[Lawtan]

Black is often used in art to invoke mystery and fear in art...mainly because black is how we see (or the lack of being able to see) darkness, and what most people can't see or understand is terrifying to them. Artists and writers took advantage of that to make villains and monsters. As villains/monsters become more human, such things become their symbols/tropes...and when people mistake fictional tropes for reality...their stereotypes.

That said, extreme light can be worse - it blinds you and damages your ability to see.

(This has nothing to do with fashion, but with human stereotyping. Uncle Tom from a book nowadays hated for its racist stereotypes, was based on autobiographies of escaped slaves. It was an anti-slavery work which became so popular that many works after it used Tom as the basis of their "black guy character." In its popularity, it went from part of the solution to part of the problem. On a less drastic note, the all-powerful sexy elf stereotype is a romantization of Tolkien's elves - which were a backlash to the number of "foul fey" works at the time. As Tolkien is one of the most well-known writers of today, his elves have become the stereotype, and people breaking away from the mold have returned to the "foul fey.")


....I don't know what I did there other than ramble...