Daniel Kaluuya in “Get Out.” CREDIT: Universal Pictures.
Last October, I posted about the film Get Out: Get Out: Making White People Mad. (Trailer is at the link). I still haven’t seen it, but I am looking forward to it. Think Progress has a serious look at the film, but be warned, it’s full of spoilers, so if that sort of thing upsets you, don’t click over. (I was spoiled last year, but it doesn’t diminish my desire to see the movie at all).
What Get Out encapsulates so well is that modern racism can manifest not just as straightforward hate but also as a mix of jealousy and disdain that, in many ways, can be much more sinister. Disgust, on the part of white people, that black people have the audacity to excel at anything, joined with a desire to siphon off that excellence, to restore some rightful order.
Peele’s comedy and horror bonafides are well established from his run on Key and Peele, as is his ability to be deft and analytical about race without sacrificing the joke or the story at hand. Get Out, which Peele wrote and directed, marks his feature debut. He started making the movie when Trayvon Martin was killed; as he told the New York Times, “What originally started as a movie to combat the lie that America had become post-racial became a movie where the cat is out of bag, and now we’re having this conversation.”
Though he expected the movie to premiere in a different kind of America — namely, one with a different president — Peele said this 2017 context made the movie “more relevant. The liberal elite who communicates that we’re not racist in any way is as much of the problem as anything else. This movie is about the lack of acknowledgment that racism exists.”
* ENDING SPOILERS AHEAD *
I actually haven’t watched the film myself either, but I read the whole plot beforehand on purpose. I just needed to know the ending; this film genre is not my thing and I would have become quite upset if it had been a downer. I’ve had enough of bad people winning in real life, and I don’t need to become further depressed. Now I can watch the movie without that risk.
Kreator, I did the same exact thing for the same exact reason. I wouldn’t have been able to watch otherwise.
Kreator
*highfive*
I really, really can’t watch horror that has that ‘twist’ ending where the bad guys win after all. I have enough issues with horror as it is. So for once, thank you for spoiling the approximate ending for me! :)
You’re welcome, rq!
Now here’s an interesting article: Get Out almost had a much bleaker ending. The director realized that a little more optimism was needed with all the awful stuff that’s going on lately.