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Guess Who’s Meeting the Parents

Director Jordan Peele, also known as Peele on the comedy sketch series 'Key & Peele,' creates a chilling horror story that shocks the nation.

By MalaysiaPublished 6 years ago 6 min read
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Director Jordan Peele, also known as Peele on the comedy sketch series Key & Peele, creates a chilling horror story that shocks the nation. The story is about an African-American male named Chris who is in a relationship with a Caucasian female who goes by the name of Rose. One weekend, Chris and Rose decide to go visit Rose’s parents. Not knowing that her parents are racist and unusual human beings, Chris agreed to take the trip. Throughout the film, there were racist scenes between Chris and Rose’s family. Different lighting effects and selections of music make the scenes intense. When viewers watch Get Out, they will start to put pieces of the movie together and realize that Peele has also connected back to early times when racism first started in the United States. In society, racism is still going on and is starting to become a subject that gets neglected. The film is worth watching because it is related to the real world and can be used as an example when discussing the discrimination between different races.

The first racist approach that takes place is when Chris and Rose are on their way to Rose’s parents’ house. While Rose is driving, a deer runs out onto the road and gets hit by their car. After talking to the police, the officer asks to see Chris’s ID, even though Chris was not the one driving. In this scene, viewers can tell that there was a bit of tension between the officer and Chris.

When arriving to Rose’s parents’ house, another racist scene takes place. Chris is telling Rose’s parents, Dean and Missy, about the deer incident. Dean begins to say how he does not have sympathy for deer. He also refers to a term called “black buck.” It is a racial term that was created during the Reconstruction Era. The term labeled African-American males who were not willing to bow down to white authority.

The next racist scene is when Missy and Chris are having a conversation. She begins to ask him about his mother, who was killed in a hit-and-run when Chris was only 11-years-old. Missy begins to ask Chris why he did not call someone to help his mother. Chris begins crying when thinking about the tragic incident. Specializing in hypnosis, Missy hypnotizes Chris by tapping her teacup with a spoon and says, “Now sink into the floor.” Chris loses control of his entire body and falls into a hole. The lighting in this scene is very dark and represent Chris being alone. The dark hole also represents the racism that is going on in America and how other races that are being discriminated may feel alone at times when dealing with racism.

A scene that stuck out to me was when Dean asks if everyone wants to play bingo. This is not your ordinary bingo game, everyone with a game card and chips and the speaker calls out a number. In this scene, Dean and his guests are outside. The guests are sitting in rows of chairs holding bingo cards while Dean is standing on a platform facing them. Next to him is a portrait of Chris. Dean is putting up hand signals and the guests are holding up their bingo cards. The music selected for this scene is very dramatic. This scene shows that they are auctioning off Chris. This refers back to slave auctions in the late 1800s.

The last scene that stuck out to me is when Rose is shown eating cereal. She is not eating it the regular way. She has a bowl of cereal and next to her is a glass of milk. This scene serves a metaphor for separating whites with the nonwhites. It is also revealed that Rose is racist just like her parents.

Many critics have watched Get Out and wrote reviews on the film. They were giving their opinion on the movie and how Peele took on a courageous task. According to Eliza Berman, “The result is an examination of racism — not of the cross-burning, violent kind, but of the insidious variety that persists in liberal, upper-class circles.” Here, Berman is explaining how Peele told the story of racism coming into effect with citizens in the upper class. New York Times critic, Jason Zinoman, says, “‘Get Out' is not the first horror film to confront race. In 1968, right after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ''Night of the Living Dead'' resonated with audiences and some critics by presenting a black man's torment by a mob of white zombies before he is killed by law enforcement. Other horror movies like ''Candyman'' and ''Ganja & Hess'' have explored miscegenation and assimilation, but Mr. Peele said he set out to make a movie that exposed ''the lie'' of a post-racial America, one that grew after the election of Mr. Obama.” Zinoman is comparing other movies that were made because of similar situations. Get Out is a film that sticks out from those other movies. Peele created the film to get the truth out about racism in America. Another critic, Joshua Bote, comes at the white community. He explains how white citizens often brushes off racism and when it becomes known, they want to give an input. He says, “For the white folks in the audience, racial microaggressions are uncomfortable fodder that you brush off at Thanksgiving dinners. At most, it’ll be a tense conservation to have with mom and dad. Race, even for the most ideologically progressive white person, is almost always only a source of worry in theory. Worse yet, even the most seemingly woke white person can still fall privy to them — shock at how eloquent a Black person is counts as a microaggression. More often than not, it goes unchecked”. I can see where Bote is coming from. Not all citizens in the white community brush off racism, but some feel like they should not take action because it does not have anything to do with them.

Get Out is a film where Peele took creativity and made it into a work of art that explains how racism is still going on today. In society, racism is a topic that no one seems to care about. There are many incidents on the news where African Americans are in bad situations and no one steps up to take action to get it resolved. These situations are always involving police brutality, but there is always a white police officer against an African American male or female. For example, on July 17, 2014, Eric Garner passed away after a NYPD officer put him in a chokehold. The NYPD officers thought Garner was suspicious for selling cigarettes without tax stamps. Officer Daniel Pantaleo tried to grab Garner and he pulled away. A few moments later, Pantaleo wrapped his arm around Garner’s neck and tackled him to the ground. After saying, “I can’t breathe” numerous times, Pantaleo let go of Garner. Still lying on the ground, CPR was not performed on Garner because he was believed to still be breathing. At the hospital, an hour later from the incident, Garner was pronounced dead (Baker, Goodman and Mueller). Situations like this affects everyone in the African American community. In our eyes, that could have been any one of us. After these types of incidents, African Americans come together to bring a form of change in their community, as well as other communities around them. Get Out deserves five stars and should make history.

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