[Pride 2020] The Quagmire Of Race And Horror In Cinema

“We’ve always loved horror…it’s just that horror hasn’t always loved us.” — Tananarive Due (Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, 2019)

Particular intricacies always exist in the stories and lives of Black people, especially in the framing of (horror) imagery. As a Black American, I have a very particular lens in which I view the world and its media properties. While horror films regularly have to contend with the consequences of being situated in a black-and-white world, oftentimes the lines get blurred between the science fiction and horror genres. For this reason, the threat for Black people in a film can be quadrupled via human monsters, the supernatural, and/or an alien creature from another world.

A lot of my favorite sci-fi horror films ping around in my thoughts because they examine the fear, the erasure, and the expendability of “The Other.” For example, the films Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956/1978) and The Thing (1982/2011) all explore the impending threat of the alien, the lingering doom of an alien’s assimilation to Whiteness, and the alien’s reluctance to inhabit a non-White body. These films are framed through a White lens, with a predominantly White cast, and with a focus on White terror. It’s crucial when viewing these benchmark horror films that one unpacks what the films are directly or indirectly implying are the threats to White lives and White safety.

The aliens in all movie iterations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the original Thing from Another World (1951) and its subsequent remakes all cloak themselves in Whiteness to blend in to assume power, to assume “normalcy,” and to garner un-detection. If these aliens encounter non-White bodies they will simply dispose of, destroy, or outright ignore them because to assume a non-White identity is a risk, dangerous, and makes one a target. When thinking of these aliens that presume the form of Whiteness, it’s important to highlight the what, why, and how of the body that’s being used as a vehicle. The fear this elicits for the White audience is that once they have been taken over by the alien, they now will become “The Other.” The Unknown.

The Menace.

Films that subvert or play with the conventions of this genre of body swapping and assimilation, like Get Out and The Skeleton Key, empowers the Black characters with agency and a chance to live when the credits roll.

Get Out (2017) examines White minds in Black bodies and the threat for Black people of being mentally/psychologically hijacked and their bodies being used as vehicles by White people to live healthier, longer, and stronger lives. However, if one is familiar with the internal physical weathering of Black bodies due to stress, elevated heart rates, and a plethora of other medical conditions due to a mixture of epigenetics and racism…well, white people wouldn’t pilot these bodies for long. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the Black bodies we do see in the film are above the age of 35. Additionally, the never-ending void that is The Sunken Place is one of the most chilling examples of Black fear(s) made tangible about life and death — that we are not fit to exist unless in subservience to others. *Interpretations of the sunken place vary, but they all encompass the anxieties of mortality.

Conversely, The Skeleton Key (2005) flips this narrative with Black people assuming the identities/bodies of White children to escape the horrors of slavery, with the parents being none the wiser. The Skeleton Key has one of the best twists of all time for this reason: We are given multiple red herrings that elude to a danger or a threat that is merely superficial in the present day. The film subverts all those expectations by showing the deaths of White children in Black bodies, by the all too common practice of lynching.

In one of the only filmed examples I can recall, this truly horrifying scene magnifies the terror of the event from a Black and White point of view. Again, it is imperative to examine the broader world in which our horror films reside. White filmgoers have the luxury of imagining characters and worlds that are nightmarish; whereas, Black people have the grim reminders of reality to keep them awake at night. Thus, horror films like Get Out don’t seem that abstract or imaginary because there is an ongoing history of White medical science pulling the operating strings on Black bodies. *See Harriet A. Washington’s Medical Apartheid (2006) for further history and context.

The existence of horror icons like Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger, and many many more barely compare to the tip of the iceberg of horrors that Black people experience even before their first cup of morning coffee. Scrolling through your smartphone daily is anxiety-inducing and like spinning a roulette wheel that will constantly land on the bleakest glimpses of Black life or death. The regular and reoccurring graphic acts of violence and brutalities against Black bodies are in HD quality for the world to see. Most White people can exit the movie theater and shake off the horrors they’ve viewed on screen…but Black people are inundated with re-traumatization at every turn — on screens both large and small.

I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss how gender (and for some of us gender presentation) has always played a role in the types of violence and horror that we experience in film and online. The danger of intra-communal and inter-communal violence has never diminished. Increasingly, the threat of violence escalates if you are within a non-heterosexual or cis-male group.

The numbers of Black Trans Women and/or gender non-conforming Black people that have been attacked or murdered has frighteningly skyrocketed within the past decade, with numbers out-ticking the last every year. Trans Black Women, cis-Black Women, and girls face a heightened threat that is frequently coupled with domestic or state-sanctioned violence. If Black Women and girls stay abreast of the news, true crime podcasts, Cold Case Files/Forensic Files programming, et cetera, they’d more than likely shrug at the mention of movie monsters and boogeymen, because we have a plethora of predators and serial killers to worry about, regardless of race.

I know it’s unhealthy, but I pontificate often about what it means to be Black in real life and fiction. To be Black is to be a target. To be Black is to be suspicious. To be Black is to constantly be feared and to be afraid. Most films that make it to the status of “mass-marketing” with Black people in them are on the shallow or deep end of challenging horror tropes. If there’s a film that has Black people in it, I’m nervous that something is going to be said, done, or acted upon the person that will dehumanize them or violate them.

If it’s a Jim Crow or American chattel slavery period piece, I have an inkling of the grab-bag of horrors soon-to-come that my parents and ancestors experienced. If the film takes place in space, I know that I may or may not exist in the imagined cosmos of the future. With any and every genre of horror film, I’m constantly on guard and on-edge, not waiting for a jump-scare but the overlap of reality to potentially seep through.

My imagined world is one where I’m the “final girl” that thrives, let alone survives; but, in reality, I’m trapped in the horror convention of a winding forest — in a never-ending sprint — always crossing paths with the monster.

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