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White Terror
The Horror Film from Obama to Trump
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Book Presentation:
What kinds of terror lurk beneath the surface of White respectability? Many of the top-grossing US horror films between 2008 and 2016 relied heavily on themes of White, patriarchal fear and fragility: outsiders disrupting the sanctity of the almost always White family, evil forces or transgressive ideas transforming loved ones, and children dying when White women eschew traditional maternal roles.
Horror film has a long history of radical, political commentary, and Russell Meeuf reveals how racial resentments represented specifically in horror films produced during the Obama era gave rise to the Trump presidency and the Make America Great Again movement. Featuring films such as The Conjuring and Don't Breathe, White Terror explores how motifs of home invasion, exorcism, possession, and hauntings mirror cultural debates around White masculinity, class, religion, socioeconomics, and more.
In the vein of Jordan Peele, White Terror exposes how White mainstream fear affects the horror film industry, which in turn cashes in on that fear and draws voters to candidates like Trump.
About the Author:
Russell Meeuf is Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Media at the University of Idaho in Moscow. He is author of Rebellious Bodies: Stardom, Citizenship, and the New Body Politics and John Wayne's World: Transnational Masculinity in the Fifties.
Press Reviews:
"Impeccably well written and exceedingly accessible, White Terror stands as a remarkable contribution to scholarship on contemporary horror cinema. Boasting an array of sumptuous full-color images from the films examined (a feature sadly neglected by most publishers of film studies), this slim volume is organized into eight chapters, an introduction ("Whiteness, Politics, and Horror"), and a conclusion ("Horror in the Trump Era"). Meeuf (School of Journalism and Mass Media, Univ. of Idaho, Moscow) writes that the book is meant to "help students, scholars, and horror fans grapple with the role of race and white racial anxieties in contemporary US horror films" (p. vii). Especially noteworthy sections are those engaging whiteness and fear of home invasion, horrific children, and nightmarish dreams of lack of social mobility. Chapter 6, "Motor City Gothic: White Youth and Economic Anxiety in It Follows and Don't Breathe," a consideration of Rust Belt economic depression and desperation as the backdrop for horror, is remarkable for its insight. White Terror occupies a rare place in the literature on horror cinema: it serves those who are fear film aficionados and scholars who seek new approaches and paradigms in film studies. A necessary and welcome addition to scholarship on horror cinema."
-S. B. Skelton, Kansas State University, Choice
"White Terror is a much-needed, original, and provocative analysis of race and the American horror film in the early 2000s."
-Aviva Briefel, author of Horror after 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of Terror
"Given the rising awareness of entrenched racism and the accompanying resistance to white supremacy that marks the current moment, this book couldn't come at a better time. A welcome addition to the growing body of work assessing the racial dynamics of the horror genre, the book offers a cogent assessment of Obama era horror, especially as it pertains to normative conceptions of family, home ownership, gender, and socio-economic class."
-Natalie Wilson, author of Willful Monstrosity: Race and Gender in 21st Century Horror
"A chilling look not only at the horrors we can't stop watching on screen — demonic possession, evil children, home invasions, and ghostly forces, to name a few — but also at the horrors we can't stop living off screen. Meeuf deftly weaves together economic forces, political realities, and Hollywood strategies in order to demonstrate how the three of them work together to shape the way we see the world, as well as how we choose to live in it. Don't make the mistake of thinking that what happens on screen is purely entertainment. As Meeuf demonstrates, there is no such thing."
-Dahlia Schweitzer, author of Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World
"Through a thematic overview of mainstream horror films divided into six cycles, Meeuf evokes the simmering discontent that boiled over with the rise of MAGA rhetoric and the election of Trump. Despite early-Obama era media speculations that the US had reached a post-racial turning point, horror films told a different story."
-Marc Olivier, author of Household Horror: Cinematic Fear and the Secret Life of Everyday Objects
"Ably dissecting a dizzying range of recent horror films, White Terror makes a strong contribution to the scholarship on horror films in general and race in horror in particular. Its focus on whiteness is something long overdue, and Meeuf's book will be of interest to academics and to fans of the horror genre alike."
-Murray Leeder, author of Horror Film: A Critical Introduction
See the publisher website: Indiana University Press
> From the same author:
Chinese Cinema (2023)
Identity, Power, and Globalization
Dir. Jeff Kyong-McClain, Russell Meeuf and Jing Jing Chang
Projecting the World (2017)
Representing the "Foreign" in Classical Hollywood
Dir. Russell Meeuf and Anna Cooper
Subject: Sociology
> On a related topic:
Blood on the Lens (2022)
Trauma and Anxiety in American Found Footage Horror Cinema
Japanese and American Horror (2014)
A Comparative Study of Film, Fiction, Graphic Novels and Video Games
Fright Night on Channel 9 (2011)
Saturday Night Horror Films on New York's WOR-TV, 1973–1987
by James Arena
Nightmares in Red, White and Blue (2004)
The Evolution of the American Horror Film
The Ethics of Horror (2024)
Spectral Alterity in Twenty-First-Century Horror Film
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