Reader Response

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Reader’s Response: Themes and Symbolism in Jordan Peele’s Get out Film
Since the distant past, any human settlement in the form of a cabin or an estate deep in the woods houses the most horrific experience for trespassers. Jordan Peele’s film Get Out (2017) confirms this except for the fact that the victims are welcomed guests whose only crime is being born black. As the story unfolds, the theme of racism stands out leaving the audience frightened by the evils racial profiling propagates. However, to understand this poignant allegory masterpiece, one has to capture intense symbolism used. In the film Get Out, Peele uses symbolisms such a sense of sight, camera, silver spoon, and sunken place to bring out the theme or racism, relationship, and social control.
In this film, Chris who is the protagonist accompanies his fiancée, Rose, to her parents’ home for the first time. As a photographer, he carries his camera which becomes an important tool that helps him note the strange world at Armitage’s (in-laws’) home deep in the countryside (Peele 12). When Chris became aware of the danger that he was in, things had already turned horrific, and only his faintest breath and hypnotized mind could get him out of the dangers of Armitage.
The key thematic concern in this masterpiece is racism. In no doubt, this theme must have been inspired by Peele’s Africa-American status that serves as a limitation in authority of white supremacists (Berman 3; Cruz 4).

In the film, the Armitages’ victims are blacks, something that makes Chris ask the question “Why us? Why black people?” Peele 67). This is after the realization that the housekeeper, groundskeeper, and Logan (a lost black celebrity) are all blacks. It dawns in his mind that although Rose had denied his parents being racists, her family dwells in racial fears against the black servants. Peele uses horror tropers to demonstrate that racism is pernicious.
The other theme evident in Peele’s masterpiece is social control. This theme occurs simultaneously with racism, whereby the white family is seen as obsessively controlling. Perhaps the behaviors of both Logan and Chris in the film bring out this theme best. When white guests come at Rose’s home, Chris is amazed to see Logan, a celebrity who was reported missing months ago. However, he notices that Logan looked in control of his white mistress. Even now, Chris did not know that Mrs. Armitage, Rose’s mother, was getting him in hypnosis sessions to put him in under control and not to help him overcome his smoking problem. Finally, the theme of interracial relationship together with the worries it brings to the inferior aces is brought out by the connection between Rose and Chris. For example, Chris is worried what Roses’ parents will say when they see he is black, to which she ascertains that they will be fine with it. In revealing these themes, Peele used adequate symbolism marked by different instances during the movie.
The most evident symbolism is the sense of sight used to exaggerate or amplify the imbalances of control and poser based on the racial divide. For example, Chris sight is used backed up by strong visual and audio effects to describe a realization or fear. The other symbol used is Camera, through which Chris captures the fears of Logan when he attempts to take a photo of him (Logan) (Cruz 7). The camera is used as a shield between the odd behavior of people like Logan (and Armitage) and Chris. Apart from being such shield, a camera is used as the power to reveal hidden intentions of the white people in the film.
Also, a stirring silver spoon is used to represent the privileges; wealth and power passed down through generations (Berman 8). Mrs. Armitage uses a teacup and the silver spoon to hypnotize Chis and consequently gain control over him. This resembles a normal American society in which people born as white, rich and powerful control their black subjects (Jasmine 2). Finally, a sunken surface that Chris falls helplessly upon hypnosis by Rose’s mother is a symbol. Chris is seen to enter a different state dominated by fear and in a trance into an out-of-body experience (Jasmine 3). It represents the way African Americans have shifted from one experience to another in history, from slavery to Tuskegee experiments to modern police brutality via mass incarceration.
In brief, Peele’s Get Out film is a strong allegory of racism, control and their horrific impacts on the blacks. Peele uses adequate symbolism ranging from camera, silver spoon to a sense of sight to dig deeper to the evils of racism. Notably, his focus on the plight of the blacks seems inspired by his identity as an African American. Nonetheless, the film comes out as a perfect masterpiece, although the first of its kind from Jordan Peele, unlike his other comedy works.
Works Cited
Berman, Eliza. “In “Get Out,” Liberal Racism Is The Monster.” Time, 2017, http://time.com/4674152/jordan-peele-get-out-horror/.
Cruz, Lenika. “The Meaning Of Eyes And Cameras In ‘Get Out.'” The Atlantic, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/in-get-out-the-eyes-have-it/518370/.
Jasmine Grant. “We Need To Talk About All Of The Symbolism In getting Out.” VH1 News, 2017, http://www.vh1.com/news/303784/get-out-movie-symbolism/.
Peele, Jordan, Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Edward H. Hamm, Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Caleb L. Jones, Stephen Root, Keith Stanfield, Catherine Keener, Toby Oliver, Gregory Plotkin, and Michael Abels. Get Out. , 2017.