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Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to analyse Jordan Peele’s response to representations of black masculinity in American horror films. The study will begin by examining key academic dialogues on representations of black masculinity in American horror. Academics such as Coleman will be utilised to give a detailed overview of the history of black characters in the genre. From their analysis, this thesis has found that representation of black men has been both problematic and limited, with no concerted period of “Black horror” with key personnel linked to them. The main case study of this thesis is Peele’s debut horror film Get Out (2017) within which Peele successfully subverts stereotypes of black masculinity to reshape cultural representations. Moving forward, this study also analyses his work in more recent texts, examining his second horror film Us (2019) and his impact in the genre in a wider sense as a producer/writer in the remake of Candyman (DaCosta, 2021). Overall, the findings reveal that with Get Out Peele is explicitly responding to representations of masculinity, yet with Us, Peele’s focus is more on character representations and genre conventions. However, when he returns to an established text such as Candyman, Peele goes back to explicitly responding to representations of masculinity. On the whole, this thesis has discovered that for Jordan Peele, representations of black masculinity in horror may not be as important as overturning characterisation conventions in horror overall.

Course: Media Studies - BA (Hons) - C1346

Date Deposited: 2022-08-08

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13968.html