The suburbs emerged after WW2 to further enmesh white petty bourgeois and wealthier elements of the white working class into the imperial capitalist system. White flight was an opportunity; it offered these comfortable white cohorts a chance to become property owners and to escape the increasingly Black and Latine urban cores, which they associated with crime, violence and poverty.

Your Freddy Kreugers, your Friday the 13ths, your Stranger Things are all that violence coming back to pierce the suburban facade of homogenous safety. They're expressions of white petty boug' (and labor aristocracy's) fear of The Other, and a warning that the world past Elmdale Lane is hostile and best left unexplored.

      • UlyssesT
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        17 days ago

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      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
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        2 years ago

        I think smarter mainstream critics get it. It was very explicit in The Purge for instance. Less wise mainstream critics miss it. Many horror fans cite it as a major factor they enjoy.

    • UlyssesT
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      edit-2
      17 days ago

      deleted by creator