ABSTRACT
Chapter 7, “We Always Die First—Invisibility, Racial Red-Lining, and Self-Sacrifice: 1980s,” reveals a marked decline of the Black Power–inspired film themes seen in the 1970s. In the 1980s, in a notable reversal, Black people enter into supporting relationships with (monstrous) whites through a display of loyalty and trust that is generally disproportionate and unilateral. Notably, this loyalty is measured through the ultimate act of Black sacrifice (e.g., The Shining [1980]). This representational trend of Black self-sacrifice and devotion to whiteness rears its head most prominently in “Blacks in horror” films. That is, Blackness is depicted as most valuable when it harkens to the value system and ideologies of (a stereotypically monolithic) whiteness. In this chapter, I also detail how the decade of the 1980s gentrifies and segregates its whiteness—moving white monsters and prey to the suburbs, places viewed as inaccessible to Blacks. These include suburban or rural settings such as Elm Street, Haddonfield, Illinois, and Camp Crystal Lake, as represented in horror series beginning with A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Halloween (1978), and Friday the 13th (1980), respectively. Thus, only a small but resilient group of films and filmmakers strove to place Blacks in starring roles during the decade, which I detail in the chapter. Finally, in this chapter, I note the return of the horror movie “short” with Michael Jackson (e.g., Thriller [1983]).
