INTERVIEW: BLACK HORROR & SOCIAL CRITIQUE
Dr. Scahill was interviewed recently by Voice of America to give his thoughts on the movie US and the future of minority filmmakers using the genre of horror to wage social critique. VOA correspondant Penelope Poulou asked Dr. Scahill to provide historical context for genre and what the success of films like Get Out and Us might mean for forecasting genre trends.
As Scahill notes, the horror genre has traditionally been antagonistic to minorities, as often "monsters" like Nosferatu or King Kong have been presented xenophobic or racialized as threats to the social order which must be suppressed. In the late 1960s, films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, and Stepford Wives began to use the genre to locate monstrosity within American culture and to articulate the dread of being a minority in America. For the full interview, click here.
Voice of America is the largest U.S. nternational broadcaster with an estimated audience of 275 million listeners. Created in 1942, the VOA is carried on a network of nearly 2,200 affliate stations globally.
