(The
following is a conversation between Big Media Vandalism
founder Steven Boone and Big Media Vandalism's proprietor Odie
Henderson. It is the latest in the Black Man Talk series. Other
installments include American Gangsters, Tyler Perry, Django Unchained, 42, Lee Daniels' The Butler, Dear White People and 12 Years a Slave)
THIS IS VERY SPOILERIFIC! DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU'VE SEEN GET OUT.
THIS IS VERY SPOILERIFIC! DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU'VE SEEN GET OUT.
Post #1: Odie
Brother Boone, I was hoping our next Black Man Talk would be about the vengeance-filled tell-all book President Obama wrote once he got out of office. Alas, he only signed the book deal for that last week. So unless he's as quick as Stephen King and can turn out that book by the end of this sentence, we're going to have to choose another subject.
Don't rush me, goddammit!
I propose we look at Jordan Peele's social horror hit, Get Out. This is the
story of a brother whose dalliance with a White woman yields terrifying though hilarious results. It's a cautionary tale that will immediately
evoke memories of conversations between Black men and their parents. Finally, we've got a movie that will do what millions of warnings from
Black Mamas couldn't: It puts the symptom of chills back into Jungle Fever!
I admit I was skeptical about this movie. First of all, I am not fan of Key & Peele, the Comedy Central show that Get Out's writer-director Jordan Peele did with his old MadTV colleague, Keegan-Michael Key. I just didn't find them funny, and I was hard-pressed to find another Black person who did. Couple that with the absolutely rapturous reception by film critics, and all I could see were red flags. You and I both know the film critic
world is as White as a blank sheet of paper, but outside of Armond White, there were no critic howls of outrage. Immediately, I was suspicious. "This shit is probably toothless!" I thought.
I was happy to be wrong. This thing bites and breaks the skin. How on Earth did this movie get made?
Let's talk about not only the movie but the recent outpouring of White Tears against it! And let's comment on OUR boy, Get Out co-star Lakeith Stanfield's tweet about YOUR boy, Armond White's review. And let's talk about the cinematic precedents of this film's race-tinged horror movie plot. The film that immediately sticks out for me is Three the Hard Way, whose poisoning of the Black neighborhood's water supply plot was adapted by the GOP for Flint, Michigan.
But first, I'd like to present a skit detailing what would have happened had I brought a White woman home.
Heather: HIIIIII! It's so nice to meet Odie's parents! (to my mother) Odie tells me you like Turtles candies so I brought you a huge box!
Odie's Mom: Oh thank you, dear! That's very nice of you.
(Takes box, hands it to my Pops)
Odie's Mom: Put those in the refrigerator, please. (to me) Odell, can I see you in the other room for a minute?
Me: Sure, Ma. Be right back, honey! (We leave)
(Cut to the outside of my parents' house. Suddenly, the roof flies off the house in a huge explosion. The blast sends me flying straight into the sky. The roof falls back on the house crooked.)
(Cut to back inside the house)
Odie's Mom (re-enters room, smoothing down her blouse and skirt before opening her arms to hug Heather) Welcome to the family, girl!
I exaggerate. Slightly. My mother always thought I was gay. She once told me that, if I ever brought home a White man, he better not be broke. When I brought home the Black woman I eventually married, my mother said "OK, so you like girls too. Whatever. Still, don't bring home no White woman." It never ceases to amuse me that the roof would have stayed on the house in the above skit had I brought home a White man.
But
I digress. There's a great throwaway bit in Malcolm Lee's Undercover
Brother where Chi McBride reacts to Eddie Griffin bringing Denise
Richards' White She Devil character to Undercover Brother HQ. McBride
says something like "he did NOT just bring that White woman up in here!"
The line isn't as funny as his delivery of it; he sounded exactly the
way my mother--and a lot of Black parents--would have sounded. Because,
unless you come from a biracial union like Peele and his parter in crime, Key, there's a parental expectation attached to future
children-in-law. Sometimes it's unspoken, and other times it's blatant as
hell. But the expectation is there. Society has hammered into our heads
a series of givens: everybody's straight and everybody's gonna bring
home someone that looks like them.
Of
course, these givens are quite often disproven, and there's usually
more fallout than people acknowledge. Peele hints at this in the first
scene between lovers Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Girls' Allison
Williams, perfectly cast). Chris asks a very valid question: "Do your
parents know I'm Black?" Rose responds with an answer that immediately
infuriated me. "Should they?" she asks. "Hell yes!" the loud, talk back
to the screen Black kid inside of me yelled in his head. "This is your
cue to RUN, Chris!!"
Rose's response is the first of many microagressions Get Out blatantly explores and exploits, though, as we find out later, her response is of a bigger, more sinister piece; it's pure aggression rather than microaggression. I fucking hate the word "microaggressions," because they damn sure don't feel micro when you're subjected to them every day. But I guess it's the word I'm stuck with here, and the way Peele works these microaggressions into the horror fabric of his film is the movie's best asset. You and I both know what it feels like to be the only person of color in a room, and how much more worrisome it can be, whether that worry is justified or not, when we're the center of attention in that room. Let's talk about that great party scene where Chris meets the way too friendly denizens of Rose's small hometown. Without the overambitious pleasantries, it could have been a scene from a slavery epic.
Before I get too deeply into the delicious minutiae of Peele's mise-en-scene (and also tell the watermelon-centric story of the time I met a White girlfriend's parents), I'll turn the floor over to you. What did you think of the film overall? How was your moviegoing experience? (My audience was VERY vocal--more on that later.) What was the deal with Rose's creepy ass brother?! Do you think Catherine Keener's character was Peele's less than subtle commentary on the stigma that often accompanies Black folks who seek therapy? And what woulda happened if you'd brought home a White woman?
Take me to the Sunken Place, my brother.
Post #2: Boone
I saw the movie with our buddy Simon Abrams and a diverse, very game and vocal New York crowd. It was the loudest, funnest time I've had at a horror movie since seeing Drag Me to Hell at the Court Street multiplex in downtown Brooklyn some years ago. This film has a comedian's sense of the crowd.
I hadn't any high hopes for this flick, either. Key & Peele are clever but somewhat generic comedy writers, and lackluster as performers. Plus I couldn't tell from the trailer whether we were in for an eccentric horror or just an extended K&P skit. So Peele's really rich writing and subtle, visually astute direction in Get Out were a nice surprise.
It's bursting, roiling with ideas, but at the center of the maelstrom is a question: What do white people want from us? Now, bruvas of the world like you and I definitely have white friends with whom this question never comes up. That's why they're our friends. But all my life I've had unsettling encounters similar to those played for horror-comedy in Get Out: being placed, out of the blue, on a kind of impromptu stage, under a spotlight at work or in a social setting where I am the only dark person in the room. And then holding, essentially, a press conference on my race.
The focus of the symposium varies, but I'd say the top three subjects are
- The size of my Johnson
- Whether I agree or disagree with some controversial statement a black celebrity has recently made
- Am I as pissed off as they (the questioner) about some recent political or social justice outrage affecting my people (if the questioner is essentially liberal) OR
- Am I as pissed off as they about some racial double standard that has resulted in an injustice against an innocent white person (if the questioner is essentially conservative and has assessed that I am fair-minded enough to hear them out).
But in so-called black life, friendly faces that could determine your fate are a daily reality. There is no sweeter, more inviting face than Catherine Keener's, and look how it masks her affluent white character's power--until she's good and ready to use it. Her husband and creepy ass son, being restless alpha males, have a harder time hiding that they don't mean entirely well. It's Chris, their black house guest, who has to stay fully on his toes in their presence. If any of the tension boils over into something physical, he is the one who will have the most explaining to do, and fast, if the police arrive.
Yes, Peele plays a lot of black folks' hangups and internalized oppression like a fiddle. This includes the psychology stigma.The Sunken Place is all that suppressed shit that paralyzes us. It's also a handy metaphor for being "woke" yet powerless to act.
You know, I have no idea how my parents, who grew up in the South during the Emmett Till years, would have reacted if I brought home a white girl. No roof explosions, for sure, but definitely a Fred Sandford chest-clutch or two.
I want to hear more on the micro stuff, the subtle messages and flourishes you spied on Peele's work here. Abrams told me of Richard Brody's observation that with this film Peele has become America's Bunuel. That sounds so right.
Post #3: Odie
The experiences you've described mirror both my own experiences and the ones Get Out puts Chris through. Except Peele throws them at Chris all at once, which makes things more terrifying. Surely we can handle a few of these aggravations, but every single one in succession would make even the strongest person start doubting their sanity. Like Ira Levin, a master of the social thriller subgenre Get Out belongs to, Jordan Peele's screenplay keeps us off-balance. As in real life, we question whether our perception of events is being altered by our innate paranoia. Because to be Black in America, or, in Levin's character Rosemary's case, to be female in America, is to have an almost deer-like awareness of potential danger: Sometimes it's just a harmless noise in nature, but sometimes it's really a hunter with a gun. We just aren't sure until we have a moment to reflect, and such moments tend to be scarce. We need to ACT accordingly and immediately.
It's no coincidence Bradley Whitford's character, Dean, brings up his hatred of deer during his initial meeting with Chris. His speech is the first indication something may be awry. Chris is lulled into a false sense of security by Dean's wife Missy (Keener) and Rose's embarrassment at Dean's Dad jokes and his attempts to be Negro hip. Whose parents don't seem tragically out of date to their kids?
Chris' introduction, and Dean's use of "thang" and "brother" reminded me of the time I went to my first (and thus far only) White girlfriend's house for a barbecue (notice I didn't say cookout. YOU KNOW WHY!!) I was young--15 in fact--and stupid, but smart enough to know you do not eat the potato salad at a barbecue! Her dad seemed normal enough, and so did her Mom, though the Dad did call me "brother" and used jive phrases I swear he got from Barbara Billingsley in Airplane!.
I love that June Cleaver says "Whitey" in this clip about her jive fluency
The only time it got uncomfortable was, after eating hot dogs and burgers (I purposely avoided the ribs--optics, y'know!), the Mom came outside with this HUGE tray of sliced watermelon.
She went around offering it to the guests, and when she got to me, the only Black person there, she froze. I could read her face: THIS LOOKS BAD! Optics, y'know! She was about to offer me (sarcastic tone) the dreaded fruit of racism, WATERMELON!!!
Evil is only 19 cents a pound!
Now, had she offered everybody else strawberries and came to me with a big ass Petey Greene slice of watermelon, THAT would have been racist. But she was offering everybody the same thing. So it was fine. But it was the first time I'd seen that sense of social paranoia I normally felt being reflected back at me on a White person's face.
"It's OK," I told her, "really it is." She offered, and I politely declined. Because I HATE watermelon. Hate it! Hate it! Hate it!
Again, I am digressing. You said:
"It's bursting, roiling with ideas, but at the center of the maelstrom is a question: What do white people want from us?"
Peele's answer to this question is the film's most subversive touch--the one that made me say "shit, they let him make this?!"
This is a movie about Black victims of theft. The body-snatcher angle makes it blatant, but it's more than just about the theft of Black bodies, a clear slavery metaphor that this great Esquire article explores better than I could. It's also about the theft of achievement, the theft of culture and the theft of myths that were originally conjured up by the same folks now trying to commandeer the hype. The only way they can do this is by stealing the bodies of their victims, controlling them like marionettes while--and this is the most sadistic part--keeping just enough of the original host's psyche alive so that, in rare moments of clarity, they know what's happening to them.
Peele runs with these thefts, bending them into horror elements.
Peele's answer to this question is the film's most subversive touch--the one that made me say "shit, they let him make this?!"
This is a movie about Black victims of theft. The body-snatcher angle makes it blatant, but it's more than just about the theft of Black bodies, a clear slavery metaphor that this great Esquire article explores better than I could. It's also about the theft of achievement, the theft of culture and the theft of myths that were originally conjured up by the same folks now trying to commandeer the hype. The only way they can do this is by stealing the bodies of their victims, controlling them like marionettes while--and this is the most sadistic part--keeping just enough of the original host's psyche alive so that, in rare moments of clarity, they know what's happening to them.
Peele runs with these thefts, bending them into horror elements.
The myth theft: Lakeith Stanfield is literally stolen in the film's creepy opening sequence, presumably because he'd make a believable Black buck for the horny middle-aged White woman practically glued to him at the big party. Sure, he'll sling the long john! To quote Lethal Weapon 2: It's "because he's BLACK!!!" Why else would he be chosen, without prior carnal knowledge, by this woman? Plus, he's her personal Umfufu, the African lady Eddie Murphy married in Raw. In that movie, Murphy jokes that he has the perfect person to exploit, but the second Umfufu talks to "American woman" her brainwashed spell is broken and she has an important moment of clarity that fucks up Eddie's game. Look at how that woman tries to keep Stanfield from Chris! But the second he takes that picture, Stanfield is self-aware long enough to issue his ominous warning: "GET OUT! GET OUT!"
The achievement/culture theft: Creativity and achievements have no color, but legitimacy is usually White, especially in the arts. You put in all this work to make something your own, but there's a possibility that you will get jacked for it. This is something we've seen over the years, from Elvis on down to Macklemore. Pat Boone could sing Tutti Fruitti and make it a #1 song, but Little Richard had to settle for it being race music when he released it.
Here's where Chris comes in handy. He's an artist, a photographer of urban scenes. Jim Hudson (Stephen Root from Office Space), the blind art gallery owner, is able to visualize whatever pictures are in his gallery courtesy of someone describing them to him. Granted, the person describing the art must be a wordsmith on par with Cyrano de Bergerac, but Hudson isn't without his own talent despite his blindness. Hell, Stevie Wonder can describe a sunset better than somebody with 20/15 eyesight, so I could buy Hudson's genius. And yet, Hudson wants to see the world through Chris' eyes. Chris' harsh and joyful experiences as a Black man have shaped his photographer's eye, and now Hudson wants to steal it without having to do any of the work.
Had Chris been more muscular and in shape, his body might have gone to Rose's creepy brother, Jeremy, whose fetishistic drooling indicated he would love to have all that perceived skill without doing any of the work.
Or, as Peele's fellow comedian Paul Mooney used to say:
The achievement/culture theft: Creativity and achievements have no color, but legitimacy is usually White, especially in the arts. You put in all this work to make something your own, but there's a possibility that you will get jacked for it. This is something we've seen over the years, from Elvis on down to Macklemore. Pat Boone could sing Tutti Fruitti and make it a #1 song, but Little Richard had to settle for it being race music when he released it.
Here's where Chris comes in handy. He's an artist, a photographer of urban scenes. Jim Hudson (Stephen Root from Office Space), the blind art gallery owner, is able to visualize whatever pictures are in his gallery courtesy of someone describing them to him. Granted, the person describing the art must be a wordsmith on par with Cyrano de Bergerac, but Hudson isn't without his own talent despite his blindness. Hell, Stevie Wonder can describe a sunset better than somebody with 20/15 eyesight, so I could buy Hudson's genius. And yet, Hudson wants to see the world through Chris' eyes. Chris' harsh and joyful experiences as a Black man have shaped his photographer's eye, and now Hudson wants to steal it without having to do any of the work.
Had Chris been more muscular and in shape, his body might have gone to Rose's creepy brother, Jeremy, whose fetishistic drooling indicated he would love to have all that perceived skill without doing any of the work.
Or, as Peele's fellow comedian Paul Mooney used to say:
"Everybody wanna be a nigga, nobody wanna be a nigga."
What did you think of LilRel Howery, Peele's stand-in and the film's conspiracy theory-heavy Black id, and the two scary House Negroes responsible for many of those goose-inducing jump scares?
Post #4: Boone
Just last night I had an encounter that made me think of Get Out's first act. I was delivering some groceries to an apartment on West 57th Street but my scanning device suddenly died. I hadn't memorized the customer's apartment number, and without my device I couldn't determine which of the mountain of sealed blank packages I was carrying belonged to this customer. So I took some time to sort everything out, with the help of my dispatcher over the phone.
After I got it together, I loaded only the packages I needed onto the elevator, just as a woman somewhere past 60--who happened to be white--entered the building. "You've got quite a lot of packages there!" she said brightly. I barely acknowledged her--this was a rush delivery, two hour window closing soon--but must have managed to mutter something between short breaths.
Was this the old lady in question? Oh wait, the Dakota's not on W. 57th...
She went on down the ground floor hall, saying, "..but you really can't hold the elevator like that." I said, "...for 20 seconds?" She went into her apartment.
After I delivered the stuff upstairs, I organized the rest of my bags before heading out. I was almost at the front door when a man--who happened to be white and about six foot seven--got in front of me. He asked me what I was doing. It took me a moment. He wasn't wearing any uniform or badge. I told him I'd just made a delivery. He said I had a lot of bags, was I sure I was delivering? I said these bags are for other drops.
He asked if he could see some ID, that "we" had "been watching" me "on the camera" in the lobby for "some time." I hadn't even thought about a camera but now I could see it up there in a corner behind him. "...so I'm just investigating." Investigating? Odie, this dude looked like Steve Wilkos.
(this is from stevewilkos.com)
I felt like one of the rapists on his show. But I played it cool, searched my bag for my work ID, couldn't find it. He then asked what apartment had I delivered to, arms folded, eyes narrow. When I told him, he called the tenant to vouch for me.
Anyway, I'm writing this from jail.
Not the real Steven Boone.
Just kidding! But as I walked down 57th Street after Wannabe Wilkos set me free with a lame apology, I had a slight sickly feeling. A clammy sensation similar to that I've had when in handcuffs, in police custody. This guy was doing his job, I supposed: looking after the tenants in a city where push-in robberies and assaults still happen on occasion. But I'd delivered to this building before. They get deliveries of all kinds all the time. What had he--or they, whoever they were--seen on the camera aside from a harried courier scrambling to get his shit together? A black hoodie I had forgotten to pull down, five o' clock shadow, a slender frame (crackhead? perc-popper?), maybe too much frantic motion and cell phone action. Maybe they'd had an incident in the past. Maybe the perp had been a courier or delivery man. Maybe their caution had absolutely nothing to do with my color. Wait, had the woman who complained about my holding the elevator called security? Is that why....?
I imagined if Wannabe Wilkos had been of a more George Zimmerman temperament. I imagined if this non-incident had taken place in suburban Florida, or Giuliani-era New York. Or present-day Long Island.
So there's my digression. I guess it has to do with the microaggressions that accrued early on in Get Out (from a highway patrolman; from Chris' girflfriend's dad and brother). They are ancillary to the central theme you've identified: theft.
It's the way Peele weaves this theme into the tight-knit fabric of his story that really grooves. It's in the art direction (the pictures on the walls, Chris' photographs, White Dad's hunting trophies, girlfriend's mementos) and the sound design (a miscegeny of sounds from an aristocrat's Victrola and an especially woke Spotify playlist). Spike was up to similar cultural/historical survey in his Ganja and Hess remake, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, which has more black art on the walls than the Schomburg Library. That film, like its predecessor, was more about the spiritual costs of assimilation, upward mobility, lost ties to "our" heritage. And unlike Get Out, it's a mess. A fascinating, sensual mess, rich with vision. If I have any criticism of Get Out, it's that it could've done with a bit more mess and sensuality and, well, ig'nance, for all its crowd-pleasing propulsiveness. Imagine the fun Spike, a Certified Freakazoid (TM), would've had with the Jungle Fever/Mandingo aspects of this story. (Or, CF (TM) Lee Daniels or neo-blaxploiter Craig Brewer, for that matter.)
Nah, I instantly withdraw that too-many-notes critique. LilRel Howery was enough glorious mess and ig'nance for three movies. As Chris' keep-it-one-hunned homeboy, he kept this heady movie on solid ground. Peele brings him on at the perfect moments to shake up the horror conventions--even though he himself is the latest in a long line of Real Brothers to track mud on a tidy genre carpet, going back to Eddie in The Golden Child, Kadeem Hardison and Bill Nunn in Def by Temptation, Richard Pryor's Wino vs. Dracula...
As for those skeery House Negroes: I just wish I could screen this film with Dr. Ben Carson, and watch his nose bleed.
Not the real Ben Carson
And oh, deer:
I was thrilled, though not surprised, that the deer became such an important metaphor for genocide and plunder. One dead deer's antlers-turned-weapon provided the most charged moment of catharsis. We've been apes in pop culture parables for so long, from Planet of the Apes to Da Lench Mob's one great song Guerillas in da Mist to Harambe memes. But, really, almost all of the "gorillas" are long gone. Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Tupac, etc. The surviving rank and file citizens are generally agreeable foragers whose most revolutionary act is to insist that our Lives Matter.
It's the artists who are stepping up most strikingly. 2016 was the post-Kendrick Year of the Woke. Black artists and allies were finally filtering history and far-flung influences into stunning popular art, guided by a vogue of music videos and short films that began coloring the Internet late last decade. (One of those allies being Japanese-American Hiro Murai, the genius behind the Flying Lotus/Kendrick video masterpiece Never Catch Me and co-genius of Donald Glover's Atlanta series.) We had Beyoncé and her sis turning into audiovisual Nina Simone Sun Ras, FKA Badus. It all seemed to culminate in the triumph of Moonlight and extend into this year with films like Get Out. There have been many films "for us, by us" that express deep consciousness, but few that float like a butterfly, in a singular voice rather than the blunt, roaring voice of "the community." It's the nimble grace that's new. These children of Spike and Kanye and the Criterion Collection have a fine touch that I take as evidence of unprecedented freedom. Freedom not granted but seized.
You said: "Creativity and achievements have no color, but legitimacy is usually White, especially in the arts."
Goddamn, that's it right there. The irony is that we're discussing a film that would not have made it to the front of our Talk slate if the mostly-white critical establishment and Universal Pictures had not put it on the legitimacy radar. Nah, you know what? Fuck that. Good is good. It's enough that Peele traded on his television celebrity to make some art that scans as disquietingly aware of our connection to history as this year's Oscar ghost, August Wilson.
Speaking of da dead, what did you make of Get Out's ending? It felt like a missed opportunity to go fever-dream bananas. A police chase into the night, like the end of Lost Highway. As it is, you know these dudes ain't riding off scot-free with a trail of dead rich white folks behind them.
Bring on the TSA Cavalry, Odie!
The Final Chapter: Odie
That ending showed just how conditioned we are vis-à-vis the cops and brown folks. I've talked to friends of all races, including a few who went to lily-White theaters to see Get Out, and the audience response to those flashing police car lights illuminating Chris has been consistent! People were like:
"AFTER ALL THAT?!! PLEASE GOD, NO!!!!"
At my theater, a voice yelled out from the darkness the exact sentiment that had popped into my head at that moment:
"Oh shit! He is so fucking dead!!!"
Knowing Jordan Peele had cited Night of the Living Dead as one of his inspirations, I immediately assumed Chris would be shot dead. Here's this bruva surrounded by a bunch of dead pillars of the community, with his hands around a shot White woman's neck. You couldn't tell me his ass wasn't getting shot up like Bonnie and Clyde.
But Peele lets us breathe easily. This final jolt is his most shocking one, and not for any horror movie reason. I thought back to that Melvin van Peebles story about how shocked Black audience members were when Sweet Sweetback got away at the end. We're so used to the trope of the Black guy getting killed first (or eventually) in horror movies that Peele jovially puts a twist on our expectations. That he made Chris' savior the audience's stand-in, LilRel's TSA agent, was just the icing on this surprisingly delectable cake of a movie.
This movie has a serious following, with near-unanimous praise. But of course, there are detractors. Let's start with the folks who think this film is misogynistic. The argument I've heard, and ONLY from White viewers, is that the film is too hard on Allison Williams' character. Her demise, as well as Keener's, is too brutal; therefore it's misogynistic. This reminds me of the similar outrage leveled at Tarantino for having Django shoot the mistress of CandieLand. "What did she do?!!" people asked, faces awash in White tears. We talked about that particular scene in our Black Man Talk on Django Unchained, so I'm not beating that ignorant dead horse today.
As for the dead females in Get Out argument, I'd like to point out that:
a. Williams doesn't even get the most brutal demise--that's reserved for her brother.
b. She is responsible for the deaths of numerous former Black lovers, male and female (that box with the pictures in it is almost as gasp-inducingly hilarious as Williams' search criteria for her next victims) and she's the most villainous character in the film.
c. This actress acted her ass off, as did Keener, to create a palpable source of terrifying menace. She deserved a major-league exit. The one thing I hated most about Street Smart was that it didn't give Morgan Freeman's complicated, yet evil pimp an exit worthy of the Oscar-nominated work the actor put into that role.
Truth be told, I thought Williams got off easy compared to the character who got the Ryan Gosling/Drive elevator treatment. She still got a great exit, one she milks for maximum effect.
All this chatter over White woman deaths in a horror movie (a genre where violent death always befalls good Black and female characters by default) is a red herring. It has the same tinge of eye-rolling faux-outrage that accompanied Mookie's trash can through Sal's Pizzeria's window in Do the Right Thing: "But all that property damage!" instead of "someone died just before that scene!"
And then there's this:
This is how OUR dude, Lakeith Stanfield, responded to YOUR dude, Armond White's expected pan of Get Out. This ruined the film's perfect rating on the reprehensible yet extremely well-visited website, Rotten Tomatoes. Readers can go find White's review on their own, as I ain't linking to it. My favorite part of the review, however, is the comment on the dark-skinned features of Daniel Kaluuya, a comment written by a man who ain't passin' no Paper Bag Test either. Seek it out, if you dare!
I wonder if Peele had to fight to cast an actor with Kaluuya's skin tone, even in a film that cost so little money to make. Regardless of how Kaluuya got into this movie, I'm glad he's there. Every frame he's in resonates with a familiarity I felt deeply in my bones. The way he brushes off comments with an uneasy smile, the way he lights up with temporary relief when he sees potential running buddy* Stanfield for the first time. The way he wears his horrific childhood trauma on his stunned, tear-stricken face when Keener hypnotizes him. This is a performance worth remembering. In fact, everyone here is impeccably cast and brings not only their A-game but a sense of fun to the proceedings.
* a "running buddy" is that one other person who looks like you at an event. If shit goes down, you'll know you have at least ONE person to run with as you're being chased.
One final thought: I wonder if the little sliver of the body-snatched person that's intentionally left is there to teach them a lesson about how to behave around their "superiors". What made me think of this is Dr. Ben Carson's comments today about slaves. Addressing a room full of GOP White Folk, Carson said “[t]here were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder, for less.”
Immigrants, Boone. Not property. Immigrants. Sam Jackson went batshit on Twitter about this, calling Carson a "dick headed Tom!" But Carson's words are exactly what his audience wanted to hear--how the slaves were "treated well" and "came here" rather than "were fucking kidnapped, sold and brought here against their motherfucking will." It's so weird how, in order to be a brown person down with this party, you've got to completely obliterate anything about Black reality that may upset them, even if it's an awful truth whose denial would violate the common sense God gave you. You see it in so many KNEE-GROW celebrities cheering for this team. It makes me wonder if these folks, some of whom were once revered or respected by Black folks, are trapped in the Sunken Place. Maybe Get Out 2 can be about their rescue.
I'm out! Let's do this again soon!
"AFTER ALL THAT?!! PLEASE GOD, NO!!!!"
At my theater, a voice yelled out from the darkness the exact sentiment that had popped into my head at that moment:
"Oh shit! He is so fucking dead!!!"
Knowing Jordan Peele had cited Night of the Living Dead as one of his inspirations, I immediately assumed Chris would be shot dead. Here's this bruva surrounded by a bunch of dead pillars of the community, with his hands around a shot White woman's neck. You couldn't tell me his ass wasn't getting shot up like Bonnie and Clyde.
But Peele lets us breathe easily. This final jolt is his most shocking one, and not for any horror movie reason. I thought back to that Melvin van Peebles story about how shocked Black audience members were when Sweet Sweetback got away at the end. We're so used to the trope of the Black guy getting killed first (or eventually) in horror movies that Peele jovially puts a twist on our expectations. That he made Chris' savior the audience's stand-in, LilRel's TSA agent, was just the icing on this surprisingly delectable cake of a movie.
This movie has a serious following, with near-unanimous praise. But of course, there are detractors. Let's start with the folks who think this film is misogynistic. The argument I've heard, and ONLY from White viewers, is that the film is too hard on Allison Williams' character. Her demise, as well as Keener's, is too brutal; therefore it's misogynistic. This reminds me of the similar outrage leveled at Tarantino for having Django shoot the mistress of CandieLand. "What did she do?!!" people asked, faces awash in White tears. We talked about that particular scene in our Black Man Talk on Django Unchained, so I'm not beating that ignorant dead horse today.
As for the dead females in Get Out argument, I'd like to point out that:
a. Williams doesn't even get the most brutal demise--that's reserved for her brother.
b. She is responsible for the deaths of numerous former Black lovers, male and female (that box with the pictures in it is almost as gasp-inducingly hilarious as Williams' search criteria for her next victims) and she's the most villainous character in the film.
c. This actress acted her ass off, as did Keener, to create a palpable source of terrifying menace. She deserved a major-league exit. The one thing I hated most about Street Smart was that it didn't give Morgan Freeman's complicated, yet evil pimp an exit worthy of the Oscar-nominated work the actor put into that role.
Truth be told, I thought Williams got off easy compared to the character who got the Ryan Gosling/Drive elevator treatment. She still got a great exit, one she milks for maximum effect.
All this chatter over White woman deaths in a horror movie (a genre where violent death always befalls good Black and female characters by default) is a red herring. It has the same tinge of eye-rolling faux-outrage that accompanied Mookie's trash can through Sal's Pizzeria's window in Do the Right Thing: "But all that property damage!" instead of "someone died just before that scene!"
And then there's this:
This is how OUR dude, Lakeith Stanfield, responded to YOUR dude, Armond White's expected pan of Get Out. This ruined the film's perfect rating on the reprehensible yet extremely well-visited website, Rotten Tomatoes. Readers can go find White's review on their own, as I ain't linking to it. My favorite part of the review, however, is the comment on the dark-skinned features of Daniel Kaluuya, a comment written by a man who ain't passin' no Paper Bag Test either. Seek it out, if you dare!
I wonder if Peele had to fight to cast an actor with Kaluuya's skin tone, even in a film that cost so little money to make. Regardless of how Kaluuya got into this movie, I'm glad he's there. Every frame he's in resonates with a familiarity I felt deeply in my bones. The way he brushes off comments with an uneasy smile, the way he lights up with temporary relief when he sees potential running buddy* Stanfield for the first time. The way he wears his horrific childhood trauma on his stunned, tear-stricken face when Keener hypnotizes him. This is a performance worth remembering. In fact, everyone here is impeccably cast and brings not only their A-game but a sense of fun to the proceedings.
* a "running buddy" is that one other person who looks like you at an event. If shit goes down, you'll know you have at least ONE person to run with as you're being chased.
One final thought: I wonder if the little sliver of the body-snatched person that's intentionally left is there to teach them a lesson about how to behave around their "superiors". What made me think of this is Dr. Ben Carson's comments today about slaves. Addressing a room full of GOP White Folk, Carson said “[t]here were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder, for less.”
Immigrants, Boone. Not property. Immigrants. Sam Jackson went batshit on Twitter about this, calling Carson a "dick headed Tom!" But Carson's words are exactly what his audience wanted to hear--how the slaves were "treated well" and "came here" rather than "were fucking kidnapped, sold and brought here against their motherfucking will." It's so weird how, in order to be a brown person down with this party, you've got to completely obliterate anything about Black reality that may upset them, even if it's an awful truth whose denial would violate the common sense God gave you. You see it in so many KNEE-GROW celebrities cheering for this team. It makes me wonder if these folks, some of whom were once revered or respected by Black folks, are trapped in the Sunken Place. Maybe Get Out 2 can be about their rescue.
I'm out! Let's do this again soon!
Another Black Man Talk?!! Oh no! No no no no no no noooo!
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