loving treatment she both wanted and deserved.
Still, since Ruby gets so beautifully sketched out beside her unfortunate demise, Lovecraft Country does serve as some very good bi representation in modern horror/fantasy fare.