Tananarive Due is bringing a highly anticipated Get Out-inspired course to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) this semester.
The “The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival and Black Horror Aesthetic” course is based on director Jordan Peele’s popular film and students will explore how images of blackness in classic works of Black horror film and literature symbolize larger themes of race in society.
“I really would like [students] to develop a more critical eye as they watch popular media to see the recurrent themes and stereotypes that are still following us since the dawn of the film industry,” said Due, a lecturer in the department of African American Studies at UCLA.
Due plans to examine such themes as anti-Black racism and the fear of Black otherness and Black power that have been embedded in films like Birth of A Nation and Ingagi starting in the 1920s and ’30s.
In recent pop culture however, Due took interest in Peele’s Get Out because of its “broad appeal” and “bold examination of the issues of racism and survival” that other works of Black speculative fiction and horror examine. “I thought it would be a great opportunity to branch out and look more deeply into horror specifically,” she said.
In her own analysis of classic Black horror movies throughout the decades, Due says it is “really interesting to watch the difference between how Black actors were used in horror movies made by White filmmakers, as opposed to what they do under their own power and direction,” she told the blogsite io9. Films like Son of Ingagi that featured Black actors with nuance and sensibility— instead of in subservient positions to White people — hone in on this point, as no Whites were even in the movie, Due added. “Blacks have power in the film, they have agency in the film.”
New films like Marvel’s upcoming Black Panther in February 2018 illustrate the film industry’s work towards more inclusivity for actors of color, but Due said “there’s a lot we can learn from watching the classics.”
