This is such a BS trope. The movie could be funny regardless, but I doubt it given how shitty most horror movies are these days. Especially horror comedies. Although I suppose I shouldn’t watch it because there is no one representing myself onscreen. Representation matters!
shareThe Shining. Isn't it the black cook who dies first?
shareIn the finale. Seriously, who would count Scatman in the Shining in the 120th minute as a black guy dying first. He was the only death apart from Jack. or you could even class the twins as a death as we saw flashbacks of them dead.
Scatman was a well rounded character with a good few scenes. The trope is trotting out a poorly written black person as fodder for a first kill. It's just a myth, it doesn't exist in my eyes.
Yeah, it's probably once again just created by some stoned SJWs who saw a problem that does not really exist.
shareI've been hearing this one for years now. I think it came from a stand-up joke, or a comedy movie years ago, and it caught on because it was funny.
Didn't the Wayans use it as a joke in Scary Movie?
It fits to their kind of humor. I remember there was also a classic oneliner in Evolution...
shareHere's an interesting article. Out of 50 horror movies with black characters, the black character died first 5 times, so it isn't as common as some people think.
https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/matt-barone/black-characters-horror-movies
They got one wrong. In Nightmare on Elms Street 3, Kincaid doesn't die.
The two black characters are probably the coolest out of the bunch in Nightmare 3. You have Kincaid who's a baddass and Laurence Fishburne who's also a badass.
The real trope is they are cool, which is a good one. The few black characters in horror movies are usually the coolest ones who either survive or make it close to the end. And they are certainly never cowards or selfish characters. Mostly always straight talking, honest, together and have a plan.
Like LL Cool J in Halloween: H20.
shareThis list says that both black characters survived in The Thing, which is incorrect. One dies off screen and the other technically survives the film but is definitely dying and will die soon after the movie ends.
shareIt's a 'fake trope'.
The truth is that historically black people weren't often the leads in horror films so they often do die in the film as the conventional 'body count' horror film kills off most the cast bar the lead (who is often a woman, historically mostly a white woman). However the whole belief that they die first has no basis in reality. The death order isn't codified.
Scream 2 obviously.
shareSam Jackson in Deep blue sea if that counts as horror. But then again LL Cool J is a survivor so that cancels it out.
Other than that I don’t know any horror movies where the black guy dies first.
I always thought that was a BS trope. People with darker skin colour are not akin to the red shirt in Star Trek. I've never known it myself.
In horror movies of the 70's, 80's, until the 90's, 2000's there were definitely less Black characters. But of the few, those characters are usually the coolest, calmest, and most together. And they either survive or make it close to the end.