Just Saw 'Get Out'. So, Review!

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SaintHeartwing's avatar
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OK, first things first. Jordan Peele, this is your first debut as both writer and director right? Well! I’d say you knocked it out of the ballpark because I absolutely loved it. For the most part. The entire film has kind of a sort of undercurrent of to dread and sinister atmosphere that you see within the first 10 minutes that’s always sort of lurking just out of reach.

There are a few jump scares, just so you know. One or two kind of came across as cheap, but for the most part they work. Very well. And the acting, without a doubt, is top notch. But you probably want to hear about the plot. So, I’m going to get very deep into spoilers. Beware. If you don’t want to hear anymore about the plot, just walk away from this post and know that I think it only really had one big issue that sort of subconsciously comes across that has to do with white People. If you don’t want to hear spoilers, just stop reading.





are the remainder of you OK with spoilers?

OK, here we go.

The main character Chris, is an African-American who happens to have a great photographic eye and he’s in a relationship with a nice white girl named Rose. She wants him to meet her parents, but has neglected to tell them that he’s black. But she insists it’s not a big deal, they’re very nice people, “they would’ve voted for Obama if he had a third term” and all that. They’re nit racists.

Well, they’re not as racist as the racist cop that you might’ve seen in the trailers who asks for Chris’s ID even though he wasn’t driving the car. The best way to put it is that the parents are racially insensitive to a large degree. They probably did vote for Obama twice, they think being black is cool, call the relationship a “thaaang” and wink, trying to be all “ghetto” and the like. And they have two black servants. The dad insists that it’s not because they’re racist, they hired them to take care of their own mother and father who passed on sometime ago, and he just didn’t have it in them to let them go.

But if you think that that’s somewhat concerning, that’s nothing compared to the guests that arrive at the house the next day. Chris and Rose are asked all sorts of rather uncomfortable questions like, well, you know, subtly trying to ask if black men really are better in bed. Or saying that being black is “in”. REALLY uncomfortable.

And I’m not kidding you, pretty much every single time they said something like that, the first words out of my mouth were “oh my god they are so white”. Like, comically so. I consider myself a pretty white guy, but I’ve never even remotely asked that kind of stuff of any black guy. The closest thing I can think of was asking about police brutality. Which is a pretty big and relevant issue. And I could maybe see somebody asking “well, is it true that your black boyfriend is better than a white boyfriend in bed”… if that person was a close friend. Then it might be more OK. But otherwise?

You don't SAY that kind of stuff! Good lord. And Chris also notices that the servants exhibit rather erratic behavior. And they also seem slightly overprotective of Rose. I noticed something was very very off after the black groundskeeper was seen running around the grounds at a mad sprint. And I remembered that Rose’s grandfather, according to the film, had been an Olympic runner who had his own record beat by Jesse Owens.

That, combined with the fact that Rose’s mother, a psychiatrist, had a technique of hypnosis therapy. She was actually able to put Chris into a trance, to remember stuff about his mother being hit by a car, and at the same time, get him to stop smoking. She put him into a kind of trance that made him sink into a black abyss called the “sunken place”.

And the minute that she was able to do that, I thought that perhaps, the comedy relief African-American friend that Chris had, who works at the TSA, probably was right about the whole “they’re hypnotizing black people up there to be their sex slaves”. The guy was a conspiracy theorist type, but I was beginning to think that he was right. That Chris being up there was a terrible idea.

And then when I heard the groundskeeper talk, the first thought that popped into my mind is “WAIT. Are the grandparents somehow still alive and inside the groundskeeper and the maid”?

And then the truth gets revealed. Rose has actually had more than one black boyfriend. She’s even had a black girlfriend. She and her family have essentially been kidnapping African-Americans and bringing them to her home so that they can be hypnotized. They’re put into a trance, and then put in for surgery. Brain surgery.

I KNEW it.

Essentially, they’ve been transplanting people who are willing to pay to have their minds put into the bodies of black folks. A small portion of the black folks minds still remain, but trapped in that “Sunken Place”. This gets explained to Chris after he’s captured by the man who will be inhabiting HIS body, all as part of the surgery prep in the final act.

Chris of course asks the natural question. “Why black people”? The guy who wants to essentially steal Chris’s body says that some people just want to be stronger, other people want to experience a life completely different than their own, some people just want to be cool. And black people are essentially all of that to the buyers at this secret facility. They don't hate black people! They LOVE them!

...they have a funny way of showing it. They're like the twisted version of racism, the "admiring" racist who thinks another race is so much better and wants to be that race because of dumb racial assumptions. It's like wanting to be Asian because you think then you'd be super smart and good at music and respectable and awesome at kung fu if you were. It might come from a place of genuine admiration for what you see as a people you think are far better than your own, but it's still based off racist assumptions.

And therein is the one problem I have with the movie. There’s not a single decent white person. Essentially all white people are portrayed as being racist to some degree, or evil. The issue is that as a sort of representative piece, it’s trying to make a STATEMENT, and when you’re trying to make a statement, you have to be careful about how you craft your message. And the message that this movie kind of gives off, sorta, is that all black people should be afraid of white people, and that all white people are racist to some degree, or evil. 

Now to be fair, the guy that wants to take Chris’s body is not actually racist. He even admits that he doesn’t care what color skin Chris has. He just wants to be able to see because he’s blind, and Chris has a great photograph eye. And since the guy wanting Chris’s body is an art dealer, having a body that has a great photography a knack for finding great art would be perfect for him.

Still, kiiiinda problematic when all the white People are evil in your film. Kind of an issue. I sorta winced at that. If the situation was reversed, if a white person was going to a clearly black neighborhood with their black girlfriend, being all "do they know I'm white" and the black people were putting their minds into white bodies so that they could, say, gain the jobs the white people had, or not worry about police brutality as much, or something else that might be looked at as a unique benefit that white people enjoy, you'd clearly think "My God that's racially insensitive". If it was being done with Hispanics putting their brains in black people you'd think that was amazingly insensitive.

That’s my only real problem with the film. I just don’t understand why more people when discussing the film aren’t bringing that one obviously glaring issue up. Chris is meant to represent the audience, the average black guy. Well, didn’t you think about what that would say about every single white person that’s represented in the film?

Peele, seriously. What exactly were you trying to say? I don't get it. I don't think you're racist. But I think something subconscious KINDA crept in. 



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LazyRayFinkle's avatar
I saw this with a full theater and everyone really dug it. The cries of "Kill whitey" and "black power" were a bit surprising, but we laughed it off. No one got jumped.