The Villainization and Misappropriation of Marginalized Communities in the Gothic and Horror Genres
Writer: Sarah Perry, M.A
It is an interesting existence when your identity is to serve as a villain for others. How easy it is for people to categorize you as an enemy for simply existing. The culture of being an ‘outsider’ turns you into an unnerving, abnormal other. Your rage at oppression, to them, becomes a violent, uncontrollable Thing. Your presence scares them because you are, in every sense of the word, haunting. How easy it is for you to play the role they craft for you: your trauma, your isolation, your fear, becomes your villain origin story. They write their version of you, they shape the narrative; they paint you as their perfect monster, and a cautionary tale. The settlers’ screams are just as loud as the ones in your head and chest, even louder than the ghosts of your ancestors. After all, how can resistance and resilience be seen as anything but utterly monstrous when the oppressor is everyone’s hero?
This is the reality for several marginalized communities throughout history. The villainization of marginalized communities stems from the Eurocentric desire to frame cultures and people who do not fit the normalized western mold as an abnormal, intrusive ‘Other.’ They must be extracted from society in order to maintain societal calm and peace. Historically, we see factors of race and gender holding a large sway in what classifies a villain: the villainous tropes of women, feminine-identifying individuals, and racialized communities have long dominated and continue to dominate the horror-gothic genres. This categorization stems back to ancient storytelling, as seen with Medusa’s misrepresentation as a monster due to her victimhood. Her experience of gendered violence and her Libyan heritage exemplifies the patriarchal, Western desire to villainize and demonize racialized and feminine persons. This agenda has continued in modern media and film, in portrayals of marginalized communities in movies such as Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (1989), as well as other cult classics including The Manitou (1978). Western culture dictates that displays of non-Western and non-Christian practices of cultural identity, such as Indigenous spiritualism or feminine sexuality, is abnormal to society and therefore an evil, sinister presence that threatens the wellbeing of the community. As such, I argue that both the historic and modern use of marginalized cultures and identities as monstrous– specifically pertaining to Indigenous communities– within the horror genre is inherently racist and further upholds the overall problem of the Eurocentric desire to outcast and villainize the Other.
For the purpose of my argument, I focus on three key points of analysis: the overall ‘horror-fication’ of the Other, the ‘Indian Burial Ground Trope’, and the classification of Indigenous and non-Western spirits as demonic and animalistic. My analysis begins with a study on the history of the horror-fication of Indigenous communities, to provide overall context to the issue at hand. Following, the ‘Indian Burial Ground’ section will examine how the trope is an ongoing theme within cinema that credits the haunting and/or possession of individuals to a disturbed ancient Indigenous burial ground that is often sinister in nature due to its Indigeneity. Examples include one of my cited case studies, Pet Sematary, as well as other pop culture hits such as Poltergeist, The Shining, and Amityville Horror. In terms of the demonization and animalization of Indigenous and non-Western spirits, I focus on the 1978 film The Manitou, which is a Western take on the traditional Manitou spirit of Algonquian nations, namely Ojibwe and Cree communities. Similar to the case of the widely popularized “Wendigo”, the Western genre demonizes an often traditionally non-malicious spirit, resulting in an ultimate misappropriation and racist portrayal of its nature. My analysis concludes with a focus on Indigenous and community-created horror stories to bring into discussion the resurgence work of Indigenous storytellers in order to recentre them in their own cultural narratives.
The 'Horror-fication' of Other
Western societies have a long, complex history of establishing Indigenous communities as alien, abnormal, and inherently evil in a process coined as ‘othering’. Othering, famously coined by Edward Said in his work Orientalism, refers to the desire of the West “to control, contain, and otherwise govern (through superior knowledge and accommodating power) the Other,” namely non-European identities [1]. This connotation rings especially true within the Western approach to Indigenous communities, most notably within the desire to control and ‘civilize’ them through assimilative and racist measures such as slavery and residential schools. These tactics were seen in the ‘removal of the Indian’ from within the child, along with the emphasis on mass Christian and Catholic conversion in Indigenous communities.
Furthermore, the existence and practice of both Indigenous traditional culture and identities have historically been deemed as ‘satanic’ and ‘demonic,’ stemming from the rise of Christian culture within European societies. Renée L. Bergland discusses such ideologies within her work, The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects, stating that:
For more than three hundred years, American literature has been haunted by ghostly Indians. In the seventeenth century, Puritan writings described Native Americans as demonic manifestations of an internalized psychic struggle. Ever since, spectral Indians have continued to return to American letters. During the Enlightenment, European American writings invoked Indians as symbols of internal darkness and irrationality [2].
Bergland delves further into the demonization of Indigenous communities, writing that “when European Americans speak of Native Americans, they always use the language of ghostliness. They call Indians demons, apparitions, shapes, specters, phantoms, or ghosts. They insist that Indians are able to appear and disappear suddenly and mysteriously, and also that they are ultimately doomed to vanish. Most often, they describe Indians as absent or dead" [3].
Bergland’s argument touches on an important aspect not often associated with the horror-fication of the Other: the desire to designate Indigenous communities and culture as antiquity and pre-modernism. The Western argument that Indigeneity has the ability to ‘haunt’, as well as categorizating it as ‘ghostly’, implies that Indigenous communities exist solely within the past– a deeply ingrained form of cultural erasure within Western society. Michelle H. Raheja, a Seneca scholar, further defines this argument in her book, Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty and Representations of Native Americans in Film, stating that
Native Americans are often hypervisible in North American films [and] at the same time they [are] rendered invisible through plotlines that reinforce the trope of Indigenous people as vanishing or inconsequential […] Native Americans stand at the centre of the dominant culture’s self-definition because Euro American identity submerged and formed upon the textual and visual culture register of the Indigenous other [4].
Western narratives of Indigenous horror and haunting fosters further hatred towards Indigenous communities, presenting Indigeneity as a villain that cannot be escaped even in spirit form, therefore requiring total elimination from society for the safety and wellbeing of others. This historical ideology has paved the way for the use of Indigenous culture as horror tropes in modern media, stemming from the historical demonization of the Other and the representation of Indigeneity as both the dead and undead.
The translation of such narratives into modern media first gained traction in the horror films of the 1970s-1980s. Lisa Ellen Williams reports that “US films about Indigenous tribes seeking vengeance on colonisers became increasingly frequent near the end of the Carter era and during the Reagan administration" [5]. Williams further cites that “the mainstream horror of the 1980s often upended those efforts through narratives that feature the ‘Indian uncanny’ and question the responsibilities of and assert innocence of the current generation of White people" [6]. In light of rising Christian, conservative, family-oriented movements stemming from Reaganomics, horror films became fixated on selling the ideology of the haunted, demonic Indigenous villain that threatened the sanctity of the White, heterosexual, nuclear family. The historical trend of othering and the horror-ification of the Other has resulted in the scapegoating of marginalized communities as the White hero’s villain when, in reality, Western communities are far more suited to the monstrous role that they craft.
The 'Indian Burial Ground' Trope
Perhaps one of the most overused forms of exploitation and appropriation within the horror-gothic genre is that of the ‘Indian Burial Ground.” As Colleen Boyd and Coll Thrush reflect in their book, Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence: Native Ghosts in North American Culture and History,
When unexplained, sinister, or violent things happen in the landscapes and communities we inhabit, one explanation seems to satisfy us more than many others. Whether accounting for the haunted house down the dirt lane, the spectral woods behind the subdivision, or the seemingly cursed stretch of highway up the canyon, one kind of story in particular helps us make sense of these places: ‘Didn’t you know? It was built on an Indian burial ground [7].
Becoming popularized with Stephen King’s Pet Sematary usage of a Mi’kmaq burial ground, the Indian Burial Ground trope exemplifies both the ideology of Indigeneity as existing only in the dead/undead binary, as well as the demonization of Indigenous culture. Perhaps the most infamous line from the 1989 movie adaptation of the cult classic: “Sometimes, dead is better. The person you put up [in the Mi’kmaq cemetery], ain’t the person that comes back. It may look like that person, but it ain’t that person, cause whatever lives in that ground, beyond the Pet Sematary, ain’t human at all,” [8]. Stephen King’s work, along with other films and literature that make use of the Indian Burial Ground trope, participate in the dehumanization of Indigenous communities. In this sphere, not only do Indigenous people exist as otherworldly entities of terror and evil, but they are denied any shred of humanity or modernity. Other scholars such as Ariel Smith (Nêhiyaw), believe that “mainstream cinema’s use of this trope engages a paradox by presenting Indigenous peoples as something to hold in fearful reverence but at the same time ignore. These films inform us that those who disturb burial grounds are doing wrong and are guaranteed to be met with gruesome and terrifying consequences, yet they sidestep the chance for a proper critique of our neo-colonial reality," [9].
Furthermore, the use of the Indian Burial Ground trope violates the Indigenous belief in the importance of place and space. Several Indigenous communities hold connection to their physical environments, especially those that are used as burial grounds for Elders and loved ones. The commercialization and exploitation of such a horror setting is a gross appropriation of a sacred site, and acts as a further form of colonial violence. One may even argue that the Indian Burial Ground trope is in direct violation of Article 12 of the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, included below for reference:
Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains [10].
In light of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, horror-gothic literature and film that make use of the Indian Burial trope should be denounced as historically and culturally accurate portrayals of Indigeneity and discredited as ‘award-winning’ media. Instead, the Western desire to villainize Indigeneity leaves racist portrayals such as Pet Sematary as yearly Halloween traditions, and Indigenous people with the fight to reclaim ownership over their own afterlife.
Demonic & Animalistic Spirits
In terms of villainizing Indigenous folklore, Western culture strives to accomplish this by redefining and reshaping traditional Indigenous spirits as demonic, animalistic, and wild entities. Aalya Ahmad in their book chapter in Blood in the Bush Garden: Indigenization, Gender, and Unsettling Horror, explains that “if we look to literature, the “natural resource” of Indigenous folklore seems to have been often exploited by the “otherwise” – for example, the legend of the Algonquian spirit Wendigo, an entity depicted as a cannibalistic monster with an icy heart," [11]. Ahmad further cites that “for white writers, the Wendigo seems to be a favourite form to take over. The Wendigo also appears in American cinema as far back as 1914 with The Lure of the Windigo as well as more recently in the horror film Wendigo (2001, Larry Fessenden) and the satire Ravenous (1999, Antonia Bird)," [12]. Another example is that of the 1978 film, The Manitou, a Western retelling of the traditional Algonquin folklore. However, the retelling over-exaggerates the sinister, demonic presence of the Manitou and incorporates Christian themes in an attempt to address the ‘evil Indian’ magic that has plagued the characters. A quote from the movie reads: “the whole concept of the Indians, the whole concept of life and death and inner space was rolled up in the Indians demon, the equivalent demon. That demon would be possessed of monstrous, monstrous power!” [13.]
The categorization of Indigenous culture as savage and animalistic, similar to the Black ape-man theory, attempts to dehumanize Indigenous communities and connect them to untamed, wild beasts, and therefore presents Indigeneity as monstrous and villainous. Joe Nazare touches on this phenomenon in his article, stating that–
The ‘natural supernaturalism’ of Native American spiritualism seems to accord well with the Romanticism of the horror genre which allows for the infusion/intrusion of the unworldly into the realm of everyday existence. Less positively, the Native American might be seen as just another variable to be plugged into horror's xenophobic formula: establishing a monstrous Other which must be vanquished to preserve cultural order [15].
Along with the historical categorization of Indigenous communities as demonic, Nazare also cites historical references to Indigeneity as animalistic, stemming “all the way back to the Puritan captivity narratives which fashioned Indian captors as "ravenous beasts" comprising a "company of hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting, insulting," [16]. As briefly discussed in previous arguments, the animalization of Indigenous culture also plays into the role of the ‘uncanny Indian’. The Uncanny Valley theory, first coined by robotics scientist Professor Masahiro Mor in the 1970s, is proposed to be a physical and psychological human rejection of creatures appearing to be subhuman or non-human, therefore “repel[ling] the human viewer and thus fall[ing] into the uncanny valley, a state of fear and disbelief," [17]. In terms of racism and oppression, the horror-ification of the Other and the Western rejection of Indigeneity results in an animalization of Indigenous culture in order to classify it as subhuman, therefore becoming undeserving of salvation or redemption.
Indigenous Horror Resurgence
While it is important to acknowledge these racist and misappropriative trends within the Western horror-gothic scene, it is equally as important to elevate Indigenous storytelling within the genre. Indigenous resurgence and Indigenous community-based horror content does exist. Jeff Barnaby, a Mi’kmaw writer, director, editor, and composer, for the feature films Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013) and Blood Quantum (2019), amongst others, has been credited as a pioneer of Indigenous-created horror-gothic media. Ariel Smith credits Barnaby’s work as “challenging, unapologetic and drips with effective use of powerful, shocking, and visceral allegory […] Jeff Barnaby provide[s] audiences with allegorical moments by addressing intergenerational traumas caused by post-colonial genocidal practices. Barnaby’s films engage themes of violent assimilation and alienation that often climax in self-inflicted destruction and mutilation of Indigenous bodies," [18]. Perhaps his most prominent work, Blood Quantum shifts the horror narrative from Indigenous possession and villainization to that of resilience and resurgence. In the wake of a zombie apocalypse, Barnaby’s largely Indigenous cast tells the story of the Mi'kmaq reserve of Red Crow’s quest of survival and immunity in the face of the pandemic outbreak, with primarily settler antagonists [19]. In terms of literature, one can cite Shane Hawk’s collection of original Indigenous horror stories, created in collaboration with several Indigenous authors that contains exploration into deeper themes beyond the stereotypical horror tropes, such as colonization, cultural loss, and policing of Indigenous identity [20].
Conclusion
It is an interesting existence when your identity serves as a villain for others. Your permanent residence within this manufactured uncanny valley is because of circumstances out of your control– your race, gender, and culture. The colonizers deny your innocence and your mortality– you are told over and over again that you are the villain because you have lived, feared, and fought. This is the plot that Indigeneity has been made to serve within the Western horror-gothic genre. Through racist, overused, and stereotypical plots such as the Indian Burial Ground and demonic or animalistic spiritualism, Western media aims to classify Indigeneity as a monstrous, villainous Other. Being a woman of both Mi’kmaw and European descent, I still fit the villainous role that Eurocentric societies have crafted for me. I can be told that I am a threat to the wellbeing of society: a dangerous poison to the sanctity of White, Christian, patriarchal norms that our society craves. The horrors for my community transcends films and novels. We are at a heightened risk of gendered violence, sexual violence, and racial discrimination. Our villains are far more real than an on-screen persona. The rise of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMWIG) illustrates the true horrors that Indigenous communities face, which are drastically different from the misrepresentations that Stephen King and his predecessors craft.
As a scholar, I feel it is my duty to address this deeply ingrained, subconscious, ongoing form of settler colonization that extends beyond the typical conversations of residential schools and oppressive legislation. As a historian, I aim to provide historical context to an issue often considered non-historical due to its modern continuation. But as a monster, villain, and victim: I am sick and tired of being the dead Indian walking.
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