If you know me, you know that when the time strikes, and that time has more than once struck in the recent years that I have been both critically and socially aware of my prejudiced surroundings, both near and far, I am highly driven to verbally combat racial prejudices. When I hear of any racially-charged attack, I spend the entire day obsessing, indulging myself, reading articles and watching news reports and, if the social media world permits me, watching recorded videos of said racially-charged attack until my mind sufficiently builds up a retaliation that I infuse in a post about the attack on my share of the social media platform that is Facebook, or better yet, Blogger.
*** I WARN YOU FROM NOW ***
If you don't want spoilers, please exit stage right.
If you are yet to see the movie, please view it before reading on, and return to this post after you have, so that you do not encounter any spoilers.
In a regular viewing, it can be noted that Get Out is a movie, in short, which depicts the African American as an icon of fashion, 'the new black', which can be bought off at a privileged white person's mansion in a fucked-up auction concealed as a Bingo game. The African American is more desirable to the buyer if they have qualities that the buyer desires: one buyer wanted to purchase the protagonist, Chris, who was lead there by his deceiving girlfriend who fetishes the African American male (and female), because he would be a great fellow golfer like Tiger Woods (who is mentioned as this scene plays along to add to the level of racism depicted), and another, who eventually ended up buying him, wanted him for his eyes and his love of photography. Another desirable trait is that the African American cannot defend themselves, as they have been brainwashed by Missy Armitage, Chris' girlfriend's mother. After being brainwashed, their speech is formed around obeying the commands of the white people, and any injustice they feel or any form of expression that does not please the white person is suppressed by the hypnosis as their free self is locked in a dark space (pictured below).
But Get Out is more than just a movie that echoes the purchasing and selling of an African American slave, the actions in which, you best believe it, actually disgustingly occurred several times in human history. It is more than just a statement, more than just a twisted horror and thriller. It is a response. It is the response we, the people in human society who actually value the idea of a utopia free from prejudices of any kind, have been desiring. We have all witnessed the increasing hate crimes that have been adding fuel to the fire of the Black Lives Matter justice-seeking movement, and this movie, arguably, may be an additional splash of fuel to that fire, allowing the fire to burn even brighter, reeling in more attention to the equality of the human race.
In fact, more than anything, I highly believe that Get Out has opened Pandora's sister's box, in that what it has unleashed is not necessarily a view of all the bad in the world alone. That would be too easy for the racially prejudiced white folk to comprehend. It would be a mere slap-on-the-wrist approach. How bland! Why show them a fictional realm of action and consequence when they are barely moved by real-life videos of consequence and consequence? Crime and punishment? Instead, Pandora's sister has come out of her rendition of the box. And finally, too. She has been waiting for the right time, and Peele's Get Out has granted her the exact moment of high power. She has the high hand, here, outing herself at the peak of the release of a new form of protest which will revolutionize the movie industry. And so, Out she Gets, wielding only one object: a mirror.
Why a mirror? Out of all the things she could be carrying? Well, you see, sometimes the best weapon is the weapon of realization. Once a wrongdoing is made, the wrongdoer seldom is explained the wrong of the wrongdoing. They are offered two forms of explanations: the first, through visuals in protest signs, and the second, through the law. But laws sound so complicated. It is easier to say, "hey, you have fucked up because you shot a person based on their skin colour you prejudiced asshat" rather than "on the count of homicide, we have found the defendant guilty". Law prefers to keep things concise. Neatly arranged so that the delivery of a sentence is fast and simple. I prefer the long, hard road of verbal explanation, because I really don't think that racist members of society are understanding how their racism is affecting their victim. They really need it spelled out to them:
S T O P W I T H Y O U R R A C I S T B U L L S H I T.
Shit, of course, being shootings and mass shootings and crimes that have been and gone and will still come, despite the holding up of this realism mirror. Its display is, nonetheless, very important, as most of the audience who have seen this display have subliminally taken in its messages. I am here to help them surface. And this surfacing can be done with accessing my muse, which is what Get Out has precisely done. In fact, nothing has driven me closer to this form of my muse than the viewing of Peele's Get Out. Having watched most of Peele's satirical takes and contributions to the comedic world, this contribution, though comedic in a twisted way, penetrates the joy you feel when you uncomfortably laugh in the movie's very awkward-feeling-inducing scenes, and plants instead little memory chips that notify you that these are moments derived from our unfortunate realities. That these depictions are not entirely loosely-based, and that they very much are the key foci to the moral and ethical wrongs that lurk in the world's supposedly happy little suburbs, in particular, the neat and tidy suburb that the first character in the first scene of Get Out finds himself uncomfortably navigating in.
I look at that neighborhood and I see darkness, and I fear the darkness alone. But that is just me, me who has a night light in her room. Me who is scared of the night time and of black-outs. If I were walking in that neighborhood, seeing a pair of headlights will comfort me, as they would tell me that I am not alone. But from the modern-day African American male's perspective, or at least from the one depicted, I cannot help but note that seeing headlights is not a great feeling. And, like a deer in the headlights (excuse the pun but please note that there are a lot of deer metaphors contained in the movie, this being the first), he froze, and was beaten and shoved in the back of that car. His uneasy feelings in a seemingly safe looking neighborhood goes to show us, the audience, that what is safe for one person may be the direct opposite for another. Safety is no longer a universal product. It has become a trap which, if one is not too careful, can ensnare one.
It made me think of an analogy of a rabbit trying to escape. A little white rabbit, it's tail fluffing about as it frantically hops away to ensure its life is kept. And why wouldn't it, considering Flanagan and Allen's 'Run Rabbit' was playing? It made me think immediately of Australia's minority group - the Aboriginal people, who are much like America's African American people. In particular, though, I remembered the movie Rabbit Proof Fence, wherein the main metaphor that the movie screams is echoed by the quote that the rabbit-proof fence "keeps the rabbits on that side of the fence, [and] keeps the farmland on this side of the fence"; the rabbits, of course, representing the 'pests' that are the minority, and the farmland representing the oppressive and prejudiced society that works to rid itself of them. The fact that 'run rabbit run rabbit run run run' was on loop could allude to the fact that the rabbit in the song is being personified to represent the protagonist, Chris, and that he, like the rabbit, is a pest in society, and that he needs to run to ensure he is not killed.
What is particularly chilling, though, is reading the rest of the song's lyrics:
On the farm, every Friday
On the farm, it's rabbit pie day.
So, every Friday that ever comes along,
I get up early and sing this little song.
Run rabbit - run rabbit - Run! Run! Run!
Run rabbit - run rabbit - Run! Run! Run!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Goes the farmer's gun.
Run rabbit, run, rabbit, run.
Run rabbit - run rabbit - Run! Run! Run!
Don't give the farmer his fun! Fun! Fun!
He'll get by
Without his rabbit pie
So run rabbit - run rabbit - Run! Run! Run!
The first verse shows, when taken metaphorically, how normal the culling of the pest is, and how constant. It is so constant that a day of the week is allocated to it. The last verse shows the animosity of the farmer, wherein even though the farmer may not harm or capture the pest, he is satisfied in the game alone, and that the fact that the pest is there will always give the farmer the 'fun' and thrill of the chase.
Another motif in Get Out, apart from the rabbit, is the image of the deer, or the buck, which adds to the lovely mise-en-scène. The deer is first seen in the starting scene - almost killed by Chris' girlfriend, and is seen paralysed while screaming, alluding to what will happen to him - he will suffer and the peace and calm of death is not quick to come. It is white to show the purity and innocence of the minority. The next time a deer is seen is in one of the main rooms in the Artmitage's mansion. It is a prized piece of taxidermy, and represents the minority - this is highlighted when Chris later uses it to ram its antlers into Dean Armitage, Chris' girlfriend's father, killing him. This is the most satisfying part of the movie, as Dean, earlier, states that the less deer there are, the better. He was proud of his daughter running over the deer on their journey, which alludes to the concept that the deer is the hunted, the minority, the 'other'. The less there are of 'them', the more comfortable the hunter feels. Though Dean shows his strong political bravado highlighting his liking of Obama as president, he is neither ashamed nor afraid to display his hatred of the minority in physical form, taxidermy, and in other forms, such as the auctioning off of the African Americans his daughter brings home.
A blog post highlights this interesting fact about the image and the context of the buck:
'A buck is also a known post-Reconstruction racial slur, used to describe black men who refused to acquiesce to white authority figures and were considered a menace to white America. The “black buck” became a stereotype in America throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries that reduced African-American men to the villainous role of savage brutes, who would cause devastation to white property (including the rape of white women), and thus necessitated brutal measures in order to maintain order, for the good of the community. In Get Out, it is in this context that the buck’s mounted head is transformed into a symbol of white dominance over the black male.'
The placement of the buck thus proves to be a strong form of social commentary on its own, given its context. It is imperative that the contexts of things, given the opportunity, are explored, so as to ensure messages that the provider of these meaning-infused things have a mode of communication to send their messages through to their audience. I am a spokesperson for all things image-containing, and I am quick to pick up on motifs because of that. Given this information, you must believe me when I state that Get Out is a wonderful and powerful visual display of modern day oppression, and most certainly, a visual representation of the effects of racial prejudice. That is not to say that in this fantasy-film, that the prejudices are not overcome or dealt with. But that there is the problem. It is just a fantasy, despite its being brought forward by realism. Hopefully, this fantasy will be clear to most of the audience as a yearning, rather than a visual rollercoaster-ride, which is how most of the general public perceive most horror or thriller movies. But look deeper, friend, and you shall see intended things that generate so much more meaning. And rather than shock you alone, it will sadden you.
Let me digress, and land on a lighter note; the images above are artworks. The first, an American icon, is 'American Gothic' (1930) by Grant Wood, and the second, a parody of the first, 'Get Out' (2017) by Eddie Holly. It is quite a gothic display, wouldn't you agree? Much like the movie, I think. It connotes that the mansion is sinister, that the suffering is suppressed and that there is pain behind their smiles. Could it, then, be reminiscent of the modern day experience of an African American citizen in America? Can it be seen as a realist display the oppression of a group of people who are marginalized, and constantly at an unease? In whose perspective are we viewing this mirror's reflection? Shouldn't it be a collective perspective of every human? Is the message still unclear?
Hell, it is a movie that needs to be seen under any president's rule. It is a movie that reminds humans to be humans, not racially-injust assholes who do more harm than good to their society, and others. It has come to this, fellow persons: we are so racist that a movie has been released to show us how racist we are, and that implies, through horrific imagery, that racism is a bad thing. The fact that we need to be told that is quite sad. One would assume that, in a world where one who lives is destined to come to their deaths, we would bind together, not bring death closer. We are tossing aside fellow members of the human race to make death comfortable. We are making death a warm cup of hot chocolate and sitting him by our fireplace while our fellow humans are outside in a snowstorm without shelter and without hope, when instead we should leave death outside.
"You aren't welcome. Or at least, not yet. You can come in your own time," we should tell it, "and we can no longer work with you to bring injustice into the world. Aren't you breaking some sort of code by choosing to be the ally of some weak-minded humans who wish to wreak you upon someone because of the colour of their skin?" Death will most likely agree, because at this rate, to be non-human is more human than being human.
Get Out is a movie we need while racially-infused crimes occur, typically from those who are meant to subdue criminals and restore justice.
And it is a movie we need to remind society that racism needs to Get Out, that justice needs to Get Out, that human equality needs to Get Out and stay out.
Now Get Out and watch it.
