A change in the film industry: stop supporting exploitation

Those of you familiar with the term “race horror” likely correlate it with Jordan Peele’s film “Get Out,” and for good reason: “Get Out” not only serves as an engaging psychological horror but also as a commentary on white liberalism and faux activism. However, the genre did not begin with Peele; its roots can be traced as far back as 1940 with Spencer Williams Jr’s “Son of Ingagi” to the 1992 “Candyman.” Race horror often focuses on the lived experiences of Black people and morphs that trauma with supernatural elements and violent storylines—a way to express the oppression of minority groups via clear horror. While “Get Out” is praised for its ability to incorporate horror into a narrative about modern-day slave auctions, recent adaptations of race horror have been criticized for their exploitation of Black trauma and explicit violence against Black bodies; some examples of criticized media include “Them” (2021) and “Antebellum” (2020). I posit that another film should join these ranks.

Beth de Araújo’s 2022 film “Soft & Quiet” (I will be spoiling this movie) tells the story of Emily, a kindergarten teacher who is preparing to host the first meeting of a women-only group. The first 10 minutes of the film keep the audience in the dark about the group’s focus: you imagine it could be a book club or Bible study. With the reveal of a Nazi pie (seriously), the audience begins to understand that these women are self-described “Daughters for Aryan Unity” who meet to discuss recent issues with employment, theft or restrictive educational guidelines. One aspect of the film that I believe is captured well is the belief system for many white women in white supremacist groups, such as how poverty is politically blamed on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hiring, the importance of motherhood to the preservation of “white culture,” the fulfillment associated with being part of a movement or how those not fully accepting of all values are berated as traitors. I felt that the characters in “Soft & Quiet” were representative of real cases studied in Seyward Darby’s “Sisters in Hate,” which analyzed three different former or current members of white supremist groups. If you were going into this film with little knowledge of how women empower white supremacy, the meeting scene offers an informative perspective. Unfortunately, this is where my praise for the film ends.

The film continues with several members of group going to a supermarket and having a negative interaction with two Asian women. Emily happens to know the two as sisters and knows exactly where they live; one sister happens to be an assault victim of Emily’s brother, something that is commented on during the market interaction. Feeling disrespected and hurt, Emily and the group members decide to break into the sisters’ house, initially just to trash the place. What follows is 30 minutes of violent torture, sexual assault and blatant racial abuse against two Asian women.

The point of “Soft & Quiet” was to articulate how racism is incorporated into daily life through subtle means—subtle until they turn deadly. However, many leave the film asking why this needs to be told. In honesty, the film never succeeds at portraying racism as subtle; even in the intro scenes that keep audiences in the dark, Emily can be viewed as openly racist by those accustomed to common “dog whistles.” But oppressed communities do not need a film to tell them that white women can be racist: it happens all the time. While “Get Out” comments on racists using “wokeness” as protection, or how white liberals harm Black movements through fake and selfish support, “Soft & Quiet” does little more than state that racist people exist. Like “Antebellum,” “Soft & Quiet” exploits oppressed racial groups and portrays horror solely through the abuse of their bodies; it gives no agency to its Asian characters, and they serve merely as vessels for the film to express how bad racism is.

So why do all these new race horror films fail? As Tananarive Due describes, race horror originally reversed the roles of traditional horror, in which Black and POC characters are the first to die or are represented as monsters. Race horror was meant to restore autonomy to marginalized groups by making them central to the story, often having them triumph. “Soft & Quiet” instead tells a story through the eyes of a racist woman at the expense of people of color. I think this pattern of failures hints at two major issues concerning Hollywood’s depictions of racism. One, these recent films feel like capitalistic cash grabs rather than attempts to comment on social injustices. It takes a movement that originally pushed back against racist film and trashes it by trying to chase the success of Get Out. Second, this highlights a larger issue of victim exploitation in media. The issue is that Hollywood seems to ignore those directly harmed by depictions of violence in favor of using their pain for profit; true-crime stories often reinflict trauma without the consent of those affected, as can be seen with the series Dahmer, in which Black communities were negatively impacted by the real event and were later exploited by Netflix for the series.

Given the success these trauma stories seem to bring, I highly doubt that these types of films will stop. I comment on Soft & Quiet and “race horror” because I believe these depictions are negatively impacting historically oppressed communities and are pandering to white audiences who want to feel bad about racism without experiencing its effects.

I believe one of the few ways to encourage change in the film industry is to no longer support projects that delve into exploitation. If studios see that we no longer want a cheap copy of Get Out, they stop producing them. In turn, we can hope that studios will realize that representation in media does not mean watching groups be brutalized and instead communities want depictions in which they can see themselves in and be proud.