takes aim at an unlikely mark, white liberals. Welcome to this Wisecrack Edition on Get Out, and of course, spoilers ahead. But first, a quick recap.
Get Out follows Chris Washington as he meets his white girlfriend's parents for the first time, while the While the first half of the film explores white liberals awkwardly attempting social interaction with a black man, the second half of the film takes a pretty horrific turn. After we find out that the party hosted by Rose's parents is, in fact, a slave auction of sorts, we learn an even more terrifying truth. An old white man wants his brain implanted inside of Chris's body. You have been chosen because of the physical advantages. You've enjoyed your entire lifetime with your natural gifts and our determined- We could both be part of something greater, something perfect."Writer-director Jordan Peele said that the story came to him after reflecting on how many Americans thought the Obama presidency signified a post-racial era. The film argues that so-called post-racial liberalism is something more terrifying than most would imagine. Throughout the film, Chris is confronted with quote, totally not racist white people who have moved beyond racism. It explores how this disavowal seems to re- reinforce a relationship with black people that is at its best suspicious and at its worst well We'll get there But the first act shows how the attempts of people to show Chris how not racist they are only serves to further Alienate him. So how long has this been going on? This thing the Armitage family seems Unnaturally eager to bring up black people stuff around Chris as if this proves that they're not racist by the way I I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I This tendency to overperform the acceptance of all things black only further cements the difference between them, and makes Chris extremely uncomfortable. Chris just wants to get through the weekend and take some pictures, but everyone around him can't help reminding him that he's black, thus only making him feel more different. This also leads to a situation where any actual racism can be excused as long as they can show how down they are with black culture and anti-racist ideas. The second act exposes Chris to a bunch of white people all fascinated with Chris'blackness. They want to know what it's like to be black in America and even feel compelled to tell him that black is in fashion. There's a term for white fascination with black culture that can help us better understand Get Out. Negrophilia. The term emerged in 1920s Paris to describe the craze for black culture amongst the hipsters of the day. Writer Patrine Archer Straw writes that for these young Parisians blackness was a sign of modernity. Such a privilege to be able to experience another person's culture. But this had a problematic flip side. Black personalities were were either lionized or demonized in a matter that denied normality. In other words, they could never be, you know, actual people, and instead existed as one of two stereotypes, brilliant artists or uncultured animals. Throughout the film, we see both sides of this. Chris is celebrated for his cultural background, yet as the creepy brother reminds us, If you really pushed your body, you'd be a fucking beast. To paraphrase Archer Straw, in both cases, it's the white perspective that decides how black people are defined. And this negrophilia isn't just confined to the desire for black culture. It can be the desire for the black body itself, both sexually... So, is it true? Is it better? Wow. And athletically. So Chris, what's your sport? And while you might be tempted to think, is it so bad to be desired because you're sexy and strong? Well, the answer is, yeah. Negrophilia isn't about truly understanding black people and their culture. It's about using them to satisfy your own desires. This is not understanding humans, it's collecting them. And while Get Out exemplifies classic necrophilia, we see it take a leap forward to the literal colonization of the black body in the third act. Early in the film we learn about Grandpa Armitage's experience of being bested by a black athlete. My dad's claim to fame was beat by Jesse Owens in the qualifying round for the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Those are the ones where... Oh, it was one in front of Hitler. Yeah, what a moment, what a moment. I mean, Hitler's up there with all his perfect Aryan race bullshit. This black dude comes along, proves him wrong in front of the entire world. Amazing. Tough break for your dad, though. Yeah. He almost got over it. Well, it turns out that his inability to get over it led him to have his brain implanted into an athletic black body. And Grandma Armitage? Well, it turns out her brain was placed in Georgina, so she could spend her golden years playing dress-up as a beautiful black woman. And of course, Chris has set on a track for a similar fate when he's auctioned off to a blind man... who wants his award-winning photographer eyes. And in an extreme version of liberal racism, Chris's new owner refuses to attribute his purchase to racism. Please don't let me into that. You know, I could give a shit what color you are. No. What I want is deeper. I want those things you see through. While a white person wanting to literally transform into a black person might sound preposterous, there's at least one American who wishes this was a reality. Well, I don't identify as African American, I identify as black, so I am part of the Pan-African diaspora. The film also offers insight into the psychological experience of black Americans navigating white America. But for the title screen, we see a black guy lost in the white suburbs, a metaphor for what's to come. You got me out of here. I'm just creepy, confusing as suburb. I'm serious though. I feel like a sore thumb out here. The physical maze of white suburbia sets a clear parallel for the emotional maze that Chris will have to navigate. Many of Chris's interactions seem modulated specifically for his white audience. Like during interactions with the police, Rose seems content to make a scene, while the only thing Chris wants to do is not piss off a cop. Or when he suspects someone's been tampering with his phone, he quickly drops the issue to not make a scene with Rose's family. Even something as simple as meeting his girlfriend's parents leads Chris to worry, and being one of the only people of color at the party leaves Chris anxiously trying to navigate this over If there's too many white people, I get nervous, you know? Philosopher France Fanon described his own similar experience as a black man living in 20th century France. Fanon described meeting the white man's eyes as placing a burdensome weight upon him, one that left him feeling uncomfortable in his own body and out of place in a world dominated by whiteness. Like Fanon, Chris is burdened by the weight of trying to fit in a world from which he's fundamentally excluded. Good to see another brother around here. He's caught trying to integrate into Rose's world while at the same time trying to retain his identity. It's like they haven't met a black person that doesn't work for them. This forces Chris to be two people at the same time. A black man with his own identity and Rose's black boyfriend who's nice to everyone. Do you find being African American has more advantage or disadvantage in the modern world? no matter how absurd their questions. To navigate this, Chris has to silence his own identity, a process made literally literal during a late night chat with Rose's mother, eventually viewing his own reality through a screen. This is the name for a hypnotic state in which one's mind is separated from their body, and they are left to passively view their own experiences through a screen. When asked about the meaning of the sunken place, Jordan Peele tweeted that the sunken place means we're marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us. According to this logic, any society built upon inequality will inevitably leave those those on the outside without a voice, or at best, with a tempered version of their voice. One's true identity has to remain in the background for the sake of going with the flow. We can understand the sunken place better with some help from sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, who coined the term double consciousness. According to Du Bois, double consciousness is the internal conflict experienced by African Americans living in a structurally racist society. These societal conditions lead black people to see themselves through the perspective of the world. of the dominant societal force, in this case, white people. Chris is repeatedly evaluated by the measuring tape of white society, and in particular, certain forms of white desire. The experience of being constantly examined leads to what Du Bois calls a two-ness of the black soul. One feels his two-ness, an American, a negro. Two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn up. asunder. This imposition leads to confusion about the authenticity of one's experiences. And for Chris, this double consciousness has left him feeling like a helpless spectator. If you were wondering why Chris seems to be haunted by the deer he and Rose killed, it may not be because he's some kind of PETA activist, but because watching helplessly as a living thing died probably reminded him of his mother's death. I was just watching TV. In other words, the sunken place seems not only to be a hypnosis technique, but a metaphor for his own life as a helpless spectator. This fear of losing oneself is made literal in the Coagula Procedure, in which black consciousness is literally pushed to the background to make room for the white mind. Thus he risks being permanently cast into the sunken place. Chris is able to avoid this fate by plugging his ears with cotton picked from his chair, which brings to mind poet Audre Lorde's famous insistence that the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. For Lorde, this meant that it was futile for the oppressed to use the logic of the oppressor in their attempts at resistance. Instead, Get Out suggests the opposite. Chris uses a type of labor associated with slavery, picking cotton, to assert his own identity and avoid a type of slavery. Chris not only uses cotton to avoid bodily colonization, he repurposes a bocce ball, arguably a symbol of the white elite, to take out Jeremy. Not to say that bocce balls are blatantly white. objects, but the only thing whiter would be playing hacky sack at a fish concert. And hauling back to the symbol of Chris's spectatorship, Chris takes a mounted deer and goes straight for Dean's jugular with it, a sign he's overcome the powerlessness he once feared. Chris's emancipation from this near enslavement can be seen as a radical assertion of his black identity. While Chris is able to escape the Armitage plantation of horrors, the real hero of Get Out, and the film's comic relief, is his best friend Rod. Throughout the film, Rod serves as the lead character of the gang, and he's also the as the voice of reason, and eventually goes to the police once he's put together a theory for why Chris has gone missing. After a, um, revealing conversation with Rose, he decides it's time to come to Chris'rescue. But before Rod saves the day, the film's most terrifying scene comes from an unexpected source. We all know what's likely to happen if the police show up and see a black man kneeling over the bleeding. body of a white woman. While the film's intended ending was this devastating worst-case scenario, Peele opted for a more triumphant conclusion in the final cut. But the moment between the police sirens and Rod getting out of the car is a stark reminder that the real monster of Get Out isn't a fictional boogeyman, but rather the horrors of the system itself, something that cannot be heroically defeated at the conclusion of a film. And the other lesson of Get Out? Well, that one is more obvious. I'm T.S. Motherfuckin'A. We handle shit. That's what we do. Consider this situation. Fucking handle. Thanks for watching, guys. Peace. You know what else you can consider handled? Your meal situation. 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That's all for now guys, all this talking is making me pretty hungry, so don't forget to subscribe and ring that bell. Peace guys!