White Women in Black Horror

White women in Black Horror, similar to in real life, perpetuate white supremacy and embody white privilege. Throughout the works in Professor Due’s class, we saw white women take on several roles. In Get Out by Jordan Peele, both the Armitage women lure the Black men into the Sunken Place. In the 1962 film, Night of the Living Dead, Barbra a white, useless woman plays the part of the damsel in distress in a zombie attack. In Candyman, Helen is a young, white woman who falls in love with Candyman. All of these movies with white women are important to highlight in Black Horror as white women have been the cause of so many deaths among Black men. Black men have been punished for being with the white women, while the white woman has been able to escape scratch-free.

One historical example that is relevant to this is the story of the young, Black boy Emmett Till who was murdered for doing something he hadn’t done. Covered in Lovecraft Country, Emmett was murdered by a group of white men for supposedly grabbing and flirting with a white woman. This, years later, was revealed to be untrue. That same white woman that accused Emmett, said she had lied, he hadn’t done any of that and that he was innocent. A white woman killed Emmett, but she, of course, did not suffer any consequences. This woman purposely lied knowing that her words carried weight and that there would be consequences for the young boy, but she didn’t care. She did it anyways. This white privilege is what has allowed white women to continue to be the enablers of white supremacy. They stand by the law, their racist husbands or vote in ways that are detrimental to people of color.

On screen, white women continue to be the oil that turns the gears of white supremacy. In Night of the Living Dead, Barbra plays another common white woman role, the damsel in distress. Throughout the movie, Barbra is literally in shock, meaning useless while Ben, the Black protagonist, fends off the zombies. Then when the coast is clear and the police arrives, Ben is killed by the police without any objections by Barbra even after he had saved her life. Barbra used Ben. Yes, she might have been in shock by what was happening, but she never really helped him throughout the film nor when it came to saving his life. She was a bystander, she allowed everything to happen right before her eyes. Helen in Candyman is a culture vulture. She is investigating the urban legend, Candyman, in a housing complex where mainly Black people live. Helen finds the killings caused by Candyman interesting and she wants to see if they are true. She ends up falling in love with Candyman in a very agony filled way because she is white and he isn’t. Candyman dies a killer and she goes down a legend. Lastly, Chris, the Black protagonist in Get Out, is dating a white woman named Rose. Rose not only lures him to her very racist home, but she also allows her mom to hypnotize Chris into the Sunken Place. Rose is the catch. She is the siren who calls the men to her island in order to harm them. These three films all reveal how white women have contributed to the racism Black men face and their deaths. White women set the trap, use the men, but they are the innocent ones. They are the ones who come out unscathed despite the blood on their hands.