Admittedly, this is a really difficult article to write. I’m
a white girl in America. As far as my
life is concerned, I hit the genetic lottery. The only way my life could be any
easier is if I was a guy, but that’s an entirely different argument. I can see girls like me represented in all
forms of horror media in complex and unique ways. I’ve seen girls like me played as villains,
as final girls, as the words of wisdom, as a sympathetic symbol, and as a sex
symbol. You name it; a white brunette
girl has played it. This is a privilege
that does not carry over for women of color, namely, for black women.
Horror films usually get a bad rap from the more
“prestigious” genres as being predictable, formulaic, and lowbrow. To quote Sidney Prescott in Scream, “What's the point? They're all
the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who
is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.
It's insulting.” Insulting, eh? Well, my
fellow pale faced sister…I think you need to do a little thing called “checking
your privilege.”
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| The Final Girl in Texas Chainsaw (2013) |
When we think of the final girl in a horror film, we all
know the rules. We’ve got ourselves the
virgin girl out of her group of friends, a majority of the time she’s brunette
in comparison to the “dumb slutty blonde” friend, and she’s usually more
interested in being the smart-girl over being the pretty girl. However, when we think of the final girl, do
we ever once question the color of her skin? No.
That, my friends, is white privilege.
White privilege is never having to question whether or not
someone that “looks like us” will survive the horror movie. White privilege is knowing that the people
who look like us will be archetypes and not token. White privilege is knowing that at the end of
the day 99.99% of the people we see represented in horror films will be someone
we can identify with. They say art
imitates life, so what does it mean when society is constantly being bombarded
with “the black guy dies first” and “the white girl” survives and “the sassy
black girl is here for comedic relief” in their horror movies? This so-called
fictional interpretation of life is looking a lot more horrifically real by the
second.
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| Archetypes in The Cabin in the Woods (2012) |
First off, we need to look at what it means to be an
archetype and what it means to be a token character. An archetype is defined as “a very typical example of a certain person
or thing.” Think of it like being a
stock character. The “dumb blonde,” the
“final girl,” “the jock.” These
descriptions are archetypes. We see
these conventional types of characters frequently because it’s a quick way for
the audience to identify and understand where this character falls in the
status hierarchy of the film. A token
character is defined as “done for the
sake of appearances or as a symbolic gesture.” This means that the character is plugged into
the mix out of obligation. In horror
movies, white people have never been token. We’ve been archetypal, yes, but we
have never, ever been token. Our
existence has never been obligatory in the sense of horror movies and we’ve
never been thrown in last minute to add some hilarious one-liners just because.
Look at a film like Thir13en
Ghosts; a predominately white cast with the exception of rapper Rah Digga’s
performance as Maggie. Although Maggie
does not die in this film, it would appear that her only purpose is to provide
“sassy black woman” commentary, and just about all of her lines are used for
comedic relief. Not to mention, Maggie
is the nanny for a rich white family. The
only other black character in that movie is a ghost called “The Hammer” and
he’s a blacksmith with an origin story that he was wrongfully accused of
theft. A nanny and a thief…really?
Or we can look at a film like Freddy vs. Jason. Kelly
Rowland plays the only female black character (hell, she’s the only black
character) and what is her purpose? Sassily taunting Freddy Krueger. In Scream
2, we see Jada Pinkett-Smith in a movie theatre where she screams at the
blonde chick on the screen to “hang up the phone and star-69 his ass!” This is obviously a jab at the stereotypical
black-woman-yelling-at-a-movie character and this scene was played for
laughs. Are we sensing a pattern here? Even in a predominately black horror movie
like Candyman, Bernadette’s
intelligence makes her the comedic relief sidekick and the baby-saving heroine
of the film is a white woman. They put a
horror movie in 1990s CABRINI-GREEN CHICAGO and the heroine is STILL a white
woman.
However, there is a silver lining to all of this. As Joshua
Alston wrote in his incredible article “First
To Die: Evil Dead and Blackness in Horror,” despite all of this inherent
racism on screen, black people are still some of the biggest fans of horror. “For
black folks, the police blotter from an average July day in Chicago is a horror
movie. EVIL DEAD is just a fun night out, gorging on popcorn, yelling at the
screen and wondering why these white folks will never learn,” he states.
This brings me back to the previous point made about life
imitating art. With statistics of black
men dying in America at epidemic rates and the news outlets skewing missing persons
cases towards white girls, it’s becoming more and more obvious that horror
films are merely reflecting the social norms of American society. We are valuing the lives of white girls over
just about any other group in the country, and this mindset is reflected in our
horror films. In real life, black men
are being shot simply for existing and horror films reflect that by killing off
black men at the beginning of the flick.
It’s almost as if films are trying to meet their racial quota by putting
a person of color on the bill, and killing them off just to get them out of the
way so they can focus on the white story.
So, Sidney Prescott, you find horror films portrayal of
white girls insulting? Until the day
your existence in a horror film is simply to fill a quota or placed out of an
obligatory desire only to be killed so a film can focus on “other” stories, you
have no place to feel insulted.
About the Author
BJ Colangelo is a contributing writer for Icons of Fright and the creator
of Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear. She’s also an actress, screenwriter, film
theorist, plus-size model, and dessert flavored vodka connoisseur (@bjcolangelo)