Blacula

Blacula (William Crain, 1972) is an interestingly complicated watch; unlike many films at the time, Blacula was the product of a black director and was born out of and into the 1970s political terrain and within the explosion of “blaxploitation” as a subgenre. Blacula is arguably a pioneer of black horror, which might be thought of as the reinvention of the genre “from the vantage point of Blackness.”[i] More particularly, Robin Means Coleman offers that “in ‘black horror’ specifically, mainstream or White monsters, such as Dracula or Frankenstein’s the Monster, were purposefully transformed into ‘agents’ of Black power.”[ii] Due to the lack of representation of blackness with the film industry at the time, one can hardly refute the impact Blacula had on the audience and the industry, setting a “gold standard,” as Means Coleman puts it.[iii] I want to argue, though, that in spite of Blacula’s attempts to interrogate racism and embody black pride, ultimately, the film articulates a very limited definition of blackness, presenting the dichotomy of an African identity that is primitive and brutish and an African American identity that is respectable and professional. Both depictions of blackness are masculine and predicated on the violent reinforcement of stereotypes and the maintenance of hierarchy.

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