This book provides a concise introduction to critical race theory and shows how this theory can be used to interpret Jordan Peele's Get Out. It surveys recent developments in critical race studies and introduces key concepts that have helped shape the field such as Black masculinity, white privilege, the Black body, and miscegenation. The book's analysis of Get Out situates it within the context of the American horror film, illustrating how contemporary debates in critical race theory and approaches to the analysis of mainstream Hollywood cinema can illuminate each other. In this way, the book provides both an accessible reference guide to key terminology in critical race studies and film studies, while contributing new scholarship to both fields.
Kevin Wynter is Assistant Professor of Media at Pomona College, USA. Articles on screen violence, horror, and pornography have appeared in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Cineaction, and the anthology Transnational Horror Cinema: Bodies of Excess and the Global Grotesque. His current book project is titled Feeling Absence: Theory of the Horror Film.
Acknowledgements IntroductionSection 1: Critical Race TheorySection 2: Critical Race Theory and Jordan Peele's Get OutConclusionFurther ReadingSuggested Films and MediaIndex
Get Out. Candyman. The Sunken Place. The “Final Brother.” Wynter presents a pedagogical masterpiece that explores legacies of anti-Black violence at the intersections of horror films and critical race theory. Wynter’s brilliance is on full display in this exquisitely written book. In fastening the theoretical and artistic to each other, he centers Black articulations of oppression at a time when it is most politically urgent.