‘Sinners’ Black Scholars Weigh In On The Film

Since Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was released in theaters on April 18, it has been a topic of conversation everywhere you can find Black people.

From TikTok to Instagram to Threads to Facebook to Bluesky and even on X (the app formerly known as Twitter), people are talking about Sinners.

We’re talking about it at the nail shop, in the beauty salon, and at the barber shop. We’re talking about it in Slack at work and with our friends over cocktails in the evening.

Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and members of Gen Z have all been able to find common ground talking about one of the greatest pieces of art we have been given in our collective lifetimes.

Sinners isn’t just a blockbuster film, is a cultural event. It is a monument to the multitudes contained within our Blackness. It is a love letter to Black music, Black history, Black triumph, Black liberation, and Black culture.

It is a representation of our collective memory and ancestry — our past, our present, and our future.

If radical possibility were a film, Sinners would be it.

And in case you cannot get enough of the conversations surrounding this masterful piece of art, four Black professors who specialize in the study of Black horror got together recently to share their thoughts on this film.

Dr. Kinitra Brooks, professor of Literary Studies at Michigan State University; John Jennings, professor of Media & Cultural Studies at UC Riverside; Dr. DeAnna Daniels, professor of Africana & Religious Studies at University of Arizona; Dr. Nicole Huff, professor of English at University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley; and Dr. Tracey Salisbury, Ethnic Studies department chair at Cal State Bakersfield do their jobs as Black horror scholars, discussing and unpacking all of the cultural commentary, history, music, and symbolism represented in Coogler’s original film.

They break down the different types of horror Coogler presents in the film, including the traditional horror of vampires and the historical horror of Jim Crow America. They help us to understand that this film isn’t a dish meant to be gobbled up quickly but rather a feast meant to be savored, relished, carefully considered, and digested slowly.

This is the horror scholarship discussion you need to be eavesdropping on. It’s the gossip you want to take back to your own circles and group chats.

Check out this talk and share it with your friends.

If 2024 was the year of Kendrick’s “Not Like Us,” then 2025 is the year of Sinners.

Let’s keep this momentum and this conversation going.