Horror movies have no excuse being shills for liberal whiteness. None. ZERO. spoiler In “The Unfamiliar” a British army doctor returns from Afghanistan with touch of PTSD. Her husband admires that all her scars on the front of her because she never shied away from ‘danger.’
Doc had left for Afghanistan like a white savior, saying she wanted a save a country that was bleeding. Her husband had warned her that the blood would taint her hands.
Could the movie had taken this seriously? Yes. Does it? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Now. There is the small matter of how Doc shot dead a little Afghan girl wearing an armed vest. It’s unsaid, but viewers are supposed to assume that the little girl was a savage and ready to do big damage to Good White People. That’s the only mention made of that girl. She literally never comes up again. But doc has PTSD: her suffering is central.
Have I mentioned the movie director is a white South African?
Well, army doc then discovers her husband and daughter have been replaced by demonic beings. Good thing a Hawaiian shaman Auntie Mae is ready at hand to rescue the little white family – nay, to SACRIFICE her brown self so army doc can take care of her little blond family.
Having saved her family, army doc reminds her husband of how he’d said Afghan blood would taint her. Nah, he says, you’re a hero. “Even though I ended up actually becoming a soldier [unsaid: and KILLED a kid]?” she asks. He says, ehhh, it’s all good since you’re back with us now. Excuse me??
And that’s it! Mommy is a hero. She didn’t need to be redeemed, but she’s been redeemed anyway, by saving HER OWN family – having sacrificed a Hawaiian shaman lady to it. Just as she sacrificed a kid who would be alive if NATO hadn’t fucked Afghanistan over so bad.
The Battle of Marjah (15,000 Afghan and NATO soldiers besieged a town) is likely the inspiration for this story, and the movie whitewashes the British presence by reducing the whole operation to a British army doctor. You know, a nice lady who’s a doctor. Who killed a child.
Horror movies are a place where all of the questions, the problems, the spiritual rot can flourish. Don’t tidy it up. Let them run rampant and unpack all of them. What’s the point of making a horror movie if you’re not going to examine the horror?? What is the good of you if you’re just going to whitewash the horror??
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