Less than a year after the fall debut of Watchmen, the hit HBO limited series that expands on the seminal 1986 graphic novel has proven uncannily prescient.
Suddenly its masked heroes — cops forced to shield their identities after a KKK-like white supremacist group known as Seventh Kavalry murdered the vast majority of the police force — roaming the streets of Tulsa, Okla., don’t look the slightest out of the ordinary in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s funny because a girlfriend of mine just sent a picture of Sister Night to me and said, ‘Who knew your costume was going to be our go-to grocery store attire,” Watchmen star Regina King told Yahoo Entertainment in an interview last week promoting the series’ new Blu-ray release of Damon Lindlelof‘s “remix” of the famed and influential superhero graphic novel. King has not been wearing Sister Night’s famed balaclava out in public recently, but has she does rock a Watchmen-themed facial mask adorned with a squid logo that was given out to attendees at the show’s October red carpet premiere.
Sadly, there are other deep and tragic connections between Watchmen and the contemporary world. The series, which launches from the real-life 1921 Tulsa Massacre, rings strikingly true in its portrayal of American racism. And it returns following a demoralizing string of high-profile of racial incidents in the U.S. over the past two months: the shooting death of Breonna Taylor in her home by Kentucky police; the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery in rural Georgia; the falsified 911 call made against Central Park birder Christian Cooper; and the galvanizing killing of George Floyd, whose death while being detained by Minnesota police resulted in murder charges against one officer and has touched off a historic spate of protests and uprisings across the country and overseas.
“Look, we’re talking about 1921, this happened,” says King, 49, who won an Academy Award in 2019 for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk and is also known for Jerry Maguire, Ray, American Crime and her Emmy-winning turn in HBO’s The Leftovers. “Cut to [today], same s***’s going down. There’s the same mentality happening. We’re not having another massacre, but it feels like we’re having little mini-massacres all around.”
This article was originally posted on yahoo.com/entertainment/.
