Horror films are almost immediately associated with the trope of killing the token minority -- the colloquial understanding that "the black guy dies first." With Halloween in mind, we took a look at 25 horror movies* randomly selected from the most popular films across IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix.
After completing our scientific research, we found that offing minority characters is less ubiquitous than it may seem in the horror genre. More often than not, there weren't even any non-white characters to be killed in the first place.
Instead, white females were usually the first to go. Comprising 52 percent of all initial deaths, white women were killed more than all three other gender-ethnicity categories combined. And nearly every single one of these cinematic sacrifices could be defined by their extreme position on the spectrum of promiscuity: the virgin or the slutty-slut.
Here's what we found:
*"Aliens," "The Blair Witch Project," "Cabin In The Woods," "Carrie," "The Dead Zone," "Demons," "Evil Dead" (2013)," "The Evil Dead" (1981), "Exorcist," "Friday The 13th," "Gremlins," "Henry," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer," "Insidious," "Jaws," "Jeepers Creepers," "The Monster Squad," "Nightmare On Elm Street," "Repulsion," "The Ring," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Scream," "Scream 2," "Scream 3," "Shark Night."
Before You Go
