You're probably expecting the worst right now. There's a reason for that.
That feeling you're getting is because you've seen this before.
So much so that has become a running joke.
Think about it, man:
... and what about that in Jurassic Park, man?
But this is about more than just the killing off of black characters.
Even when we're just seeing 'normal, mundane life'
the feeling that something bad's gonna happen often lingers.
I was genuinely like sat on my chair, kind of gripping the arms of the chair watching it.
I was thinking:
In fact, Terry doesn't die, nevertheless, the writers want
us to connect with that feeling of dread.
So why they're doing this? And why is it so effective?
To understand what black creatives are doing here, we need to examine some movie tropes and since
we're talking about dread where better to start than horror films?
To this day, if I'm watching an ensemble horror movie
and there's a black person, or a person of colour, I tense up
and I feel very nervous for that character because very often we were considered expendable.
It's a way to demonstrate that there's danger to the white characters because of the killing of
a black character.
This is thought of as a horror trope but it gets used in all sorts of genres.
I still get pleasantly surprised when I'm watching some dramas that have black characters
and I realise, oh wait, nobody died.
You know, this didn't actually turn into a shootout, it was an argument
but no one pulled out a gun.
Often with black characters, there's the expectation that if they do step out of line,
if they do these things which are morally questionable in a
kind of fairly puritanical sense, so take drugs or, you know, engage in some violent conduct,
have casual sex ... There's going to be consequences which are horrific.
But why are these negative tropes so established?
It's to do with something called 'white institutional gaze'.
Movies, TV shows and news reports that portray a one-dimensional and negative view of black people.
Partly because for decades we have rarely been the ones responsible for our own depiction.
Well, I'm here at the Academy Awards ... Otherwise known as the white people's choice awards.
With many images of black people, many shows that depict them or news stories that relate to black people
in various ways, when they're created by media institutions that scarcely actually include any
black people, the types of depictions are very different to the types of depictions that I see
some black creatives producing themselves so when I speak about white institutional gaze,
I'm talking about the different expectations that individuals and institutions have
of how black people should be depicted
or how they think black people are.
And there's another reason for that undercurrent of dread that we feel,
beyond the reductive and one-dimensional portrayals of blackness.
Normal everyday life is fraught with reminders of the racism and violence that black people experience.
And in the right hands, it can be incredibly powerful to explore that feeling.
Sometimes, the role of horror and black dramas can be really important,
it can be really creative ...
What is that horrific moment intended to communicate to an audience.
So when a new wave of black creators were calling the shots in the late 80s and early 90s,
the horror we witnessed in black drama could take on a new meaning.
Set the example of Spike Lee and something like do the right thing,
you look at that film and how prophetic it was, and still is, and how fresh it is today
and the way that he was dealing with race.
Yes you have this kind of climactic scene where
someone is killed by the police and he starts this riot and, you know, he's picking at race
relations in the in the US.
They're talking about the kind of nihilistic threat to black life but
they do it in a way which is not two dimensional, these characters are actually real.
But while black creators were taking the reigns in the movies, on TV up until the 2000s,
we were mostly confined to sitcom characters which lacked the depth and scope
to address dread or trauma.
It was OK to have us to laugh, there's nothing menacing about a black actor in a sitcom
but in a lot of ways, we didn't get farther beneath the surface of black life and the black experience.
As black drama moves away from sort of the more common forms of television,
and you're getting more real with it, I think it's only natural that some of that true life dread
is going to creep into the storytelling because it reflects the true life trend we actually feel.
Rather than being unintentional or damaging, horror can be subverted to offer
a new perspective.
Playing with this idea has become a powerful tool and we've seen it in some of the biggest shows
of the past 10 years.
I think one of the reasons black audiences love horror
is because it helps express true life trauma and true life terror but in a safe way.
That was a thread that ran all the way through Atlanta's second series and obviously Donald Glover
the right is there to play with that idea of horror and blackness and these two things
going together.
You have the alligator man which is kind of like an urban legend ...
Teddy Perkins which,
you know, is incredibly kind of unsettling and strange and played in a really similar space to
get out with the idea of, you know, black people being in a white space and what does that mean.
It's like body horror in the sense of a black person who seems to have turned himself white
Also this feeling that that could be you, you know, on the other side of a farmhouse mirror.
How do we contend with racism and how does having to contend with it change us?
That's the true horror, it's not always the police officer who stops you.
Horror creeps into black drama because
trauma is ever-present and it's important for us to have the creative space to explore that
experience on our own terms but trauma is only one aspect of black life.
'Sometimes you've gotta look at life and say, what?'
Yes there's trauma, yes there's awful things that happen to you but like
back in the case of I May Destroy You, yeah you've got this awful trauma at the heart of it but you've
also got moments where she has a book deal or, you know, she's celebrated some other way.
In Insecure, you see different issues to do with being a part of a certain generation and different issues to do
being at different stages in your career, different issues to do with relationships.
And no one dies, they just get on with their life.
It's about having these characters which are just 3D and representative
and not these ciphers that represent like an idea of what blackness is,
'it must be awful, obviously, to be black' which isn't the truth like being black's actually amazing.
There needs to be space for black joy and there is space for black joy.
So it's a joy for me to see creative work out there that does that
and deals with that in really brilliant ways.
Francesca Sobande has written some excellent articles on issues related to this topic.
I'll put some links to those in the description.
Tananarive Due has papers, articles, countless books.
She really is a giant of the horror genre.
You have to check out the documentary she produced - Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror.
It really is excellent.
Lanre Bakare wrote the article that inspired this video so do check out his latest reporting if you
want to hear more of his brilliant analysis.
Finally, if you like this video and you want to see more,
it's part of a short series of videos called Black Enough.
You can find more episodes of the Guardian's YouTube channel
and subscribe if you want to see new episodes as they're released.