"I've seen this in the movies before! The black guy dies!" Spoilers

[MrScorpio]

http://www.feoamante.com/Movies/racial.html

>>When I first began THE RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT back in 1998 at the old geocities site, I was criticized for creating a falsehood. My ALERT said simply:
"The RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT is to let you know that, no matter how many victims or how many people from different races are in the Horror/Thriller movie, the whites and ONLY the whites were cast as the survivors."

I had my many detractors at the time who said things like:
"There is no such thing."

"It's your imagination."

"You need to get a life."

The latest one I've heard is
"You aren't a minority so this doesn't concern you." This line came from a white guy who listens to black gangsta rap all the time, owns black comedy DVDs and likes to talk the lingo of "the hood".

So I challenged my critics to go out and see 5 Horror/Thriller movies: any five, their choice. All I asked is that the movie have minorities in the cast (not some quick walk on or someone in the background of a crowd scene). So these fellow fans of horror went out. They came back with a few movie titles where the THE RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT did not apply, and in fairness I list those films here. But they also came back with an overwhelming number of movies where the "rule" did apply, and they were amazed.

From then on, I added the words UNFAIR to THE RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. The UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT specifically applies to movies made or backed by Hollywood, as I have not seen this "Rule Of Death" appear so consistently in Independent movies or movies made outside of the United States.

This page was created on January 8, 2000.

The reason for this is simple. With every new Horror/Thriller movie coming out, the list keeps growing. I used to post it only where applicable to the movies reviewed, but now the list is too long. It needs its own place. I welcome any who challenge the ALERT to offer me movie titles that contradict this page.
I will gladly post the titles of the accurate ones.

55 coincidences and counting!

"Aw man I'm done! Brothers never survive these things!"
-Preacher (played by LL Cool J): DEEP BLUE SEA<<

[TlalocW]

1. I ran this idea past my Black friends...

It's a proposed Coca-Cola commercial. The scene is a spooky looking cabin out in the woods. A couple of SUVs pull up and black and white preppy 20-somethings (male and female) get out of them, all wearing and carrying designer camping gear. The whites look at the cabin and start saying things like, "This is going to be the coolest camping trip ever!" The blacks look at each other with doubt in their eyes, and one of them tells the white people that they're going to head back to the last town and get a couple motel rooms. The white people chide them for being chicken. The black people are like, "Whatever" and leave as the white people start unloading gear while joking around, making chicken noises.

The next shots are back and forth between what's going on with the white and black people. While the blacks are having fun, eating and goofing around in an all-night diner (drinking Coca-Cola of course), the shots of the white people show them running terrified through the woods, close-ups of them screaming, and flashes of light off of a big knife.

It ends with a shot from the street outside the diner looking through the window at the black people having fun then going blurry when the Coca-Cola insignia pops up.

They loved the idea.

TlalocW

[Bullwinkle925]

7. As do I -

Pitch it to "Coke" - see what happens.

Wanna place a bet?

Better yet - Pitch it to Spike Lee.

[Enraged_Ape]

2. "Dawn of the Dead" (original) and "28 Days Later"...

are two movies off the top of my head where the black people are among the sole survivors.

I think this is more of a function of the dearth of good roles for black people in movies, period, rather than a conscious effort to maintain a stereotype.

[AllegroRondo]

3. Dawn of the Dead

Although the black guy is the LAST survivor, he does get shot in the head at the end.

[Enraged_Ape]

4. In the original (1970-something)?

I seem to recall he and the pregnant white lady escape in a helicopter, just after he shoots his buddy in the head.

[AllegroRondo]

5. In the original 1960-something

he is the last person alive in the house, after a night of zombie attacks. Some 'goo-ole-boys' out killing zombies with shotguns mistake him for a zombie and shoot him through a window.

[BurtWorm]

6. You're thinking of the original original Night of the Living Dead.

[AllegroRondo]

8. Thanks for the correction

[Enraged_Ape]

9. That's right

I meant the original Dawn of the Dead, which was a sequel of sorts to Night of the Living Dead.

Not the newer Dawn of the Dead. I never saw that one, so I don't know what happens.

[MrScorpio]

10. The black guy gets mistaken for a zombie and is shot shot at the end

of NOTLD IF I'm not mistaken

[Lautremont]

11. I think the implication is that the rednecks who shoot him

are quite happy to "mistake" him for a zombie.

The black guy (the great Ken Foree) in the 1979 Dawn of the Dead is one of only two survivors, and in Day of the Dead, the black guy again is one of the only ones to make it to the end.

From casting the late Duane Jones in the lead role in NOTLD to these more recent films, George Romero has alway been a very progressive filmmaker. We'll see what Land of the Dead is like.

[MrScorpio]

12. 99 times out of a hundred if you're the black GUY

You're toast