Get out is a film that follows African-American photographer Chris Washington and his unexpected meeting with his girlfriend Rose Armitage’s eerie family. As he arrives at their home he quickly realizes the liberal-minded Armitages are hiding a dark secret which ultimately puts Chris’s life at major risk. Unlike most films, a white protagonist is not expressed or desired with roses family and friends being obsessed with African Americans and their advantages such as their height, strength, and superiority. We follow Chris as he begins to realize that the Amitages have been luring African Americans into their home for years with roses being used as their bate and performing a medical procedure to put the consciousness of their old friends into their victim's body makes them be forever in the sunken place. The film is directed by Jordan Peele an African American actor, comedian, and filmmaker it got a very rare 99% on rotten tomatoes for its original storyline and honorable actors. The film also earned Peele an Oscar for best original screenplay, making him the first African-American to win the award. Get Out received praise for its screenplay, direction, performances, and satirical themes which are perfectly displayed through Jordan's depictions of racism, and trauma while perfectly incorporating thriller and mystery as well as his exemplary depiction of visual and audio codes. The film expresses social issues which most others are scared of to make the movie more interesting because of its realness and the true reality of the world today.
Get out expresses many social issues with the main theme of racism. From the beginning of the film, we know that Chris is uncomfortable meeting Rose's white family, with him asking her whether she told her parents he is black before taking him home, worried that they might be surprised and treat him disrespectfully. As they arrive at roses parents' house it is obvious how much her family loves African Americans with dean roses dad talking about how his dad always wanted to beat his old racing competitor who just so happened to be African American with him saying his dad almost got over it, which is a hint to the chaos to come throughout the movie minor social slights and tiny injustices of casual racism are increased causing suspicion to the seemingly nice family. Through these remarks, Jordan Peele is trying to connect with the audience to show them how demoralizing the effects of their actions are and how these remarks are nothing but cruel.
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Trauma is another main theme with Chris’s past being used against him when missy forces him to talk about his mother's death making him feel responsible as she hypnotizes him to take him to the sunken place. The Sunken Place is a state that is created by hypnosis, but it is also symbolic of Chris’s relationship to his own trauma, his sense of powerlessness, and his deep unhappiness and regrets about the event. Through the use of camera shots and special effects, the sunken place is seen as inescapable just like Chris mums death is irreversible. While in the sunken place Chris’s voice is removed the lack of sound is a metaphor for how the black community feels voiceless in white America. While watching missy hypnotize Chris we begin to sympathize with Chris more because of the trauma he’s been through because he cannot forgive making us more intrigued by his escape from the Armitages.
The genre of get-out is thriller, horror, and mystery which are all combined to create a pleasing amount of grisliness as well as gripping us with a sense of the unknown. These genres were chosen to reflect the real truth of African-Americans today and how their lives can be anything but perfect when faced with the reality of racial discrimination. Peele expressed how he felt being overpowered by white people and he made the movie to intensify our own fears of being controlled by people we seemingly trust. Get Out is not an average horror with predictable antagonists and cliche jump scares but it rather explores the realistic everyday horrors we face.
Jordan displays visual codes in great detail with many scenes having hidden messages linking to the chaos to come. An example of this is the multiple symbolic codes of a deer throughout the movie. At the beginning of the movie while Chris and rose are driving to her parent's house they hit a deer, Hitting a deer symbolizes a major obstacle in your plan. Chris also sees the deer once he is tied to a chair in the basement representing death. The deer will come back again ultimately to be used to help him escape as the horns are used to kill Dean Armitage. In my point of view, I believe the deer symbolizes Chris’s mother trying to help him by sending him warnings and staying by him through the depiction of a deer. Mise-en-scene is also displayed at the end of the movie where Rose is wearing a white top and brown pants representing a hunter in Africa, this was no accident. Another is throughout the movie most everything is black such as Dean's clothes being all black as well as all of their friends having black cars even their kitchen countertops are black showing even deeper how obsessed they are. These hidden codes display how brilliant the mind of Jordan Peele was and that nothing in his movie was done by accident.
Audio codes are an important part of any movie and the music chosen for getting out could not be any better with every song having a subliminal message and sound setting the perfect tone for the scene. The first song we hear is where we see an African-American walking down the street when he is picked up in the Armitages although we don’t know them he is dragged into the back of their boot with music playing “run rabbit run farmer will get his gun” which a reference to slavery. This song plays again when Chris is trying to drive away at the end of the film. As the music fades out we hear a sinister Swahili song called Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga whose chorus is “listen to the ancestors, run brother run, to save yourself” with many harmonized voices and ghostly whispering after every verse. After the opening credits of the movie redbone by Childish Gambino plays, although the song sounds low-key and relaxed the main chorus is “stay woke” meaning stay awake and alert, which is another warning. Loud notes are played to emphasize jump scares and uneasy situations which tie in with the typical horror genre.
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