On Get Out

In Jordan Peele’s excellent Get Out, the clichéd story of southern American racists is given a new twist with a greater depth and level of understanding about race in America. Chris’s experience in his girlfriend’s parents’ home is more than racist, although it is obviously this as well. In fact, the racism here is so deeply rooted its difficult to pin down. It’s better identified as an obsession with the other. Black here is seen as something exotic, something to desire, but secretly, in small communities as if the admission of it is laden with guilt. The white guests at the brilliantly filmed silent bingo play for the rights to win features of the race. Previous winners, it is suggested, seem to have gained athleticism and style – stereotypical and surface only white perceptions of black people.

With Chris it is something different; it is his eyesight. Chris is a photographer, a feature of his character that the film could have explored in greater detail. This generic feature allows his bingo sponsor to claim it has nothing to do with race and he believes it. This is a telling feature of this wealthy white character; he doesn’t see what he is doing as racist. It is so embedded within parts of white America that even they can’t see it. He’s also blind. Get Out isn’t always subtle, but neither should it be.

Get Out leaves its biggest and most damning criticism of racism in America to the end. Chris has survived the tortures, both psychological and physical. In fact he has bettered his white captors only to find himself bloodied and exhausted on the road. The red and blue of police lights flash across the road. Surely Chris will now be shot and killed by a white police office. Why would we expect any other outcome?

Get Out is important and immediate in its relevance. It is also thoroughly entertaining, funny and creepy and a well crafted film. This combination of film and message will see Get Out grow in stature.