Recently, the film Get Out was released to theaters. This film was directed by the hilarious Jordan Peele from Key & Peele and is both nothing like and everything like the show he’s known for. The movie, which is about a black man visiting his white girlfriend’s family is thrilling, scary, hilarious, and powerful all in one.
The movie starts off like the normal drama of a black man, who’s experienced the world of racisms, poverty and hit in runs that killed his mother, who is nervous to visit his girlfriends all white family for the first time. It appears that the main message of the story in the beginning is simply to show how different it is for black people as they go about everyday life. These people are forced to worry about seemingly frivolous things such as if his girlfriend’s parents will chase him out of their house upon learning his race as well as bending the whims of police officers who immediately victimize him even when he is clearly innocent. The main character, Chris, is used to all these things and has become a successful photographer for capturing the differences in black lives poetically.
However, things quickly begin to change when Chris notices that, apart from their apparent racisms, the few other black people he runs into are acting funny. Not to mention, the people visiting his girlfriend’s parent’s house seem obsessed with him. After strange thing after strange thing, Chris, along with the audience, begin to realize this is much more than just a drama movie. That’s when the horror begins.
Explaining exactly what it is that makes this movie a horror film will spoil it, however, adding this aspect is genius. I won’t lie, the first time I realized this movie was a horror movie, my immediate though was it would be a poor film. But Jordan Peele did it right, and, somehow, he made all the pieces fit together. On top of all this, Peele added a sense of humor to the movie that made it all the more enjoyable. Just as the message was getting a bit too serious, or the thrill a bit too effed up, Peele would throw in a joke that was very similar to those on his show that erupts the audience into a cloud of laughter.
This movie is much more than a great movie. Peele has combined these aspects of horror, comedy and drama, all to send a big message. I can’t his mind, but it seems to me he is commenting on the horror that black people have to deal with in their daily lives, they get used, get set apart, and this needs to be addressed. The comedy is more than just a rhetorical strategy to make people enjoy his message, maybe its saying that the best way to deal with this struggle is through laughter. Nonetheless, the only way to truly understand what I’m trying to say is by seeing the movie yourself.
