Get Out

I already did a long write-up on one of my favorite films, Jordan Peele's Get Out, last year when I rewatched it. To keep from repeating myself, in a similar fashion to my Jaws review, here’s what I noticed more when I saw the film again in my film studies course.(on a side note, if a film as recent as 2017 can get into a course syllabus, than it’s a guaranteed classic). - It’s so telling (and thus so chilling) when Andre Hayworth’s name and dress and accent all change when he is kidnapped and made a servant of the Armitages. His blackness, identity, and humanity have all been robbed of him now that he has been forced and conditioned to fully assimilate into the culture of a privileged white family. - Andre and Walter (in the middle and end of the film respectively) both momentarily regain their former humanity, and realize the urgency of the situation they’re in, when Chris’ camera flashes. It’s as if the Armitages have conditioned their servants to look away from a camera flash, as any photography of the grounds will reveal the family’s hidden agenda. - I read an article about the film as a supplement to my film studies course, which describes the Armitages’ bigotry as “racism without prejudice”, and they’re not far off. As Dean and Missy boast about the impact of African-Americans on American culture, and say “black is in fashion”, and as Rose is caught having taken photographs with numerous black male “lovers”, they are seen to be fetishizing black people. Even if they say they love black people, they treat them as commodities and sex objects rather than people. In all honesty, their use of their servants is as exploitative as any slaver. - Speaking of which, the slavery subtext became more noticeable on this viewing. When Dean is holding having his guests hold up bingo cards in front of a picture of Chris, it’s a modern-day slave auction. And when Chris is strapped to the chair in the basement, he is quite literally and metaphorically picking the cotton from it. It all goes to show how little society has actually progressed since the pre-Civil War era. - Stephen Root’s character Jim’s blindness has a double meaning. One one hand, he is very deliberately colorblind, unaware of the plight of African-Americans. On the other hand, he wants the eyes of one of the Armitages’ victimized servants, so he can see “the African-American experience” from their point of view. He, like the Armitages, has a significant “white savior” complex, and refuses to actually check his privilege. - Rose trying desperately to keep a police officer from racially profiling Chris seems like well-intentioned enough at first, but when you rewatch the film, knowing the Armitages’ ulterior motives, it becomes an obvious red flag. She has the white savior complex just like the rest of her family.(for some reason it reminds me so much of the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad, another attempt at performative allyship that backfired). A classmate of mine mentioned that moments like this and Rose mentioning her father's support of Barack Obama (which has become something of a meme for just how white-centrist-neoliberal it is) are a more immediate red flag to nonwhite audience members, who are used to hearing this performative rhetoric from supposedly well-meaning, still privileged white people. - Peele's message is that racial exploitation and racial capitalism are still racial exploitation and capitalism, regardless of ideology. Making the Armitages these white-bread neoliberals lulls people like Chris into a false sense of security, making the reveal of the family's true motives all the more chilling. - The first "sink into the floor" scene is one of the more subtly chilling scenes in recent memory. The sound design of Missy stirring the spoon into her tea makes the audience uncomfortable enough, but what makes the scene all the more chilling is the performances. Catherine Keener as Missy is so overly calm to the point of nefariousness, only forcing Daniel Kaluuya's Chris to answer her invasive question. Kaluuya should have won the Best Actor Oscar for this scene alone: when he cries during the interrogation, the tears pour down without an overly showy mental breakdown. Chris stays still as his guilt over his mother's death takes over, causing such a subtle yet so chilling moment of pure emotion. Once he goes into the Sunken Place, this is the film's only real dive into surrealism, going into super-slow motion, and utilizing the family's faces as a framing device, in such a Hitchcockian manner. - Another scene that stuck out to me was the most chilling scene in the whole film for me: Georgina's first face-to-face conversation with Chris. She is so overly chipper, and in a creepy, inhuman way, brainwashed like the rest of the Armitages' servants. Once Chris starts asking her questions, Georgina keeps the same overly chipper expression, but she is tearing up and suddenly agitated, showing that she is now in the Sunken Place. Betty Gabriel's performance is brilliant and chilling here, with her happy face luring us into security, while her tears and nervous mannerisms let us know that Georgina is being heavily exploited and without her consent. The thing that makes the scene so disturbing to me, however, is how all of Betty Gabriel's shots are extreme close-ups on a wide angle lens, distorting her face to make her look all the more dehumanized and scared. - Peele said in an interview that the difference between humor and horror is the music, and that comes into play numerous times. So many moments are bizarre, where we don't know when to laugh nervously or to be disturbed. A great example is when Chris sees Walter, the groundskeeper, running out of the woods in the middle of the night. Out of context, you can put the Benny Hill theme over it and have a laugh; in context, accompanied by Michael Abels' haunting string score, it's inhuman and creepy. - With humor in mind, Peele does a phenomenal job at balancing and mixing it in with the psychological fear at the heart of the story. At first, Rod is the comic relief sidekick, a representation of the horror movie audience, warning Chris about the Armitages' potential ulterior motives. We the audience, and the fellow police officers later on in the film, laugh at his seemingly absurd theories. Rather than just comic relief, Peele points out the absurdities within the Armitages' brainwashing and enslaving of their potential servants, letting us know the absurdity of racially-motivated exploitation within American society. - One of the more surprisingly under-appreciated aspects of the film is Michael Abels' score. The opening title theme, a classical guitar tune paired with a creepy, whispering choir, is instantly memorable, setting the tone for the deconstruction of small-town privileged America that we see in the story. In all honesty, it's one of the more memorable horror film theme songs in recent memory. The rest of the score is really effective, with a classical Hollywood vibe that few modern film scores can really capture: many modern film scores try so hard to imitate Hans ZImmer's style and use temp music so much that they become instantly forgettable.