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March 29, 2017
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A black man’s experience of racism is powerfully portrayed by Daniel Kaluuya in ‘Get Out,’ an uncon-
ventional new horror film.
A Film to Seep into your Consciousness
‘Get Out’
awakens the soul
“Get Out,” the first contender
so far for my list of the best films
of 2017, is essential viewing.
Writer-director Jordan Peele has
accomplished something entire-
ly original and, I dare say, aston-
ishing: He has used horror film
conventions (along with some
welcome humor) to powerfully
address a black man’s experience
of racism. The menace and fear
experienced by the film’s main
character, Chris (played with real
depth by Daniel Kaluuya), con-
tains important insights into real
life for black folks and others who
experience othering.
See this film even if you don’t
like horror films. Peele obviously
knows the language of horror and
is deliberately employing it here --
but the film is not likely to scare
you in the same way that a typical
horror film does. It’s not about
things that go bump in the night,
or evil spirits, or ghosts, or slash-
ers. Peele classifies “Get Out” as
a “social thriller,” which strikes
Dr. Marcelitte Failla
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o PinionAted
J udge
by
d arLeen o rtega
me as a better description. He has
found a way to depict something
very true, very hard to express,
and genuinely scary.
The first time I saw the film,
my heart pounded through most of
it, and I was agitated for two full
days afterwards. The night I saw
it again, I had a nightmare involv-
ing an actual experience of other-
ing that has happened to me many
times. After all that, I still went to
see the film a third time because
it so validated my own experience
in the world. I rarely see art that
so accurately depicts such difficult
parts of my own reality.
I must hasten to recognize that
the film is primarily about black
experience. I am not black, and
can’t claim to know what it’s like
to live inside a black body. This
film deepened my understanding
of black experience, and is worth
seeing for that reason alone.
It also resonated with my own
experiences of being othered --
and I hope you’ll see it even if
what you really are looking for is
a more conventional horror film
experience. It’s clever, and smart,
and even entertaining. If you are
black or a person of color, you
may well find it triggering -- and
yet you will be glad you saw it. If
you are white, I hope you will en-
gage with a bit of your own heart
on the line, and realize that this
film has some things to teach you
that you don’t already know.
One of the conventions of hor-
ror films is that the audience sees
danger coming that the protago-
nist doesn’t see, and wants to yell,
“Get out!” It’s part of the fun. By
centralizing black experience in a
way we rarely see, Peele affords
people of color, particularly black
folks, an advantage as viewers;
they know in their bones where
the land mines are. His employ-
ment of the horror genre to do this
feels wonderfully subversive, giv-
en the long history in films and lit-
erature of depicting black men as
a threat to white women. This is a
story of an entirely different kind
of jeopardy.
If you’re white, recognize that
your experience of the film will
be very different than a black
person’s experience -- and how
could it be otherwise? How of-
ten do we see films that really
centralize black experience in a
truthful way? Chris’s friend Rod
(my favorite character, astutely
played by comedian LilRel How-
ery) is the stand-in for “woke”
black audience members; he is
the truth-teller who most people
would see in real life (as in the
film) as hysterical at worst and as
comic relief at best. And one of
the most painful aspects of being
othered is that one can’t talk about
one’s experience without sound-
ing crazy or hysterical.
It’s best to go into the film
blank, and I aim here to avoid
spoilers while encouraging you
to pay closer attention than you
might be inclined to do. So I’ll
say only that the story involves
a weekend trip by Chris and his
Caucasian girlfriend Rose to visit
her parents for the first time. Peele
has packed the film with intention-
al cues that reward attention and
repeated viewings; listen especial-
C ontinued on p age 15