Get Out: An Analysis *LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!!*
I finally saw this season's hottest movie, Get Out by Jordan Peele. I'd been waiting to see the film for months. The trailer showed up on my Facebook feed, I don't know, months ago, and I could not wait to go see it. After a lot of hint-dropping and guilt-tripping, I convinced my cousin to see it with me. I'd already read about how brilliant the movie was and had accidentally stumbled upon some spoilers in comments. I live with the King of Spoilers, though, so I was undaunted. Also, this allowed me to turn my analytics up in an attempt to catch any clues the writer threw to the audience. And damn if I didn't feel like part of Mystery, Inc.
I have so much to say about this movie I just don't know how to organize it. So I figured I'd just make a list of everything that I noticed and maybe just expound a bit on each point.
Chris: Sensitive, artistic, young Black man. Holding onto a childhood drama that has him, quite literally, often paralyzed with guilt. It has given him a case of anxiety that he seems to be self-medicating with nicotine. This speaks to the stigmas surrounding mental health problems in the African-American community. Nothing suggests that Chris has ever spoken to a professional about his feelings about his mother's death, in fact quite the opposite. He is resistant to the idea of hypnotherapy even before he has good reason to be suspicious of Rose's parents, and gets very nervous when questioned about his mother. Obviously, that would be a sensitive subject for one to bring up with veritable strangers, but his reaction seems to betray the possibility that he's never really dealt with these emotions.
He is the Black everyman. He keeps a low profile and does what he's "supposed" to do (complying with the racist police officer, taking all the awkward racist bull in stride during the beginning of the trip. Even though he enjoys (even thinks he loves?) his girlfriend, he feels more comfortable when there are other Black people around (don't we all). He can switch in and out of that mode that keeps white people more comfortable around us with ease (we can observe this when he speaks with Rod and when he initially attempts to speak to any of the other Black characters). He has a limit. He completely loses his cool when Rose is "fumbling" trying to find the keys, mostly because he already knows that she's in on it. My best guess is at that point he'd decided that he would pretend he didn't know what was going on so that he could get the keys and get the hell out of there. It's actually a great change from what usually happens in horror movies. In a normal scary flick he'd have found the incriminating box of photos and done something stupid like ask Rose what was going on (eyeroll). He doesn't pull his punches when he's on his way out. Even though Jeremy comes back for more, I don't think Chris was negligent the first time he took him down (I did suggest one more blow, my cousin thought Chris had done enough. I mean, there was a pool of blood seeping from his head. Meh.)
Rose: This bitch. She played her role so perfectly. In the beginning, she's just so good to Chris that you can't help but like her. (I didn't because of those accidental spoilers I'd read, but one of the women down the row from us definitely said, "I like her!" aloud after the scene with the police officer.) There were a couple clues that she wasn't on the up and up before we find out for sure. One, she's very dismissive of Chris's concerns about whether or not her parents know that he's Black. She really plays up her privilege with the cop, which isn't exactly surprisingly out of character for a young white woman that considers herself a progressive ally, but still, shows her arrogance. Two, when she feigns surprise about the party being the weekend that they show up when her father tells her it's the same day every year. Three, she is waaayyyy not as upset as she should be about her mother INVADING HER BOYFRIEND's MIND!!! Four, Rose is wearing red the day of the party (more on this later). And lastly, she takes Chris "on a walk" right when the bidding for his body starts and then makes him feel guilty for wanting to leave with or without her. I'm also sure she told her parents about Chris's mother (we know he told Rose about it), and I wonder if that car accident with the deer was set up in the beginning because I swear it looked like that doe was thrown at them. Rose is especially evil because she takes the time to build relationships with her victims. It speaks to a deep-seated mistrust that many Black people have with any white person claiming to be an ally. We've been hurt too much to be willing to open up completely, and Rose is a caricature of why that is. What happens when you let "the enemy" in and they use the privileged information you gave them against you? And seriously, who eats Froot Loops individually (two bites for one loop???) and sips the milk separately? Pure evil, that's who.
Jeremy: He is so classic. I appreciate him as a character as he is the most honest of any of the villains (closely followed by Missy). Aggro to the max with Chris for no apparent reason, he relishes what his family does. He doesn't even try to pretend to be a friend. Dean said that he's in medical school to follow in his old man's footsteps, but I got the feeling Jeremy had more of a passion for scouting and snatching. He apparently considered himself some sort of dark knight on a crusade (evidenced by the costume he wore to go hunting. I imagine he does a lot of this hunting while Rose is embedding herself in someone's life. He is just so representative of the douchey, angsty, hostile racists you find now that aren't exactly calling for lynch mobs, but think that Black people are just naturally more aggressive and violent. He doesn't even seem very out of place in the facade of the Armitages. There's always a kid that rebels, right? Nice progressive white people sometimes still end up with racist assholes as kids. It's sooo edgy right now.
Dean: *groan* We've all met this person, right? So eager to prove that they're cool and with the program and totally not racist at all. I almost think he was the person that liked what the Coagula group did the least of the Armitage family, but I think that's just conditioning, akin to the way viewers were made to feel about Rose in the beginning. I do think he might have been such a willing participant because of the science, but that speaks to the "I know what's best for you" mentality that plague many a white progressive would-be ally. He's one of the few that doesn't focus his questions or comments to Chris on something physical. Rose obviously got her acting skills from him. He gives a good story about why they have Georgina and Walter working for them despite how it looks and makes him feel, but you could almost sense his unease with the lie. It felt forced, but, given how much his character is supposed to want to appear cool, it makes sense that he would offer an explanation for something that he might perceive as an "uncool" thing, even without any prompting from Chris.
Missy: Now there's some power. Missy is closer to Jeremy in her deception, I think. She didn't go overboard with the friendliness. It is glaringly obvious that everyone is afraid of her and she knows it. She knows that it's actually her mother (in-law?) in Georgina, but is rude to her anyway, knowing that Georgina cannot say anything without risking suspicion by Chris. At the dinner table, nervous glances are thrown her way by other members of the family as if they are checking with her for every word they speak to Chris. She is a constant beacon of calm until her cup is tossed by Chris in their struggle. (I have to take a second to admire the way Chris took that knife through his hand. What a mfing G! Also smart, because hand < jugular.) The success of the Coagula Order's experiments depends on her expertise hypnosis skills. She is the personification of knowing one can do what she wants without repercussions.
Georgina: This is just headcannon, but I've decided that Georgina was a Black woman that felt safe with white people. I thought at first from the picture in the box that she and Rose were lovers (and that could still well be the case), but I wondered, what if they were friends? What if the reason Georgina started to cry from inside Grandma Armitage's brain was that she didn't have that instinct of being nervous when there were too many white people around and Chris reminded her of her mistake?
I'd also like to note that you sense Grandma's displeasure with the power dynamic in the house when she tells Chris that she doesn't do anything that she doesn't want to do. I think there's some conflict there between ol' Granny and Missy.
Jim Hudson: I just wanted to give this dude a place because... ugh!!! Here is that white person that believes they are more woke than their peers even though they participate in the exact same shit!! Jim thinks he's better than the rest of the Order because he wants Chris for his artistic genius. He doesn't realize that his coveting is the same as everyone else's because it still ignores Chris's sovereignty over himself, his humanity.
Rod Williams: Hehehehh... my nigga..
Enough of the characters, let's get down to plot.
The Hypnosis: I have a few thoughts about this one. In his initial hypnosis, Missy sends Chris to the Sunken Place. Does she just do this to make sure he can go? Is it only to remove his smoking habit and test his suggestibility? On the subject of cigarettes, did she actually do that hypnosis on Dean and, if so, has she potentially hypnotized everyone in the family? Ha, I'm just kidding about that last part. Not everyone reacts to her little cues, so they don't have hypnotism to blame for their fuckery. I am interested in how/if Chris really got out of the Sunken Place the first time. Wasn't one of her suggestions that he would not be paralyzed the next time something happened? I could be remembering that wrong.
The Party: This was when the alarms started going off, for everyone, I'm sure, but especially for my spidey movies sense. The first thing I noticed was how so many people at the party were wearing red, black, and/or white. I couldn't figure out exactly what it meant (I'm thinking the colors may be indicative of some sort of status or rank in the Order, Dean was wearing brown, as was Logan... maybe Dean is hypnotized...hmm), but I noticed immediately that Rose was also wearing red. This was the first sign of her separation from Chris and her allegiance to the rest of the people there. She suddenly looked like she was with them.
I was reading an article that asked why Chris was the one that got away. It's pretty simple, I think. He had a great friend, in Rod. And he kept in contact with that friend because he needed an outlet for the crazy that was happening around him. Rose was immune (in Chris's mind) because it was her family. Also, she never would have been able to understand on an empathic level why what was going on felt so wrong to him. She couldn't offer the advice that made him laugh while also reminding him that he did have reason to be nervous. Rod not only literally saved Chris's life at the end, he was an essential part of Chris's survival. Chris wouldn't have realized why Logan looked so familiar to him without Rod, a revelation that turned his senses up enough to recognize the position he was in and to know that he needed to get out no matter what. This movie is as much about the preservation of Blackness being essential to our survival as it is about the intrusion of white interference being part and parcel of our destruction.
I have so much to say about this movie I just don't know how to organize it. So I figured I'd just make a list of everything that I noticed and maybe just expound a bit on each point.
Chris: Sensitive, artistic, young Black man. Holding onto a childhood drama that has him, quite literally, often paralyzed with guilt. It has given him a case of anxiety that he seems to be self-medicating with nicotine. This speaks to the stigmas surrounding mental health problems in the African-American community. Nothing suggests that Chris has ever spoken to a professional about his feelings about his mother's death, in fact quite the opposite. He is resistant to the idea of hypnotherapy even before he has good reason to be suspicious of Rose's parents, and gets very nervous when questioned about his mother. Obviously, that would be a sensitive subject for one to bring up with veritable strangers, but his reaction seems to betray the possibility that he's never really dealt with these emotions.
He is the Black everyman. He keeps a low profile and does what he's "supposed" to do (complying with the racist police officer, taking all the awkward racist bull in stride during the beginning of the trip. Even though he enjoys (even thinks he loves?) his girlfriend, he feels more comfortable when there are other Black people around (don't we all). He can switch in and out of that mode that keeps white people more comfortable around us with ease (we can observe this when he speaks with Rod and when he initially attempts to speak to any of the other Black characters). He has a limit. He completely loses his cool when Rose is "fumbling" trying to find the keys, mostly because he already knows that she's in on it. My best guess is at that point he'd decided that he would pretend he didn't know what was going on so that he could get the keys and get the hell out of there. It's actually a great change from what usually happens in horror movies. In a normal scary flick he'd have found the incriminating box of photos and done something stupid like ask Rose what was going on (eyeroll). He doesn't pull his punches when he's on his way out. Even though Jeremy comes back for more, I don't think Chris was negligent the first time he took him down (I did suggest one more blow, my cousin thought Chris had done enough. I mean, there was a pool of blood seeping from his head. Meh.)
Rose: This bitch. She played her role so perfectly. In the beginning, she's just so good to Chris that you can't help but like her. (I didn't because of those accidental spoilers I'd read, but one of the women down the row from us definitely said, "I like her!" aloud after the scene with the police officer.) There were a couple clues that she wasn't on the up and up before we find out for sure. One, she's very dismissive of Chris's concerns about whether or not her parents know that he's Black. She really plays up her privilege with the cop, which isn't exactly surprisingly out of character for a young white woman that considers herself a progressive ally, but still, shows her arrogance. Two, when she feigns surprise about the party being the weekend that they show up when her father tells her it's the same day every year. Three, she is waaayyyy not as upset as she should be about her mother INVADING HER BOYFRIEND's MIND!!! Four, Rose is wearing red the day of the party (more on this later). And lastly, she takes Chris "on a walk" right when the bidding for his body starts and then makes him feel guilty for wanting to leave with or without her. I'm also sure she told her parents about Chris's mother (we know he told Rose about it), and I wonder if that car accident with the deer was set up in the beginning because I swear it looked like that doe was thrown at them. Rose is especially evil because she takes the time to build relationships with her victims. It speaks to a deep-seated mistrust that many Black people have with any white person claiming to be an ally. We've been hurt too much to be willing to open up completely, and Rose is a caricature of why that is. What happens when you let "the enemy" in and they use the privileged information you gave them against you? And seriously, who eats Froot Loops individually (two bites for one loop???) and sips the milk separately? Pure evil, that's who.
Jeremy: He is so classic. I appreciate him as a character as he is the most honest of any of the villains (closely followed by Missy). Aggro to the max with Chris for no apparent reason, he relishes what his family does. He doesn't even try to pretend to be a friend. Dean said that he's in medical school to follow in his old man's footsteps, but I got the feeling Jeremy had more of a passion for scouting and snatching. He apparently considered himself some sort of dark knight on a crusade (evidenced by the costume he wore to go hunting. I imagine he does a lot of this hunting while Rose is embedding herself in someone's life. He is just so representative of the douchey, angsty, hostile racists you find now that aren't exactly calling for lynch mobs, but think that Black people are just naturally more aggressive and violent. He doesn't even seem very out of place in the facade of the Armitages. There's always a kid that rebels, right? Nice progressive white people sometimes still end up with racist assholes as kids. It's sooo edgy right now.
Dean: *groan* We've all met this person, right? So eager to prove that they're cool and with the program and totally not racist at all. I almost think he was the person that liked what the Coagula group did the least of the Armitage family, but I think that's just conditioning, akin to the way viewers were made to feel about Rose in the beginning. I do think he might have been such a willing participant because of the science, but that speaks to the "I know what's best for you" mentality that plague many a white progressive would-be ally. He's one of the few that doesn't focus his questions or comments to Chris on something physical. Rose obviously got her acting skills from him. He gives a good story about why they have Georgina and Walter working for them despite how it looks and makes him feel, but you could almost sense his unease with the lie. It felt forced, but, given how much his character is supposed to want to appear cool, it makes sense that he would offer an explanation for something that he might perceive as an "uncool" thing, even without any prompting from Chris.
Missy: Now there's some power. Missy is closer to Jeremy in her deception, I think. She didn't go overboard with the friendliness. It is glaringly obvious that everyone is afraid of her and she knows it. She knows that it's actually her mother (in-law?) in Georgina, but is rude to her anyway, knowing that Georgina cannot say anything without risking suspicion by Chris. At the dinner table, nervous glances are thrown her way by other members of the family as if they are checking with her for every word they speak to Chris. She is a constant beacon of calm until her cup is tossed by Chris in their struggle. (I have to take a second to admire the way Chris took that knife through his hand. What a mfing G! Also smart, because hand < jugular.) The success of the Coagula Order's experiments depends on her expertise hypnosis skills. She is the personification of knowing one can do what she wants without repercussions.
Georgina: This is just headcannon, but I've decided that Georgina was a Black woman that felt safe with white people. I thought at first from the picture in the box that she and Rose were lovers (and that could still well be the case), but I wondered, what if they were friends? What if the reason Georgina started to cry from inside Grandma Armitage's brain was that she didn't have that instinct of being nervous when there were too many white people around and Chris reminded her of her mistake?
I'd also like to note that you sense Grandma's displeasure with the power dynamic in the house when she tells Chris that she doesn't do anything that she doesn't want to do. I think there's some conflict there between ol' Granny and Missy.
Jim Hudson: I just wanted to give this dude a place because... ugh!!! Here is that white person that believes they are more woke than their peers even though they participate in the exact same shit!! Jim thinks he's better than the rest of the Order because he wants Chris for his artistic genius. He doesn't realize that his coveting is the same as everyone else's because it still ignores Chris's sovereignty over himself, his humanity.
Rod Williams: Hehehehh... my nigga..
Enough of the characters, let's get down to plot.
The Hypnosis: I have a few thoughts about this one. In his initial hypnosis, Missy sends Chris to the Sunken Place. Does she just do this to make sure he can go? Is it only to remove his smoking habit and test his suggestibility? On the subject of cigarettes, did she actually do that hypnosis on Dean and, if so, has she potentially hypnotized everyone in the family? Ha, I'm just kidding about that last part. Not everyone reacts to her little cues, so they don't have hypnotism to blame for their fuckery. I am interested in how/if Chris really got out of the Sunken Place the first time. Wasn't one of her suggestions that he would not be paralyzed the next time something happened? I could be remembering that wrong.
The Party: This was when the alarms started going off, for everyone, I'm sure, but especially for my spidey movies sense. The first thing I noticed was how so many people at the party were wearing red, black, and/or white. I couldn't figure out exactly what it meant (I'm thinking the colors may be indicative of some sort of status or rank in the Order, Dean was wearing brown, as was Logan... maybe Dean is hypnotized...hmm), but I noticed immediately that Rose was also wearing red. This was the first sign of her separation from Chris and her allegiance to the rest of the people there. She suddenly looked like she was with them.
I was reading an article that asked why Chris was the one that got away. It's pretty simple, I think. He had a great friend, in Rod. And he kept in contact with that friend because he needed an outlet for the crazy that was happening around him. Rose was immune (in Chris's mind) because it was her family. Also, she never would have been able to understand on an empathic level why what was going on felt so wrong to him. She couldn't offer the advice that made him laugh while also reminding him that he did have reason to be nervous. Rod not only literally saved Chris's life at the end, he was an essential part of Chris's survival. Chris wouldn't have realized why Logan looked so familiar to him without Rod, a revelation that turned his senses up enough to recognize the position he was in and to know that he needed to get out no matter what. This movie is as much about the preservation of Blackness being essential to our survival as it is about the intrusion of white interference being part and parcel of our destruction.
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