Why You Don't Want to Be the Black Guy in a Horror Movie

Anyone who is a fan of horror movies knows the "formula". There's the villain - a monster, human or otherwise, who just wants to kill as many people as possible in a variety of ways - the grosser the better. The films start out with a large cast of characters, who are ultimately killed one by one in order to advance the plot. Among those is the hero, although you usually don't find out until the end who the "lone survivor" will be.

You can usually tell who will die first. (Hint: If the screen writer doesn't give your character a name or distinguishing characteristic, make sure you have another job lined up. This will be a short role.) Horror movies like to throw in a little morality along with the bloodshed. Teenage characters who smoke, drink, do drugs, or engage in premarital sex are the first to go. For example, in the classic movie Halloween, promiscuity has an enraging affect on the killer Michael Myers. (Plus, it's a way movie makers can include a lot of gratuitous sex, which boosts ratings.) Only the virginal prude (also known as the killer's baby sister) survives in the end, the rest of the cast victims of their own immorality. Friday the 13^th has a similar plot, where the killer was once the victim of an accident caused by the inattention of sex-crazed teenage camp councilors.

While as a parent and a horror movie fan I can support the hidden morality message in the genre, (plus some of them just deserve to die), the other way to gauge life expectancy much more troubling - by the victim's skin color. Most horror movies include Black, Asian, or Hispanic characters, but they generally have the life expectancy of a bucket of candy on Halloween. And they are rarely, if ever, the hero.