Get Out is a 2017 horror/thriller film. The plot follows Chris Washington, a young African American man who uncovers dark and disturbing secrets as he meets his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage. Chris and his girlfriend Rose have reached the milestone in their dating when the couple meets each other's parents. The main twist within the movie is that we find out that, this family, for decades, has been “supplying” African American bodies for the old and dying white people in their cult. The film was made to show the audience what racially motivated anxiety of being a black person feels like. It shows what goes through the mind of a black person in an interracial relationship meeting their significant other for the first time. Although there is a clear message of the movie, I have chosen this product to explore Paul Gilroy as I think it is useful to see how the theory works and its key elements.
Paul Gilroy believes that we can still see the effects of colonialism in the media now. Due to this, he believes that ethnic minorities are often shown as weak, powerless, dehumanised, marginalised and 'other'. Furthermore, white western people are often shown as more powerful, successful and important.
Examples to support the theory:
There is a scene in the film where Chris is powerless to defend himself from a white woman, as she uses a teacup to hypnotize him and ultimately keep him under her control. Jordan Peele has said that this is symbolic in that slave masters used to summon house slaves using teacups. It represents the character and people of colour in general as subordinate and weak, as he has no chance of fighting back.
This was one of the posters for the movie and it could be interpreted as applying to Gilroy's theory. This is because we see a black man restrained in a chair, with a terrified facial expression, making him appear powerless. Above him, there are the villains of the story, the white protagonists. They appear to be dominant and in control, arguably creating an 'us vs them' ideology, putting the person of colour at a disadvantage and representing him as a victim. Furthermore, the other two people of colour included in the poster are placed behind the white people, making them seem less important and relevant.
Examples to contrast the theory:
Although, Get Out could apply to what Gilroy believes and could be interpreted as conforming to the effects of colonialism in the media, there is a clear message and theme which explains why the films features and plot is what it is. The film's overarching theme is that its horrors are literal. In real life, the politeness's of casual racism, what Wilkinson describes as “racist behaviour that tries to be aggressively unscary”, are consciously deployed efforts to reinforce prejudice. Therefore, it could be said that a criticism of Gilroy's theory is that it does not look into the reasons behind the effects of colonialism in the media and does not explain it.
The film instead could be a comment and criticism on the racism in our society and what it would be like to experience it first-hand. David Gauntlett's theory of identity may be a more useful theory to apply to Get Out as the main protagonist acts as a role model for people of colour and is someone that an audience member who is also a person of colour could identify with.
Comments