Why I love Get Out

Jordan Peele’s Get Out is undoubtedly a masterpiece but one conversation made me realise how important the film is.

One of my coworkers was speaking to me about Get Out and he said that although he loved the film, he didn’t understand why it was the massive phenomenon that it was.

First of all, it’s probably the best breakout film of the 21st century. Some people may call that a bold statement but I will happily stand by it. Jordan Peele is an incredible director and just his first two films have proven that. Not only has he created completely original storylines but he is also well versed in both horror and comedy. Furthermore, the hidden messages in both films make you watch to watch the film another time around.

Of course, another reason to love the film, and by extension Jordan Peele is his inclusion. He did actually get in some hot water after saying he didn’t want to use white people as his main characters. Obviously those who were offended were white and in my opinion quite ignorant because representation is so much more important than people with privilege realise, and there are already hundreds of thousands of films with white protagonists, so making films with main characters who are people of colour that aren’t built on stereotypes are majorly important for representation within the media.

However, the real reason I love Get Out comes from the realisation that it sent shockwaves through the white community, not just the black community. And I think it did this by perfectly showing how uncomfortable black people are made to feel in everyday life. This is really hammered home by the way Rose’s family speak to Chris and how detached they are from the black community, and even the most ignorant white person would be able to feel the cringe of the way they speak to Chris. Peele then pushes this even further by having Andre, Georgina, and Walter as outwardly black characters but through the incredible acting, it is made obvious that they are detached and inhabited by someone white.

Yet the most evident show of this real life distrust is that Chris is uncomfortable from the beginning of the film about being “around too many white people”. Although we realise by the end of the film that the distrust was completely based in truth, in the beginning it’s just a natural reaction to being around white people. Perhaps if Chris’ quote was taken out of context I would get offended but when watching the film you can’t help but feel that he’s right.

So that’s why I love Get Out. Because it makes the white community see the world through a black persons view, very literally.