The Black Guy Dies First Quotes

“the ’80s is known as the Greed Decade, then for Black people in horror, it was the Bleed Decade, with almost every major Black character in a major studio horror movie biting the bullet… or the axe… or the machete… or the impossibly sharp ceiling fan.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“since the Hollywood Diversity Report began in 2014, people of color (who accounted for approximately 40% of the U.S. population in 2020) approached or exceeded proportionate representation in film leads (39.7%) and primary cast (42%). Just a decade earlier, in 2011, only 10.5% of the top movies starred people of color.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“These films served to hold a fun house mirror up to society to show a warped but vaguely familiar version of reality.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“maybe it’s a subconscious association of zombies with voodoo, but whatever the reason, zombie movies seem to feature Black heroes more frequently than other horror subgenres.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“the Purge films are perhaps the most sociopolitically radical movie franchise of all time, an urgent snapshot of history that’s as reflective—and in the case of Donald Trump’s rise to power, predictive—of our time as any film, regardless of genre.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“Candyman is a monster created from vigilante justice, but his sin—being in a romantic relationship with a White woman—was deemed immoral by an immoral society founded on racial inequality.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“Following Get Out, the label “woke horror” was slapped on any new genre film that dared to touch upon any topic deeper than “fast zombies versus slow zombies.” In truth, though, the horror genre—especially Black horror—has long been woke.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“Like the Magical Negro, the Sacrificial Negro is a “positive” stereotype that blossomed in modern cinema but has roots in age-old racist archetypes.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“The Magical Negro is one of several “positive” Black stereotypes born out of the growing expectation that there should be SOME Black character included in a film.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“Further, as of 2019, 91% of studio heads, 93% of senior executives, and 86% of unit heads were White.1”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“According to the annual Hollywood Diversity Report from UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences, in 2019, only 5.5% of the directors and 5.6% of the writers of theatrical releases were Black,”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“the long-running Friday the 13th franchise, a standard-bearer for slashers, an astounding sixteen out of nineteen Black characters die.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

“in an informal and soul-crushing survey of almost one thousand horror movies containing more than fifteen hundred appearances by Black characters, we found their mortality rate to be about 45%.”
― Robin R. Means Coleman, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar