Jordan Peele's Horror (with Johanna Isaacson)

Hotel Bar Sessions

The HBS hosts discuss Jordan Peele's special brand of horror with the author of Stepford Daughters, Johanna Isaacson.

For a long time, or at least it seemed, horror films were considered to be beneath serious scrutiny. The problematic politics of such films were all too apparent in the violence brought to bear on women’s bodies in countless slasher films. The racial politics were not much better; the cliche of the black character dying first exists for a reason. Gradually this changed, though, first with such groundbreaking critical studies such as Carol Glover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film and Robin Wood’s “An Introduction to the American Horror film.”

In the past few years, horror films themselves have changed as well. Most notably Jordan Peele has made three films dealing with our “social demons”: Get Out (2017), Us (2019), and Nope (2022). To talk with us about horror, the films of Jordan Peele, and how horror can be used to develop our critical understanding of capitalism, racism, and patriarchy, we have invited Johanna Isaacson author of Stepford Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror.

Full episode notes available at this link:
https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-109-jordan-peeles-horror-with-johanna-isaacson

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