The Ugliest Trope in Modern Horror

Comments · 2.6K

• GO

  @GothMusicLatinAmerica · 1 year ago

  The only proper response to "it was acceptable at the time"  is "to whom?"

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• FI

  @filocheese0w0 · 1 year ago

  I just realized minstrelsy is the ultimate portrayal of the horror of skinwalkers and body snatchers: something that takes your looks, identity, and face and twists it into something made to both mock you, hurt you, steal your voice and essentially predate on you/end your existence. It’s something that both hates you but desires you for your body and what you can do for it. Jesus Christ that is the ultimate horror.

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• OB

  @obstipuit · 1 year ago

  i haaaaaaate the argument of "people in the past who victimized other people didnt know any better" PRETTY SURE THEIR VICTIMS KNEW BETTER

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• ST

  @starshipjive411 · 1 year ago

  Have you ever noticed that the people who use the "It was a different time." line rarely if ever give that same grace to other culture?

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• OL

  @olfactoryninja · 1 year ago

  Bamboozled is such a fascinating look at "edgy" media, and reminds me of a German film from 2015, Look Who's Back. In that movie, instead of dying in his bunker at the end of WW2, Adolf Hitler is transported through time to the modern world. Everyone thinks he's an impressionist comedian, "performing" Hitler in a kind of edgy satirical performance art piece. But Hitler isn't saying or doing anything to ridicule everything that makes him what he is, he's just being Hitler. And the producers who promote him, and give him his own show, and broadcast his message, realize far too late that he is in fact the real guy, and that they have presented Hitler back to a world that is terrifyingly responsive to his message. Just like in Bamboozled, the characters massively misunderstand and underestimate the cultural power of old artifacts of hate. Just presenting the images and ideas themselves does nothing to undermine those images or even say anything meaningful about them. Like you said, it's the line between satire of a thing and reinforcement of the thing.

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• BL

  @blumeshullman8002 · 1 year ago

  As a french, it took me embarrasingly long to realize that minstrel shows were actually NOT medieval spectacles performed by a minstrel in front of the nobility.  Its always weird when you assume you know what a word means because it comes from your language, but it has a completely different definition in english.

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• PO

  @porcuMoose · 1 year ago

  the Tapdancer is such a haunting character, the historical weight behind him makes the stellar performance all the more potent

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• DA

  @dahsarrashad6700 · 1 year ago

  Minstrelsy made me feel alot of things. Anger, sadness, disgust, but one emotion that always stuck around. Was fear. I always thought minstrelsy look terrifying.

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• LO

  @lovelydreamingtime9563 · 1 year ago (edited)

  That bit in Them implying that Emmett Till’s murder was necessary reminded me of that 90s animated film Our Friend, Martin, where the film implies that if MLK hadn’t been assassinated, then the Civil Rights movement wouldn’t have happened. Watching that in 4th grade was. . . .something.

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• SO

  @Souphobic · 1 year ago (edited)

  I feel like you described the“it was okay back then” part perfectly, it never was okay and I wish some history teachers would stop saying that… <br>Keep up the great work!

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• AN

  @AngelBDivine · 1 year ago

  The most disturbing thing about this is lynchings, were simultaneously taking place while minstrel shows were entertaining the people who were doing them. <br><br>The ultimate horror is that all of these atrocities will have to be paid for.

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• AI

  @Aishyo · 1 year ago

  I&apos;ve always hated the argument that it was acceptable at the time because acceptable to whom? The NAACP protested the birth of nation film back then. <br><br>I refused to watch Them so I didn&apos;t know they had a minstrel man as a horror figure too and yeah he is creepy af

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