University of California Los Angeles Race and the Horror Genre Analysis there are two parts of this assignment : first part: Upload Reverse outlining Work

University of California Los Angeles Race and the Horror Genre Analysis there are two parts of this assignment :

first part:
Upload Reverse outlining Work here

First, choose 1 body section of your 2nd Analysis Assignment (the Us essay).

Insert a comment at each paragraph summarizing in a phrase or short sentence what the paragraph covers.

Then, choose 1 paragraph from the same essay that is in a different body section.

Insert a comment at each sentence that summarizes in a couple words what the sentence covers.

Then look at the phrases for the paragraph and look at the phrases for the body section. If you isolated those on another blank page, would they flow well and make sense logically? Do they jump from topic to topic, indicating a possible issue with transitions? For the paragraph or the body section, are they focused on 1 topic, or are you trying to cover too much, indicating a content issue where you either need to expand into its own separate paragraph/section (fodder for your final project) OR need to delete? Just consider these things as you’ll do a free write next!

***second part :

for 3 minutes, freewrite about what you noticed when you reverse outlined your paper. What works well? What could use some shifting? 1
Student Name: Ryan Huo
Professor Name: Katie Baillargeon
Course Number: Writing109HU
Date:2020/05/15
Us: Race and the Horror Genre
The horror genre and the issues of race have long and intertwined histories. Film theorist
Bruce Kawin points out the many complexities of the genre, which is defined by certain key
recurring themes. Perhaps the most important of these themes, according to Kawin, is the fact
that the horror genre represents a figurative closeness to death, which in turn gives a particular
enjoyment that is derived precisely from not dying (page 17). However, other recurring themes
in the horror genre are especially interesting in this context. Other scholars, such as Coleman,
have pointed out that horror films have long been important social vehicles for confronting
significant taboos in mass culture (page 9). In this sense, the horror film stands out among genres
not necessarily because it confronts taboos, as many genres might incorporate this
confrontational nature with cultural norms. It stands out, rather, because it confronts perhaps the
greatest taboo, death, and at the same time is able to engage with numerous narratives that touch
upon other areas of social importance. For this reason, Us is an especially interesting film, as it
represents an evolution of the writer and director Jordan’s Peele’s confrontation of the issue of
race and hierarchy by using the horror genre. Whereas his previous
horror film, 2017’s Get Out,
1.1
very directly confronted the issue of racism in American society through the allegory of the
horror film. Us is a much more sly and subtle confrontation with the subject. This essay argues
that Us utilizes the horror genre to make a subtle critique of racial ideas in society, demonstrating
the horror of a world that is based on racial hierarchies and control.
2
2.1
According to Ryan-Bryant, in Get Out, Peele stated “acknowledges the violent national
history that has defined American race relations” in the main character’s personal traits (94).
Furthermore, the plot is much more direct and open about the idea of racial tension and
hierarchy. On the other hand, Peele’s Us begins with a subtle but powerful reconfiguration in
thematic terms of racial identities in film. He does this precisely by depicting the Wilsons, the
family of protagonists in the film, as a group of people that avoids the pitfalls of stereotypical
blackness on film. As Richard Brody puts it in his The New Yorker review, Peele’s depiction of
the family is that of the “stereotype of a financially successful, socially stable, and cinematically
average American family” (Brody). This in and of itself represents a degree of shifting from the
Hollywood tradition of depicting race within the horror genre. Curiously, as Coleman has
pointed out, previous “black” horror films had depended on stereotypes related to the
“blaxploitation” subgenre from the 1970s and 1980s (page 9). Coleman also notes that the horror
genre as a whole has largely alternated between the extremes of depicting blackness in
“deficient” and malevolent terms and images of being childlike and helpless despite having the
potential to portray a more liberating image (page 10).
Nonetheless, Us begins with a portrayal of complete normalcy of the protagonists, the
Wilson family, who by many measures are living the American upper-middle-class life, enjoying
the luxury of taking a vacation to Southern California. However, as Brody also notes, the film is
peppered with a number of cultural references to a previous cinematic and pop-cultural era where
blackness was basically in oblivion. At the same time, and this is especially evident in the
musical soundtrack of the film, there is a juxtaposition with the often confrontational nature that
black culture had to make in order to break through into the mainstream and find greater
acceptance by white society as a whole. In one ironic scene, “Good Vibrations” by the Beach
3
Boys plays in the background while their friends Kitty and Josh are brutally murdered. One of
the prime motivations of the family in taking the vacation was a sense of “keeping up with the
Joneses,” embodied by the sense of wanting to impress the family of their white friends. At the
same time, the use of 1960s rock music, which borrowed extensively from black music of the
time (often without credit), makes a subtle statement which is very sharply and loudly contrasted
soon after with NWA’s “F*ck the Police,” a direct confrontation with the American tradition of
suppressing black agency by any means necessary. In this sense, Peele uses music as a way to
underscore many of the social meanings and tensions that lie underneath the surface of the
historical genre. He does this by providing a soundtrack that is purposefully politicized in its
nature, including other artists such as Public Enemy, featuring mostly hip-hop and rap-based
sounds.
At the same time, the grisly scene in which the Tyler family is murdered by the Tethered
can be interpreted not only as a typical scene in the horror genre but one in which connotations
about the underlying social reality of America are revealed. Later on, the viewer discovers that
the Tethered are government creations that are a sort of slave intended for the purposes of
population control. However, at the moment of the murder, it is not known that these murderous
doppelgangers are intentionally created clones that were made by the society’s own government.
In a sense, the fact that they exist attests to a long-standing association between the US
government and means of oppression and interference in the liberty of individuals. To that
extent, the Tyler family, in many ways a stereotypical white family, become their own victims,
destroyed by the creatures that were designed to maintain the status quo that they have benefited
from. When the music transitions from “Good Vibrations” to “F*ck the Police,” it does so with
the slitting of Kitty’s throat, in a moment that cannot help but appear to be revolutionary. Of
4
course, it is eventually revealed that the clones were actually attempting to revolt, albeit in a
senseless and utterly violent fashion. Nevertheless, they are creations of the very system that they
are trying to destroy, and in some senses, they are victims of it.
The fact that the Wilsons survive and triumph not only represents a shift in racial
representation within the genre that continues a project embarked upon by Peele, but it also
shows the continuation of a larger project of social change. The music that is heard throughout
the film parallels this evolution, juxtaposing the sounds of the 1960s with that of the emergence
of black music, which made its way into the mainstream by first forcing an abrupt confrontation
with the dominant culture. In the same way that the Tethered attempt a violent break with their
masters, a scene like the murder of the Tyler family is a symbolic microcosm for the need within
American society of cutting off from a disturbed past rooted in racial and class oppression. While
the Wilsons, at the beginning of the film, appear to have “made
it” in the sense of becoming
4.1
indistinguishable from white America, the events that unfold make it clear that they have entered
into a society that is not their own, one with a dark underbelly built on exploitation and
oppression. While it is not clear that the Tethered are their comrades in the struggle, the violence
of this particular horror film appears as a reminder that even the dreams they hold are tainted by
blood.
5
Works Cited
Brody, Richard. “Review: Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ Is a Colossal Cinematic Achievement.” The New
Yorker, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2019, www.newyorker.com/culture/the-frontrow/review-jordan-peeles-us-is-a-colossal-cinematic-achievement. Accessed 11 May
2020.
Coleman, Robin R. Means. Horror noire: Blacks in American horror films from the 1890s to
present. (2013).
Kawin, Bruce F. Horror and the Horror Film. Anthem Press, 2012.
Ryan‐Bryant, Jennifer. “The Cinematic Rhetoric’s of Lynching in Jordan Peele’s Get Out.” The
Journal of Popular Culture 53.1 (2020): 92-110.
“Us Official Soundtrack 2019 – Jordan Peele.” Spotify, 2019,
open.spotify.com/playlist/67Nc9v6QEJYqNDfnXnQCTE. Accessed 11 May 2020.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
Index of comments
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
1.1
nice work overall here, Ryan. I have a good sense of the what and definitely the why of your essay when reading
the intro. if you continue with this essay for the final project, make sure to work on including the “how.” what
cinematic techniques does your analysis emphasize as really being demonstrative of the meaning? preview that for
us here in the intro.
2.1
root topic sentences in your words only: this is like the thesis of the paragraph so it should always be your framing
of the topic,
4.1
You’ve got a lot of great things to say here, Ryan. At the same time, we don’t really have that depth of analysis that
I’m looking for. Rather than putting together what a lot of other people have already said about the movie, its music,
and the connections with those to race, I’m looking for students to bring something new to the table here via said
analysis. This is why the Yale Film Studies site and really focusing on the cinematic techniques is important for this
essay (and the class), so that it’s all rooted in YOUR analysis. If you stick with this paper, consider focusing on
another element beyond soundtrack–lighting, camera angles, and the like–so you can bring something “new” to the
table and avoid the synthesis of ideas that are already written about site a lot in the popular literature on this movie.
1
Student Name: Ryan Huo
Professor Name: Katie Baillargeon
Course Number: Writing109HU
Date:2020/05/15
Us: Race and the Horror Genre
The horror genre and the issues of race have long and intertwined histories. Film theorist
Bruce Kawin points out the many complexities of the genre, which is defined by certain key
recurring themes. Perhaps the most important of these themes, according to Kawin, is the fact
that the horror genre represents a figurative closeness to death, which in turn gives a particular
enjoyment that is derived precisely from not dying (page 17). However, other recurring themes
in the horror genre are especially interesting in this context. Other scholars, such as Coleman,
have pointed out that horror films have long been important social vehicles for confronting
significant taboos in mass culture (page 9). In this sense, the horror film stands out among genres
not necessarily because it confronts taboos, as many genres might incorporate this
confrontational nature with cultural norms. It stands out, rather, because it confronts perhaps the
greatest taboo, death, and at the same time is able to engage with numerous narratives that touch
upon other areas of social importance. For this reason, Us is an especially interesting film, as it
represents an evolution of the writer and director Jordan’s Peele’s confrontation of the issue of
race and hierarchy by using the horror genre. Whereas his previous
horror film, 2017’s Get Out,
1.1
very directly confronted the issue of racism in American society through the allegory of the
horror film. Us is a much more sly and subtle confrontation with the subject. This essay argues
that Us utilizes the horror genre to make a subtle critique of racial ideas in society, demonstrating
the horror of a world that is based on racial hierarchies and control.
2
2.1
According to Ryan-Bryant, in Get Out, Peele stated “acknowledges the violent national
history that has defined American race relations” in the main character’s personal traits (94).
Furthermore, the plot is much more direct and open about the idea of racial tension and
hierarchy. On the other hand, Peele’s Us begins with a subtle but powerful reconfiguration in
thematic terms of racial identities in film. He does this precisely by depicting the Wilsons, the
family of protagonists in the film, as a group of people that avoids the pitfalls of stereotypical
blackness on film. As Richard Brody puts it in his The New Yorker review, Peele’s depiction of
the family is that of the “stereotype of a financially successful, socially stable, and cinematically
average American family” (Brody). This in and of itself represents a degree of shifting from the
Hollywood tradition of depicting race within the horror genre. Curiously, as Coleman has
pointed out, previous “black” horror films had depended on stereotypes related to the
“blaxploitation” subgenre from the 1970s and 1980s (page 9). Coleman also notes that the horror
genre as a whole has largely alternated between the extremes of depicting blackness in
“deficient” and malevolent terms and images of being childlike and helpless despite having the
potential to portray a more liberating image (page 10).
Nonetheless, Us begins with a portrayal of complete normalcy of the protagonists, the
Wilson family, who by many measures are living the American upper-middle-class life, enjoying
the luxury of taking a vacation to Southern California. However, as Brody also notes, the film is
peppered with a number of cultural references to a previous cinematic and pop-cultural era where
blackness was basically in oblivion. At the same time, and this is especially evident in the
musical soundtrack of the film, there is a juxtaposition with the often confrontational nature that
black culture had to make in order to break through into the mainstream and find greater
acceptance by white society as a whole. In one ironic scene, “Good Vibrations” by the Beach
3
Boys plays in the background while their friends Kitty and Josh are brutally murdered. One of
the prime motivations of the family in taking the vacation was a sense of “keeping up with the
Joneses,” embodied by the sense of wanting to impress the family of their white friends. At the
same time, the use of 1960s rock music, which borrowed extensively from black music of the
time (often without credit), makes a subtle statement which is very sharply and loudly contrasted
soon after with NWA’s “F*ck the Police,” a direct confrontation with the American tradition of
suppressing black agency by any means necessary. In this sense, Peele uses music as a way to
underscore many of the social meanings and tensions that lie underneath the surface of the
historical genre. He does this by providing a soundtrack that is purposefully politicized in its
nature, including other artists such as Public Enemy, featuring mostly hip-hop and rap-based
sounds.
At the same time, the grisly scene in which the Tyler family is murdered by the Tethered
can be interpreted not only as a typical scene in the horror genre but one in which connotations
about the underlying social reality of America are revealed. Later on, the viewer discovers that
the Tethered are government creations that are a sort of slave intended for the purposes of
population control. However, at the moment of the murder, it is not known that these murderous
doppelgangers are intentionally created clones that were made by the society’s own government.
In a sense, the fact that they exist attests to a long-standing association between the US
government and means of oppression and interference in the liberty of individuals. To that
extent, the Tyler family, in many ways a stereotypical white family, become their own victims,
destroyed by the creatures that were designed to maintain the status quo that they have benefited
from. When the music transitions from “Good Vibrations” to “F*ck the Police,” it does so with
the slitting of Kitty’s throat, in a moment that cannot help but appear to be revolutionary. Of
4
course, it is eventually revealed that the clones were actually attempting to revolt, albeit in a
senseless and utterly violent fashion. Nevertheless, they are creations of the very system that they
are trying to destroy, and in some senses, they are victims of it.
The fact that the Wilsons survive and triumph not only represents a shift in racial
representation within the genre that continues a project embarked upon by Peele, but it also
shows the continuation of a larger project of social change. The music that is heard throughout
the film parallels this evolution, juxtaposing the sounds of the 1960s with that of the emergence
of black music, which made its way into the mainstream by first forcing an abrupt confrontation
with the dominant culture. In the same way that the Tethered attempt a violent break with their
masters, a scene like the murder of the Tyler family is a symbolic microcosm for the need within
American society of cutting off from a disturbed past rooted in racial and class oppression. While
the Wilsons, at the beginning of the film, appear to have “made
it” in the sense of becoming
4.1
indistinguishable from white America, the events that unfold make it clear that they have entered
into a society that is not their own, one with a dark underbelly built on exploitation and
oppression. While it is not clear that the Tethered are their comrades in the struggle, the violence
of this particular horror film appears as a reminder that even the dreams they hold are tainted by
blood.
5
Works Cited
Brody, Richard. “Review: Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ Is a Colossal Cinematic Achievement.” The New
Yorker, The New Yorker, 23 Mar. 2019, www.newyorker.com/culture/the-frontrow/review-jordan-peeles-us-is-a-colossal-cinematic-achievement. Accessed 11 May
2020.
Coleman, Robin R. Means. Horror noire: Blacks in American horror films from the 1890s to
present. (2013).
Kawin, Bruce F. Horror and the Horror Film. Anthem Press, 2012.
Ryan‐Bryant, Jennifer. “The Cinematic Rhetoric’s of Lynching in Jordan Peele’s Get Out.” The
Journal of Popular Culture 53.1 (2020): 92-110.
“Us Official Soundtrack 2019 – Jordan Peele.” Spotify, 2019,
open.spotify.com/playlist/67Nc9v6QEJYqNDfnXnQCTE. Accessed 11 May 2020.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
Index of comments
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
1.1
nice work overall here, Ryan. I have a good sense of the what and definitely the why of your essay when reading
the intro. if you continue with this essay for the final project, make sure to work on including the “how.” what
cinematic techniques does your analysis emphasize as really being demonstrative of the meaning? preview that for
us here in the intro.
2.1
root topic sentences in your words only: this is like the thesis of the paragraph so it should always be your framing
of the topic,
4.1
You’ve got a lot of great things to say here, Ryan. At the same time, we don’t really have that depth of analysis that
I’m looking for. Rather than putting together what a lot of other people have already said about the movie, its music,
and the connections with those to race, I’m looking for students to bring something new to the table here via said
analysis. This is why the Yale Film Studies site and really focusing on the cinematic techniques is important for this
essay (and the class), so that it’s all rooted in YOUR analysis. If you stick with this paper, consider focusing on
another element beyond soundtrack–lighting, camera angles, and the like–so you can bring something “new” to the
table and avoid the synthesis of ideas that are already written about site a lot in the popular literature on this movie.
Us: Race and the Horror Genre
The horror genre and the issues of race have long and intertwined histories. Film theorist
Bruce Kawin points out the many complexities of the genre, which is defined by certain key
recurring themes. Perhaps the most important of these themes, according to Kawin, is the fact
that the horror genre represents a figurative closeness to death, which in turn gives a particular
enjoyment that is derived prec…
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