Hey everyone!

My apologies in advance that we are going to explore another horror movie and it’s already  mid-November. As a worshiper of the spookiness, this is sacrilegious to me but it must be done.

In this post we are going to look at the hit 2017 horror film Get Out directed by Jordan Peele. We will also be exploring the sensitive topic of racism.

Our class watched the movie Get Out and I thought it was an incredible movie. The horror of this movie is the idea that you could be completely aware of everything around you  while someone else controls your body. its like being a passenger in your own body, unable to control your life.

One of the first things our class explored was how this idea can be reflected in the theme of racism.

Even though the times have changed greatly since the Civil Right movement in the 1960’s, we know that racism can still exist hidden just under the surface of society, even though everyone or society acts like it does not. Well this movie demonstrates that racism is still alive and well in society. But not like the systematic oppression witnessed during the slave trade, but rather as racial profiling and assumptions about race.

In this movie, the main character, Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. However, Chris discovers that Rose and her family are members of a secret society who kidnap African American people in order to take control of their bodies and their  lives.  They do this by transferring their consciousness, that of the cult member’s, into the brain of a “kidnapped” African American.

Now that’s frightening enough but what’s truly scary is what happens to the African American’s consciousness. Their consciousness is still there but all they can do is watch what is happening around them. They become unable to move or act on their own decisions. Having a full functioning brain and consciousness but no control over your life, your own body  reminds us of slavery as it existed in the 17th to 19th century. The slaves of that time were completely controlled by their masters, which, like the movie, is like  becoming passengers in their own bodies.

The movie also made connections between racism and the African American perspective or feeling about American suburbs.

At the beginning of the movie the narrative of Chris going to a suburban area to meet Rose’s parents is used as a tool to help you relate to Chris. And like so many horror movies,  the way the director chose to set the house away from the other houses, and the cinematic shots approaching the house for the first time, gives you a sense of unease. This is completely intentional. What I learned was that this was meant to reflect the historically African American perspective of the suburbs. Like when you see movies set in the southern United States and you have a drive up a long road to get to a plantation which has African American slaves working on it.

In most horror movies, the suburbs is the home of the victim and associated with safety. In Get Out , the suburbs are the most dangerous place you could go and home to the secret society. This is very symbolic of the systematic racism of white people closing ranks and retreating from the city to the suburbs.

One of the most iconic scenes in the movie is when Chris becomes hypnotized by Missy, Rose’s mother. She does this initially to get Chris to stop smoking. However, it quickly turns into a probing of his past and Chris’ mother’s death. Before you know it, Chris is paralyzed. From there, Missy tells him to sink into the floor and Chris ends up suspended in a dark void watching what’s going on around him through a small window. This is known as the “Sunken Place”. In a series of tweets, Jordan Peele describes the sunken place as:

“We’re all in the Sunken Place … the Sunken Place means we’re marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us.”

The “Sunken Place” is really a metaphor for police brutality, racism, and any sort of discrimination or rights violations. It’s only fitting that tit’s weakness is just as symbolic. Whenever someone in the Sunken Place sees a camera flash, they temporarily revert back to their normal self and begin to take control of their bodies again. The flash is symbolic of the use of media and personal recorders to bring atrocities to light and make them public which enables the victim to regain some control.

Eventually Chris gains control of his body and in the last scene of the movie, we see a police car pull-up with flashing lights while Chris is choking Rose. In this moment, the viewer is prompted to have the sudden thought, “Oh shoot, Chris is going to be shot or something!” This is exactly what the movie is trying to make you feel and think about. If this is happening in this situation, how often could it, or has it, happened in real life? Luckily for Chris, his friend from the TSA is driving the cop car that shows up. The arrival of his friend brings on a sense of relief.

I discovered that Jordan Peele was originally going to end the movie with Chris getting arrested and given a life sentence for killing Rose. Though I prefer the chosen ending, if Jordan had chosen to go with his alternative ending, it could have made the movie much more powerful. I know that I would have felt frustrated by the injustice of it all.

This horror movie was definitely a hop, skip, and a jump ahead of most others in its themes and symbolism. It is similar to other horror movie franchises like Frankenstein and Halloween which force you to think deeper about the subjects and themes of the movie. For example you can take a look at how Halloween connects to the climate and themes surrounding the mason family killings. Specifically how those killings completely shook the idea of safety in the suburbs. Suddenly people no longer felt secure in their own homes. Though both of these franchises pioneered this idea, Get Out really takes it to the next level. Instead of hinting at the themes of racism it slaps you in the face with them.

Horror movies are always trying to keep up with the themes occurring in society. While they will continue to increase the gore and jump scares, Get Out has definitely shown that regardless of this, its all meaningless without a great societal comment to back it up.

What the movie suggests is that racism is still alive and well and there are still many “Sunken Places” in society.