Thread by @TananariveDue

7 Reasons Scholars Are Teaching GET OUT & Why You Should Too –
I teach a @UCLA class, "The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival & the Black Horror Aesthetic." The linchpin: @JordanPeele’s Get Out. Last quarter, he surprised my class.
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

MASS INCARCERATION. Jordan Peele told my class: “When I had this image of Chris in this dark hole…I realized I was talking about the prison industrial system.” The system is “abducting black people and throwing them in holes.”
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

WHITE SUPREMACY. Jordan Peele tweeted that Get Out is a “documentary” because it allegorically documents the history of white supremacy and its effects on blacks.
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

LIBERAL RACISM. Rose says: “My dad totally would have voted for Obama for a 3rd term if he could have.” Get Out explores the difficulty of trying to create allyship w/whites when so much racism exists across political lines.
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

ISOLATION & ASSIMILATION. From the opening scene, when a black man is wandering lost in a white suburb, the film portrays the isolation of minorities in mostly white surroundings & fears of losing one’s identity to assimilation.
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

COVETING/ENVY OF BLACK BODIES. Get Out explores our society’s love-hate relationship with black bodies: coveting and envying blacks (think of the creepy dinner scene and the Coagula procedure) while also reviling blacks.
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

MICROAGGRESSIONS. “My man.” The family & party scenes in Get Out reflect a common black experience when whites in social/work settings ONLY see your blackness & fumble for conversation, i.e. Obama, Tiger Woods, sexual curiosity.
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

COMPLICITY OF WHITE WOMEN. The statistics matter: 53% of white women voted for Tr*mp. A higher percentage, 63 percent, voted for Roy Moore in Alabama. It’s a problem. Rose Armitage is complicit. Mom MARRIED into this family.
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

A surprising amount of scholarship on GET OUT already exists. Check out this Get Out database curated by @KaiAlexisSmith at Cal Poly Pomona: libguides.library.cpp.edu/getout/home

@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

This quarter, John Jennings (@JIJennings) is also launching his #blackhorror course at @UCRiverside: "Afrofuturism & the Visual Cultures of Horror," also with an emphasis on GET OUT.
@GetOutMovie #GetOut #BlackHorror #GetOutSyllabus

For a history of blacks in horror films & black horror films, you MUST get Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890s to the Present by Robin R. Means Coleman @meanscoleman (2011). This book is everything for film lovers.

#GetOutSyllabus #BlackHorror

Black women are at the forefront of #blackhorror scholarship and storytelling. Learn more in Sycorax’s Daughters, an antho of short stories and poetry by black women, ed. by Linda D. Addison @nytebird45 , Susana Morris & Dr. Kinitra Brooks @k8dee16.

#GetOutSyllabus #BlackHorror

Dr. Kinitra Brooks @k8dee16 also just published Searching for Sycorax: Black Women’s Hauntings of Contemporary Horror. It includes analysis of work from all over the Diaspora & artists like @Nalo_Hopkinson , @ChesyaBurke, @NKJemisin and Gloria Naylor
#GetOutSyllabus #BlackHorror

If you love black horror or want to learn more, you need to follow Ashlee Blackwell @graveyardsister, a fantastic horror resources. Her website is at graveyardshiftsisters.com. Also follow @blckhorror. (Other suggestions welcome at end of this thread!)
#GetOutSyllabus #BlackHorror

Want to learn more about #blackhorror & you’re not at UCLA or UCR? I’m launching my PUBLIC webinar The Sunken Place w/@StevenBarnes1 1/13. Six live lectures & SPECIAL GUESTS. :) Find out more: To reg: sunkenplaceclass.com

#GetOutSyllabus #BlackHorror