It never dawned on UCLA professor Tananarive Due that she could teach a black horror course before the horror movie Get Out was released this year. But in a recent interview with Gizmodo, she said Jordan Peele’s groundbreaking film inspired her to create the college course called Sunken Place: Racism, Survival, and Black Horror Aesthetic.
“Get Out is not the first black-made horror film,” she said, “but it’s definitely the most successful. And I think it definitely has the ability to be culture-changing.”
Students taking the course got a special treat on Thursday when Peele sneaked into the back of the class while they were watching a scene from the movie.
Today we snuck @JordanPeele into a back row while I was screening a scene from Get Out in my #blackhorror class. Then he raised his hand. pic.twitter.com/drXJX5mXcz
— Tananarive Due – The Reformatory (@TananariveDue) October 12, 2017
After showing the scene, Due asked the class, “What do you think the director was trying to say about the coveting of black bodies?” That’s when Peele raised his hand.
After revealing himself, he even took some time to address the class and talk about his movie. The students were impressed.
.@JordanPeele in today’s #BlackHorror class at @UCLA on The Sunken Place: “I realized it was the prison industrial complex.” So many lives. pic.twitter.com/mDOL7a9JIK
— Tananarive Due – The Reformatory (@TananariveDue) October 12, 2017
https://twitter.com/Dj_Odyssey_/status/918579350017941504
And Peele certainly seemed to have had a good time.
That was fun. https://t.co/OKhrKjGGfN
— Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) October 12, 2017
Although Due is as enamored with Get Out as the rest of the country, she’s also glad it will give her a chance to introduce students to lesser known black horror films like Beloved, Ganja and Hess, and even Blacula.
“Horror is a great way to address this awful, festering wound in the American psyche,” she said. “The slavery and genocide that was present during our nation’s birth. We as a nation have not been able to process it in a healthy way, or anything close to a healthy way.”
It’s a sentiment with which Peele would likely agree. Before Get Out‘s release, he spoke to Forbes about his thoughts on the horror genre.
“As with comedy, I feel like horror and the thriller genre is a way, one of the few ways, that we can address real life horrors and social injustices in an entertaining way,” he said in the interview. “We go to the theater to be entertained, but if what is left after you watch the movie is a sort of eye-opening perspective on some social issues, then it can be a really powerful piece of art.”
H/T AV Club
