By: Jeremiah Holloway (’22), Managing Editor
To fully comprehend any movie, it takes several viewings and time to process what you just watched to get a real understanding of what happened. Horror films, which tend to dominate people’s movie rotations in the month of October, are no different.
Some enjoy the appeal of jump scares in horror films. Others love to watch each scene and figure out what will happen next. Then there are those who look for compelling storylines and underlying messages within the film. Thematically, Black horror films will explore different meanings because of their rarity within the genre.
In the last few years, Jordan Peele has delivered two thought-provoking horror films for fans to pick apart and decipher. The Key & Peele actor made his first horror film splash in 2017 with the highly-acclaimed film Get Out. This movie was layered with hidden meanings and creative symbolism. The overarching plot of a Black man, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), being tricked into his own kidnapping by a White family, the Armitage’s, was a gateway into a myriad of ideas. Through Chris’ time at the Armitage house, the audience was exposed to different concepts of how Black people are viewed in America.
The auctioning of Chris’ body at a party can be tied to America’s desire to “be Black.” At the party, he is asked by one of the Armitage family members about the pros and cons of being Black. As he walks around, he is told that being Black is now “in fashion” and some of the family members check out his body before the auction.These comments and actions gave insight to the superficial attempt non-Black people make to learn about the Black experience, though they remain with their own preconceived notions of us.
Trying to appeal themselves to Chris, the family will make comments to make them seem more “woke.” An example of this in the movie occurred towards the beginning of the movie when Rose’s father was discussing his respect for Jesse Owens and how he would have voted for Barack Obama for a third term if he could have. This theme occurs in society today, with performative activism on social media.
Once Chris catches on to their plan, he escapes on his own before he confronts Rose again. When he starts to choke her, a police car arrives at the scene. Knowing what we know about society in real life, the Black audience figured it was over for Chris. Fortunately, his friend, Rod, was in the car and saved him on behalf of TSA. The suspense that accompanied this moment brought light to the truth of the historical police mistreatment of Black people.
His 2019 production, Us, took a similar approach but with different themes. The idea of every character in the movie having a “tethered” self illustrates the concept that everybody could be living in an entirely different reality than the one they are in. The Tethered people lived much more difficult lives and were not as gifted as the people they were mirroring. This represented the possibility that people could take their life circumstances for granted and often overlook people in different situations.
Another theme of the film was the act of ignoring suppressed voices. The movie’s antagonist, Red (Lupita Nyong’o), tells the protagonist, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), about her ultimate plan to have the Tethered take over the world and get their revenge on the world. They orchestrated a movement called “Hands Across America”, which involved them killing the “real” versions of themselves and standing in unity amongst themselves. As the great Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” The Tethered come to the surface and wreak havoc upon society, a plan that had been in the making for years. As we see in today’s world, oppressed people groups rise up when the rest of the world turns a blind eye on them.
The uniqueness of Us was that mostly all of the main cast members were Black, but the movie did not necessarily speak exclusively to the Black experience. We were shown a Black family going on vacation and trying to enjoy their time. The audience saw a Black, two parent household on screen for a movie that wasn’t about slavery or oppression in America. The value of representation within the horror genre cannot be overstated, so the intentionality of Peele in this regard helped him effectively hit on certain themes but also uplift Black people within the genre.
Sources:
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14759756/get-out-benevolent-racism-white-feminism
Unpacking 'Us'
