From the creators of Queer Eye comes Living for the Dead, a spooky new series with a whole lot of heart and more than a few scares. Following five fabulous and queer ghost hunters on their cross-country trip to help the living by healing the dead, Living for the Dead explores some of the world’s most infamous haunted locations, looking at these hauntings from a whole new perspective and bringing acceptance to the misunderstood, both living and dead.
Ahead of the Oct. 18 premiere of the Hulu show, executive producer Rob Eric and “Ghost Hunties” Alex Le May, Juju Bae, Ken Boggle, Logan Taylor and Roz Hernandez opened up to PopCulture.com about bringing their queer perspective to a space where their voices haven’t been as amplified over the years. The idea for Living for the Dead was initially pitched to Eric by Kristen Stewart, who brought Scout Productions the idea of “gay ghost hunting.”
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“We were like, ‘Gay Scooby-Doo? We’re in,’” Eric recalled. Developing the show required a “dynamic” cast with a lot of “heart,” people in the paranormal space who could balance the spooky with the “funny and kind.” It’s that dynamic that the cast believes led to a lot of the experiences they had with the paranormal during their investigations. “I think we’re not just going in, disturbing places, raising hell, and leaving,” said Taylor, the psychic of the group. “We’re going in with a solid good intention and getting results – literally helping people by healing the dead.”
“It’s really special to be able to be a part of something of this magnitude that’s being contributed to the paranormal space,” added Juju Bae, the group’s witch. “We’re queer. We come from different parts of the world. I don’t really see that many Black queer people on TV doing the spiritual s- anyway. … So, I think that having us all together with these identities, I think it’s going to rattle some things up in a good way, in a positive way, and I also think that the spirits appreciate getting to converse with other people and not [be] provoked or pestered by the same things constantly.”
Boggle, who is a medium and tarot cards expert, has been a part of the paranormal scene for 15 years, and while he’s made solid friends in that world, he knows it’s “suffered” from a lack of diversity. “There’s never been a woman, a trans woman given a voice in this industry. There’s never been a woman of color … a queer woman of color,” Boggle explained. “That’s never happened. And to be honest, I think the industry suffered because of that lack, that void that was there.”
With the impact of queer people as tastemakers in culture, Hernandez also pointed out the celebration of queerness Living for the Dead has become. “A lot of what people say in society these days are phrases that come from queer people. A lot of the visual aesthetic comes from queer people … and this show is a celebration of queer culture,” Hernandez, who hosts the paranormal comedy podcast Ghosted, explained. “As opposed to the way other shows have been done, we definitely have a visual aesthetic, a way of talking, a type of humor. All of those things go into the show as well as the way that we approach being in the most terrifying places in the world.”
Living for the Dead is streaming all eight episodes now on Hulu.
