The horror genre, often perceived as a vehicle for visceral scares and supernatural dread, possesses a potent capacity for social commentary. Two prominent contemporary works, Victor LaValle's novel The Changeling (2017) and Jordan Peele's film Get Out (2017), exemplify this, each employing distinct narrative strategies to explore profound anxieties surrounding race, parenthood, and belonging in America. While LaValle crafts a gothic urban fantasy that burrows into the psychological toll of systemic injustice and parental fear, Peele employs the conventions of the social thriller to expose the insidious nature of liberal racism. Despite their differing genres and settings, both works use the unsettling logic of horror to mirror and critique real-world societal fissures, demonstrating the genre's enduring power to articulate the unspeakable.
Victor LaValle's The Changeling plunges its protagonist, Apollo Kagwa, into a nightmarish New York City after the mysterious disappearance of his wife and infant son. The novel initially grounds itself in a recognizable, albeit strained, domestic reality. Apollo, a Black man wrestling with his own complicated relationship with his father and his heritage, is a deeply flawed but sympathetic figure. His journey into the supernatural underworld of New York, particularly the hidden community beneath the city, is not merely a quest for his family but a descent into the historical and psychological traumas that shape his identity. The "changeling" of the title refers not only to the mythical creature stealing human children but also to the way Black individuals are often made to feel alien or "othered" within American society. The novel's surreal elements, like the talking spiders and the eerie, labyrinthine world beneath the city, serve as potent metaphors for the unseen forces of prejudice and historical oppression that trap and disfigure individuals. The physical transformation of the city itself mirrors Apollo's psychological unraveling, as the familiar becomes monstrous and the everyday is imbued with a pervasive sense of dread. The horrors Apollo faces are not simply external; they are deeply internal, stemming from his own anxieties about fatherhood, his race, and his place in a world that seems designed to misunderstand and marginalize him.
Jordan Peele's Get Out operates with a different, yet equally effective, set of horror tropes. The film presents Chris Washington, a young Black photographer, visiting his white girlfriend Rose Armitage's family for the first time. What begins as an awkward, racially charged encounter quickly devolves into a chilling exposé of a sophisticated form of racial exploitation. Peele masterfully subverts the "meet the parents" trope, imbuing each seemingly benign interaction with a growing sense of menace. The seemingly progressive Armitages, with their talk of "not voting for Obama twice" and their insistence on Chris's perceived athletic prowess, reveal a deeper, more sinister agenda. The film's horror lies not in jump scares but in the insidious psychological manipulation and the literal commodification of Black bodies. The "sunken place," a terrifying mental void where victims are trapped while their bodies are controlled, is a powerful allegory for the silencing and dehumanization of Black individuals throughout history. Unlike the overt supernatural elements in The Changeling, the horror in Get Out is rooted in a plausible, albeit extreme, manifestation of contemporary racism. Peele uses familiar suburban settings and polite social interactions to create a disquieting sense of unease, revealing the "monster" lurking beneath a veneer of civility.
Both LaValle and Peele, through their distinct approaches, highlight how horror can serve as a powerful lens through which to examine societal anxieties. LaValle's gothic urban fantasy in The Changeling uses the surreal and the fantastical to explore the deep-seated fears of Black parenthood and the historical weight of systemic oppression. The overwhelming sense of being lost and disoriented within the city's hidden underbelly reflects the feeling of alienation that can stem from racial marginalization. Peele, on the other hand, crafts a social thriller in Get Out that uses the familiar anxieties of racial microaggressions and liberal hypocrisy to expose a more terrifying reality of exploitation. The film’s meticulous construction of suspense and its sharp satirical edge underscore the idea that the most frightening monsters are often those that hide in plain sight, cloaked in respectability. Both works, through their narrative invention and thematic depth, prove that horror is far more than mere entertainment; it is a vital language for articulating the profound discomforts and injustices of the human experience, particularly for those who have historically been marginalized.