When Fear Mirrors Reality
The release of Get Out in 2017 was, in part, a zeitgeist moment in film history. Jordan Peele, at that time primarily a comedian, was radically transforming the horror genre literacy by adding a political dimension to the spectrum of horror, suspense, and dark humor. Its transformative power was in its cross-cultural connectivity. Indian audiences, particularly those that have lived in hierarchically organized societies of caste, colour, and class, found Get Out deeply familiar. Its truths placed within the domestic settings of the United States could just as easily unfold in our own households.
The Calm Before the Horror
The film opens with Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young Black photographer, traveling to a family estate with his white girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams). The initial impression of the family estate is positive: the lawns are clean, the smiles friendly, the conversations, while awkward, appear to be well-meaning, and there are positive discussions, albeit awkward, about race. Of the many unsettling things in the estate, horror in *Get Out * emerges as social politeness transforms into hostility and social paranoia is cranked into the relentless pressure of the gaze. Chris’ white girlfriend’s family portrays horror through social politeness and psychopathically conceals a latent hostility.
For Indian audiences accustomed to films that tend to overlook or be dismissive of microaggressions or prejudice, Get Out was a lesson in understatement. The film did not shout about racism; it whispered it. When Rose’s father, played by Bradley Whitford, boastfully mentions that he would have voted for Obama a third time, we hear the everyday Indian comment: “We don’t believe in caste, but we prefer our own people.” The discomfort is not loud — it is polite, educated, and socially acceptable. That is what made Peele’s narrative so frightening.
Daniel Kaluuya: The Face That Said Everything Without Words
Daniel Kaluuya’s performance is the one that carries Get Out — quiet, watchful, and profoundly human. Long before Hollywood came to regard him as one of its leading lights, Kaluuya was recognized in Britain for Black Mirror’s “Fifteen Million Merits.” Peele was said to have cast him after seeing that episode, enthralled by Kaluuya’s ability to convey so much pain and defiance with a mere glance.
Kaluuya’s life journey is surprisingly similar to his character’s. Kaluuya has said, “As a kid, I was always code-switching — different at school, different at home.” Having to endlessly adjust, and being on high alert for danger or acceptance, formed the basis for his portrayal of Chris.
The horror of Chris’s psychological and literal entrapment in the “Sunken Place” is, like the horror of cinema, a horror of reality. It metaphorically represents a reservoir of silenced voices for centuries. And the Indians for whom the metaphor is a reality know it well. It represents the marginality of people, by caste or gender, silenced, ignored, and rendered invisible to the moving world above.
Peele’s Defiance
Peele’s defiance is in the journey to get to Get Out. After garnering acclaim in comedy for Key & Peele, he was met with widespread skepticism for his ability to tackle horror, let alone reinvent it. Studios consistently rejected his ideas on the basis of the script being “too political” and “too risky.” Undeterred, Peele self-financed the early development stages.
The concept was innovative though straightforward: to utilize the horror genre to highlight the horrifying realities of racism. Although this approach might have risked failure, Peele’s intuition was on point. While growing up, he immersed himself in works like The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, and Night of the Living Dead, and learned to appreciate the slow build of dread. He took that feeling from these works, replacing the supernatural with the socially real.
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