Photo courtesy of SFGATE.COM || Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” is a thought-provoking film on race relations in America, Marissa Hank ’20 writes.
Released in February, “Get Out” blends racial tensions with satire and horror resulting in an especially potent film. This bombshell social critique from first-time director Jordan Peele offers a thought-provoking look at race in America.
The film follows an interracial couple, Chris Washington and Rose Armitage, who visit the woman’s white parents as strange events begin to unfold.
During their visit, Rose’s parents, neurosurgeon father Dean, psychiatrist-hypnotherapist mother Missy and her brother Jeremy make discomforting comments about African-American people. Within his first few minutes of the vist, Chris notices that all the black workers on the estate are uncannily compliant.
Unable to sleep, Chris goes outside to smoke, only to find the groundskeeper Walter running from the woods. As Chris returns inside confused, Missy coaxes him into consenting for a hypnotherapy session to cure his smoking addiction.
While in a trance, he recounts the death of his mother in a hit-and-run car accident when he was a child, about which he still feels guilty. He then sinks into a void Missy calls “the sunken place.” When he awakens, Chris believes he had a nightmare, yet soon realizes cigarettes now revolt him.
From this point forward, more and more unusual events unfold. The next day, dozens of wealthy white people arrive for the Armitages’ annual outdoor party. Immediately, they all take interest in Chris. Each one offers peculiar compliments admiring his physique or expressing admiration for other black figures such as Tiger Woods. When Chris meets Logan King, a black man married to a much older white woman, he begins to speculate that something bizarre is hidden behind this party.
From its release, “Get Out” received widespread universal critical acclaim. It has been named as the best film of 2017 on numerous online critic sites. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 99 percent and an average rating of 8.3/10. The site’s critical consensus reads, “Funny, scary, and thought-provoking, Get Out seamlessly weaves its trenchant social critiques into a brilliantly effective and entertaining horror/comedy thrill ride.”
One movie critic, Brian Tallerico, said “‘Get Out’ feels fresh and sharp in a way that studio horror movies almost never do. It is both unsettling and hysterical, often in the same moment, and it is totally unafraid to call people out on their racism.” This film is ridden with that unsettling feeling when you know you don’t belong somewhere; when you know you’re unwanted or perhaps even wanted too much.
“Get Out” is not a film that takes breaks for comedy routines – its thrills keep audiences on edge and uncertain from the opening scene to the final one. Peele says every time an African-American man goes home to visit his white girlfriend’s parents, there is uncertainty and unease.
This film merely turns that up, using an easily identifiable racial tension to make a horror movie. Many of our greatest genre filmmakers have done exactly the same thing – amplifying fears already embedded in the human condition for the purpose of movie horror.
Peele infuses the age-old genre foundation of knowing something is wrong behind the closed doors, yet adds a racial, satirical edge. This film leaves viewers questioning: What if going home to meet your girlfriend’s white parents wasn’t just uncomfortable but downright life-threatening?
