Published: March 24th 2017, 1:35:15 pm
I would polish this up and pitch it somewhere but I'm very white and don't think I really should be paid or given a platform to talk about something I really don't know much about. But I really loved the movie and it was so layered with meaning I wanted to talk about all the stuff that occurred to me days after seeing it.
Jordan Peel has already talked about how he wanted to make the movie so that people could empathize with a black character. That’s to be expected in a well done movie and it’s safe to say he did that and so much more. But I was surprised by the moments when I found myself identifying with the more specifically racial anxieties in the movie. The opening scene is a twist on the traditional opening of a horror movie; it’s set in a quiet suburban street where we are normally supposed to feel fear because something scary happens in such a “safe” place. In Get Out, the suburbs don’t start out safe and suddenly become terrifying. The suburbs are terrifying *because* they are suburbs. Black men are all too aware of just how dangerous a predominantly white suburb can be. As a woman, I also find a dark suburban street pretty damn terrifying. And not *just* because I’ve seen a lot of horror movies. Growing up in suburbs, I certainly was told stories of the “scary city” but I also knew that l was not safe. When I was 11 a girl my age was kidnapped out of her own home, while her parents and a large number of her friends right there with her. The girls I knew who suffered violence, suffered it at the hands of their parents and their classmates. I didn’t need to go to the city to be in danger. Once I moved to a city, I noticed that most streets had other people on them at almost any hour. I learned to watch my shadow in the streetlights so I could see anyone approaching from behind. Your average white suburb has no people and very few streetlights on the sidewalk after dark. Hell, you’re lucky if it has a sidewalk. The opening scene of Get Out had my adrenaline pumping long before Nick’s car ever showed up.
The other anxiety I found myself strongly identifying with was the gas lighting effect of microaggressions. Because microaggressions are small, subtle, easily dismissed, they train you to ignore your intuition. When you spend so much of your life thinking “wait, did that guy say something fucked up? Everyone is acting like it’s normal…” it makes it REALLY hard to tell when something is DEFINITELY fucked up. There’s an article on The Root called 21 Times in Get Out When Chris Should Have Gotten the Hell Out and it’s mostly written as comedy but it makes some *very* good points. Even before the first night is over you want to scream at Chris “Run! Get the fuck out of there right now!!” but you always understand why he stays. There’s no feeling of a damsel running up the stairs because she’s too dumb to run out the front door. You can see him shake off every fucked up thing because, well, it wasn’t *that* fucked up and he wouldn’t want to offend anybody…
I’m not the first person to point out that Georgina is the strongest character in the movie. She is the only victim we see actually struggling to free herself from inside the sunken place. She may even succeed from time to time. A review I read posited the, quite likely, theory that it was Georgina who left that tiny door open so that Chris could find the final evidence he needed. But something I haven’t seen pointed out is that she is, in all likelihood, queer. We know that the two children of the family are the ones who capture the victims; Nick hunts (as seen in the first scene) Rose lures. We see from the photographs that Georgina is one of Rose’s victims. She could be a friend but…why deviate from the pattern? I think this was a conscious choice by the writer. Georgina fights the hardest because she has the most experience fighting. She has lived through being a triple minority, taking shit from all sides. But she also fights the hardest because she suffers the most. Her body is inhabited by a woman with a male partner, it’s not much of a leap to assume that she is being forced to have sex with a man. It’s such a small moment in the film and it comes before you know the whole story of what’s happening to the movie’s victims. But when you realize it, in my case a day later, it deepens the horror of the movie that much more. I *love* that it’s that subtle. I think it’s that nuance and thoughtfulness that makes the really stick with you, making you feel for the characters (and by extension, black people) all the more. It’s a movie that crawls underneath your skin.
There’s a weird phenomenon in this country of people doing racist things, being called out on them, and they yelling “I AM NOT A RACIST.” Somewhere along the way, racist became a noun. To many people, “racist” is an identity, and a pretty cartoonish one, at that. A Racist is someone who hates all black people, because they are black. A Racist burns crosses and joins the klan and actively commits physical violence against black people for no reason other than the fact that they’re a racist. A racist has never slept with a black person, or had a black friend, or donated to anti-racist causes, so if one HAS done any of those things, they cannot possibly be A Racist.
Here’s the thing though, racist is an adjective. It is a word which describes certain thoughts or actions and it is absolutely possible to commit acts that are racist, and also acts which are not racist. This is a truth many Americans cannot hold in their mind, largely because it is uncomfortable. Not-racist is not a trophy to be won, it is a state of being that takes some active work to maintain.
In Get Out, Chris asks why they’re doing this specifically to black people. The answer is not “because we hate/fear black people” the answer is, essentially, that is is useful to do so. Some buyers prefer black bodies for their physical prowess, some for their “trendiness.” As Chris’ buyer says “I don’t care what color you are, I just want your eyes.” (as if his photographic talent is a product of his genetics, not personal experience and learned skills.)
This is a much more realistic representation of racism. It’s not about hate, it’s about utility. Slavery was *useful.* George Washington freed all his slaves but not until he was dead. He knew that slavery was wrong but he was only willing to do the right thing when it was no longer inconvenient to him. I think this is true of most oppression. Sure, some of it is rooted in fear or hatred but, more than anything, oppression is convenient. This kind of oppression is currently inescapable in America, with the exception of, like, the amish, if you eat food or wear clothes, you are benefiting from the exploitation of someone.
Back to Get Out. I think it’s incredibly important that the family be “Good Liberal White people.” If the family were your standard redneck, the film would veer dangerously close to cliche. If they were an affluent southern family, it would work but it would contribute to the country’s limited view of what racism looks like. The truth is that there are a lot of “Good Liberal White People” who still do very racist things, they just don’t talk about them. They are the people in my home town who will talk all day about how bad racism is, but vote against public transportation to the city or affordable housing in their town because they don’t want “those people” coming to their town.They are the people who voted for Trump because they wanted their tax break.
It’s not that they hate black people, it’s that they don’t mind hurting them.
This is still, obviously, racism. It’s just racism with plausible deniability. Get Out shows just how damaging that deniability is. Plenty of black people have said that they would rather deal with an outright racist, than one who hides behind liberal lip service, and Get Out made me understand why. It’s easy to avoid someone with a confederate flag tattoo, but not a fake liberal. A person who does racist things, has racist thoughts, but doesn’t think they’re A Racist is someone who can sneak in to your life, gain your trust, and stab you in the back whenever it’s most convenient to them. They will always find a way to justify it, a way to say that this was motivated by something other than racism, a way to say that you’re overreacting.