Jordan Peele's Get Out Film Techniques

Jordan Peele’s Get Out is a horror film used to shed light on a more progressive form of racism by using the disturbing idea of white people transferring brains with black people in order to gain their natural biological advantages, such as speed, bone structure, and strength. The story begins when the main character, Chris, a young black man, goes on a trip to visit his girlfriend Rose’s family house. Chris quickly realizes there is something wrong with the Armitage family and begins to investigate. When he finally uncovers what is going on, it is too late and the family uses hypnosis to lock him into the basement. The sound of a spoon hitting a teacup triggers his hypnosis and is how the Armitages keep him under control, but Chris combats this by plugging his ears in order to fight back and eventually escape the house,

Jordan Peele showcases this idea throughout the film by employing a more tolerant racism that is less apparent until it is too late. When the family party begins, Chris meets some of Rose’s white family members who participate in seemingly unharmful dialogue like “I do know Tiger” (Peele 42:59), “Is (sex) better?” (Peele 43:37), and “Black is in fashion” (Peele 43:39) in reference to Chris being black. These microaggressions are glanced over in the film until the audience later realizes that these remarks were a foreshadowing of the white people bidding on who would gain Chris’s body, showing that racism is about removing a black person’s own control of their bodies and taking their natural strengths from them. Racism has evolved and entered a more modern era. A crucial part of the film is when Chris pulls cotton out of his ears (Peele 1:28:37). This scene marks the beginning of his hope for escape, but also introduces a dissonance to the previous ideas within the film regarding a more traditional