Horror Noire & Black Music Matters: Black horror and musical influence
The Department of Diversity Initiatives hosted a few celebrations for Black History Month last week, including a showing of Horror Noire: A History on Black Horror on Feb. 15 with Dr. Melencia Johnson and Black Music Matters on Feb. 16.
The documentary, Horror Noire: A History on Black Horror, chronologically defines the genre. D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, shown by former President Woodrow Wilson at the White House where he remarked that it was “like writing history with lightning,” was the first black horror film. In the film, a freed man depicted by a white actor in blackface chased a white woman until he was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. Tananarive Due, author and commentator throughout the film, explained, “Black history is black horror.”
Horror Noire: A History on Black Horror moves through the decades, focusing on significant films such as Blacula, Son of Ingagi, Night of the Living Dead, Get Out, and more. Johnson pointed out the roles of black people in these films with students in attendance. Some of these tropes included but were not limited to the sacrificial black person, the black person who dies first, the mystical black person and the black person willing to die for the white protagonist.
The way that people are portrayed on such a large platform like film affects the way that other people see them and how they see themselves, which is why it’s so important to shift this narrative.
At Black Music Matters, students were able to listen to about half of a handful of influential songs from black artists leading up to and including music from last summer, when the Black Lives Matter movement gained great national attention. Although some students were dissatisfied with the orator’s performance, the message remained the same.
Students listened to songs like the Black National Anthem also known as “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “Mississippi Goddam” by Nina Simone, “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, “Fuck Tha Police” by N.W.A., and “The Bigger Picture” by Lil Baby.
