ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the cultural trauma of the prejudiced practice of mass incarceration by studying six seasons of American Horror Story in the context of the horror genre, which often uses cultural trauma and collective fears to elicit terror in the audience. This chapter argues that each season of the series interrogates incarceration in some way—sometimes explicitly, as with Freakshow and Asylum, and sometimes more implicitly, as with each season that represents a haunting as a kind of incarceration. Regardless of the nature of incarceration in the show, the series takes carcerality as a kind of collective national trauma and represents its horrifying reality on screen to bring its reality into mainstream public discussion. The chapter also interrogates the supposed monstrosity of American prisons and people inside them as they are represented in each season of this show to examine the harm done by such problematic representation.
