"Get Out": a Layer Cake
Let’s talk about how amazing Jordan Peele is. This film is social commentary genius. Everyone I’ve spoken to since having seen it who actually understood the many levels there are to this film lauded it highly. Those who didn’t or who, arguably, the movie was not “meant” for, saw it solely as an intense horror movie or, simply a comedy/horror film, laughing at all the wrong parts. That in and of itself is very telling but I digress.
There was so much going on in this film I don’t even know where to start. I won’t try to discuss everything because that could easily turn into a 10-page paper and that’s not what you all are here for (but if it is, let me know because I am more than willing to write a paper about this). The side eye about cops, even black ones, not caring about missing black folks, be it Chris OR the 14 DC black girls who have been missing for far too long that no one is doing anything about to try and find. But how if it was a white girl missing, the media would be up in arms and manhunts would be sent out far and wide to find the one missing person.
I wanted to stay for a moment on the topic of appeasement and making everything seem like it’s okay, like you’re not offended because you don’t want to stir up trouble or seem like an instigator or be viewed as “combative” and easily insulted, especially when it pertains to the topic of race. It may not be comfortable, you may not want to do it, but if something happens and you, as a person of color, are offended by it, learn from Chris’s example and say something. Because if you don’t, you could find yourself being auditioned off like it’s still 1850, then with the swirl of a spoon in a tea cup, you’re stuck in the Sunken Place FOREVER. That is it’s own hell. No one wants to be scolded for not being politically correct but, ironically enough, I find the people who complain most about having to be politically correct are the middle-aged caucasian males AKA the people who don’t have any claim on political correctness because they’re white and male and at the top of this monstrous food chain. The fact of what they are is plain to see and up for far less debate than everyone else. Don’t sit around just wanting to fit in and so not saying anything who someone makes an underhanded racial comment or gives you a back-handed compliment. Like when your white girlfriend tells you she failed to inform her parents you’re Black the day you’re driving up to meet them for the first time. Because that, ladies and gentlemen, is a problem. When the white cop who pulls you over backs down after your white girlfriend puffs up her chest in your, a young, Black male’s, defense, thank her, but don’t fail to see the irony. When someone asks you if you as a Black man think the experience of modern African Americans is better now? As if you are the spokesperson for all Black people and as if the experience of everyone, then and now, was the same. And when people say you’re exaggerating or thinking too much into such comments, don’t believe them. Underhanded racism is real. It’s just that not everyone picks up on it.
This movie also laid it on thick about the physicality of Black people and how it’s always been seen as fascinating. Walter practices running late at night and more than startles Chris who’s out for a late night smoke. Earlier in the film it comes to light that Chris’s white girlfriend Rose’s grandfather nearly beat Jesse Owens in the pre-trial Olympics and was never able to get over it. Much later in the film, you find out that Walter has had a partial brain transplant and is actually Rose’s grandfather. This is why he practices running. To know what it’s like and feel that he could finally beat Jesse Owens, except now he’s doing it with a black body. Another example is when Chris is silently auditioned off to Jim Hudson, a blind art dealer. Chris is a photography and has gotten a little publicity for his work. Later, when Chris is being held captive before his partial brain transplant surgery in order than Jim may inhabit Chris’s body, Jim explains he chose Chris because he “has” it, the natural artistry Jim has always sought. Also, Chris not only has talent, he has a great eye and blind Jim wants it. Rose’s brother, a slightly updated “hick” stereotype, says, “With your genetic makeup and some training, you could be a beast.” Excuse me? Where to even being with this statement. The inappropriateness, the assumption that Chris wants to be a “beast”. The stereotyping of Chris being a Black beast (smacks of how African-Americans were referred to as beasts or bucks during slavery, now doesn’t it?). When Rose is on the hunt for a new Black boy to bring to her parents, she looks at the latest NCAA prospects. ARE YOU SERIOUS?? The co-opting of black bodies for our physicality and prowess, it seems, will never cease.
The brain transplants the Armitages have been doing for decades was a form of modern-day slavery. Capturing Black people against their will, incapacitating them, then forcing them to undergo medical procedures that alter and change their bodies, forcing them to work and behave in ways other than they would naturally, all while a small piece of themselves is still alive, helpless inside, is just updated forced hard labor. Moreover, the Armitages completely incapacitate the mind, and use the Black bodies solely for their bodies. It’s as if to say, the mind of a Black person is not as important as their body.
There is so much more to be discussed, such as Andre’s initial kidnapping and the link of this happening to Black men daily followed by them being lynched, simply for walking down the street in the wrong neighborhood on a fateful evening. The fetishization of Black men by white women and vice versa. The over-sexualization of Black men. The white-girl-as-victim stereotype. The play on affections as a final play to save one’s self. The repeated closing of the door by white men on Black men. This film is rife with intrigue, deceit, racism, stereotypes and necessity to take Blackness on the whole more seriously. I applaud Jordan Peele. He’s a modern-day Black hero.
There was so much going on in this film I don’t even know where to start. I won’t try to discuss everything because that could easily turn into a 10-page paper and that’s not what you all are here for (but if it is, let me know because I am more than willing to write a paper about this). The side eye about cops, even black ones, not caring about missing black folks, be it Chris OR the 14 DC black girls who have been missing for far too long that no one is doing anything about to try and find. But how if it was a white girl missing, the media would be up in arms and manhunts would be sent out far and wide to find the one missing person.
I wanted to stay for a moment on the topic of appeasement and making everything seem like it’s okay, like you’re not offended because you don’t want to stir up trouble or seem like an instigator or be viewed as “combative” and easily insulted, especially when it pertains to the topic of race. It may not be comfortable, you may not want to do it, but if something happens and you, as a person of color, are offended by it, learn from Chris’s example and say something. Because if you don’t, you could find yourself being auditioned off like it’s still 1850, then with the swirl of a spoon in a tea cup, you’re stuck in the Sunken Place FOREVER. That is it’s own hell. No one wants to be scolded for not being politically correct but, ironically enough, I find the people who complain most about having to be politically correct are the middle-aged caucasian males AKA the people who don’t have any claim on political correctness because they’re white and male and at the top of this monstrous food chain. The fact of what they are is plain to see and up for far less debate than everyone else. Don’t sit around just wanting to fit in and so not saying anything who someone makes an underhanded racial comment or gives you a back-handed compliment. Like when your white girlfriend tells you she failed to inform her parents you’re Black the day you’re driving up to meet them for the first time. Because that, ladies and gentlemen, is a problem. When the white cop who pulls you over backs down after your white girlfriend puffs up her chest in your, a young, Black male’s, defense, thank her, but don’t fail to see the irony. When someone asks you if you as a Black man think the experience of modern African Americans is better now? As if you are the spokesperson for all Black people and as if the experience of everyone, then and now, was the same. And when people say you’re exaggerating or thinking too much into such comments, don’t believe them. Underhanded racism is real. It’s just that not everyone picks up on it.
This movie also laid it on thick about the physicality of Black people and how it’s always been seen as fascinating. Walter practices running late at night and more than startles Chris who’s out for a late night smoke. Earlier in the film it comes to light that Chris’s white girlfriend Rose’s grandfather nearly beat Jesse Owens in the pre-trial Olympics and was never able to get over it. Much later in the film, you find out that Walter has had a partial brain transplant and is actually Rose’s grandfather. This is why he practices running. To know what it’s like and feel that he could finally beat Jesse Owens, except now he’s doing it with a black body. Another example is when Chris is silently auditioned off to Jim Hudson, a blind art dealer. Chris is a photography and has gotten a little publicity for his work. Later, when Chris is being held captive before his partial brain transplant surgery in order than Jim may inhabit Chris’s body, Jim explains he chose Chris because he “has” it, the natural artistry Jim has always sought. Also, Chris not only has talent, he has a great eye and blind Jim wants it. Rose’s brother, a slightly updated “hick” stereotype, says, “With your genetic makeup and some training, you could be a beast.” Excuse me? Where to even being with this statement. The inappropriateness, the assumption that Chris wants to be a “beast”. The stereotyping of Chris being a Black beast (smacks of how African-Americans were referred to as beasts or bucks during slavery, now doesn’t it?). When Rose is on the hunt for a new Black boy to bring to her parents, she looks at the latest NCAA prospects. ARE YOU SERIOUS?? The co-opting of black bodies for our physicality and prowess, it seems, will never cease.
The brain transplants the Armitages have been doing for decades was a form of modern-day slavery. Capturing Black people against their will, incapacitating them, then forcing them to undergo medical procedures that alter and change their bodies, forcing them to work and behave in ways other than they would naturally, all while a small piece of themselves is still alive, helpless inside, is just updated forced hard labor. Moreover, the Armitages completely incapacitate the mind, and use the Black bodies solely for their bodies. It’s as if to say, the mind of a Black person is not as important as their body.
There is so much more to be discussed, such as Andre’s initial kidnapping and the link of this happening to Black men daily followed by them being lynched, simply for walking down the street in the wrong neighborhood on a fateful evening. The fetishization of Black men by white women and vice versa. The over-sexualization of Black men. The white-girl-as-victim stereotype. The play on affections as a final play to save one’s self. The repeated closing of the door by white men on Black men. This film is rife with intrigue, deceit, racism, stereotypes and necessity to take Blackness on the whole more seriously. I applaud Jordan Peele. He’s a modern-day Black hero.
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