blog 1 : get out

Get Out (2017)

Director : Jordan Peele 

To start of this attempt at a film blog, I felt it was only suiting to start with talking about one of my favourite films, by one of my favourite directors, starring one of my favourite actors - Get Out. Get Out was Jordan Peele's directorial debut, and bagged 4 Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture, and also won him the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. In summary, for those who haven't seen the film, it's a psychological thriller following Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) as he meets his caucasian girlfriend's family for the first time. And lets just say it doesn't go as most people would expect when meeting the future in-laws for the first time...

! Potential spoiler warning ! I'm going to avoid spoiling anything about the general plot of the film but will mention references and details in it. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend watching it before reading this and then coming back to read :)

Everyone who knows me knows that I love this film, and everything about it. From the acting, the writing, the symbolism, the references to other films. It's all just so good, especially for a directorial debut. Throughout the entire 104 minutes runtime, it leaves you constantly wondering what will happen next, whilst still keeping you interested in what is going on at the moment. There are constant references and details, that after you find them out, you will think to yourself 'How did I miss that?' (speaking from personal experience)

 ( Potential spoiler warning )

Some of my favourites include: 

1. Chris's phone is the thing that makes Logan go into a manic state, this can represent how many actions of police brutality against POC are often caught on videos.

2. Rose refuses to let the policeman take Chris's details when they get pull over. While this looks like she's defending her boyfriend, in reality it's her avoiding a paper trail.

3. Chris picks apart the chair, which is him quite literally, picking cotton, which was used as slave labor in the Old South. 

4. In a scene with Rod at the airport, there is a flight boarding call for flight 237. This is a reference to Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film, The Shining. In The Shining, room number 237 was the most haunted room in the house.

A comparison of the two films title scenes.

5. Another reference to The Shining. The films opening scene is an overview of thousands of trees, with Get Out appearing in blue lettering. This is a reference to the opening scene of The Shining where it shows a forest with the films title appearing in blue lettering. Whilst not an exact replica, you can certainly see the influence.

6. 'The Sunken Place' represents the way systemic racism has stolen the agency of people of colour, and how a white, patriarchial society means they are often unable to speak out about racism, or other societal issues, without fear.  

As put by Daniel Kaluuya:

Get Out, and race

Whilst Get Out may seem like the average psychological thriller that leaves you with an absurd amount of questions at the end, the way in which it portrays racial issues everywhere, but particularly America, cannot go unspoken . Jordan Peele manages to show the reality of casual racism experienced by people of colour, from systemic racism to microaggressions, and it's a pretty important part of the film that is shown constantly throughout. In Get Out, there is no white saviour, as there commonly is in horror films, but rather white society is the horror. A very common trope used in horror films is the person of colour either dying first, or dying at some point in the film, whilst their white companions live. However, Jordan Peele manages to alter this narrative due to how the film is entirely from Chris's point of view, therefore allowing the audience to experience his fear as a black man surrounded by only white people, basically the entire film. He constantly experiences forms of racism, whether it be systemically from the police officer, microaggressions from the parents 'I would've voted for Obama for a third term if I could've' and 'Isn't Tiger Woods great?' , or fetishisation and objectification of Chris's body from the guests, therefore showing the reality of what people of colour experience everyday, something which white people cannot relate to.  Whilst in most horror films made by white people, starring white people, the 'horror' of it is most commonly shown as some form of monster or terrifying creature, or whatever the white heterosexual main character is afraid of, but Jordan Peele manages to show that for people of colour, the fear is something a lot more common (and often not represented in films as a whole). White power and white supremacy.  So whilst Get Out does have all the common elements of a horror film; the protagonist being gaslit, a weird suburban house that just feels wrong, mind control and hypnosis; the horror of it goes deeper than that. 

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! 

 

More films about race:

Detroit (2017)

Director : Kathryn Bigelow

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Director : Shaka King

Selma (2014)

Director : Ava DuVernay

Fruitvale Station (2013)

Director : Ryan Coogler

Do the Right Thing (1989)

Director : Spike Lee

More psychological thrillers:

Black Swan (2010)

Director : Darren Aronofsky

Parasite (2019)

Director : Bong Joon-Ho

Gone Girl (2014)

Director : David Fincher

Donnie Darko (2001)

Director : Richard Kelly

Shutter Island (2010)

Director : Martin Scorsese