Making Monsters: The Portrayal of Race in American Horror Movies from 2000-2014

The horror film genre has been infamous for the exclusion, stereotyping, and killing of African American characters, as has the history of the United States of America. Though times have changed, with the civil rights movement now past, injustice still exists. A “whitewashed” America is still favored – and this has been true within the horror film genre especially, which is infamous for the trope of “the black guy dies first.” This study intends to answer whether the depiction of African Americans in 21st century American horror films has changed over time. By employing a content analysis of 76 of the top grossing movies within the US Box Office from 2000-2014, the researcher was able to look at the depiction of African Americans within the genre. The results indicated that there was no significant correlation between year and representation of African American characters, except in the cases of the buddy movie and lead roles. However, 50% of the films analyzed did not have African American characters, signaling that the genre still has problems in this area.