Essay Proposal: Get Out By Jordan Peele Illustrates

Essay Proposal: Get Out By Jordan Peele Illustrates

This essay explores how Jordan Peele’s film Get Out uses symbolic storytelling, soundtrack choices, and critical reception to reveal deeper, more nuanced truths about racial dynamics in contemporary society. Unlike common interpretations that frame the film solely as a horror critique of racism, this analysis highlights how Peele constructs a layered allegory exposing systemic racial exploitation and the societal blind spots surrounding race, identity, and privilege. The film challenges viewers to recognize the pervasive, often invisible mechanisms of racial control and the ways in which whiteness is constructed as dominant and normative, even within ostensibly progressive spaces. This perspective moves beyond surface-level themes, illuminating how Peele’s visual and auditory cues, as well as the film’s narrative ambiguities, serve to expose the covert ways race continues to shape social realities today.

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Jordan Peele’s Get Out is a seminal work that transcends typical horror tropes to reveal complex and unsettling truths about race relations in modern America. While it is widely acknowledged that the film addresses racial tensions, a deeper analysis emphasizes how Peele employs symbolic storytelling, sound design, and critical discourse to critique systemic racial exploitation. This essay argues that Get Out uniquely illustrates the covert and insidious mechanisms through which racial supremacy persists, often under the guise of liberal progressiveness, and how its cinematic elements serve as visual and auditory allegories for these systemic issues.

Symbolic Construction and Hidden Messages

One of the most compelling aspects of Get Out lies in its symbolic use of sound and imagery to communicate hidden messages. The soundtrack, including Childish Gambino’s Redbone, exemplifies this through lyrics like “Stay woke,” which encourages awareness of racial injustices that are often concealed. The song’s invocation to “listen to your ancestors” and the Swahili music scene underline the importance of collective memory and cultural roots, functioning as metaphors for resistance against racial erasure. These sonic cues embed warnings within the film, illustrating how systemic racism operates like a subconscious force that must be consciously recognized and challenged. Peele intentionally chooses these musical elements to reinforce the idea that awareness is the first step in escaping racial oppression.

Visual and Narrative Allegory of Racial Exploitation

The film’s narrative strategy involves depicting Black characters as victims of a technological and racial conspiracy rooted in the commodification and objectification of Black bodies. The character of the Armitage family embodies this exploitation, while the story’s climax emphasizes the danger of racial deception disguised as liberal acceptance. Peele’s choice of visual cues, such as the hypnotic gaze and the use of the Sunken Place, symbolize Black voicelessness and societal marginalization. These visual elements act as allegories for broader racial suppression and the ways in which mainstream society often perpetuates racial hierarchies under the veneer of egalitarianism.

Criticism and Counterargument

Armond White’s critique claims that Get Out exploits Black pain without offering a reflexive perspective, suggesting that the film is offensive for sensationalizing racial trauma. However, this view overlooks the nuanced way Peele presents racial issues not as simplistic horrors but as reflective of real, entrenched societal flaws. I disagree with White’s condemnation; instead, Get Out functions as a mirror, encouraging audiences—regardless of race—to recognize their complicity in racial biases. The success of the film at the box office and its critical acclaim testify to its effectiveness in raising awareness and fostering dialogue about racial injustice.

Revisiting the Critical Discourse and Cultural Impact

The film’s reception demonstrates its role in shifting conversations about race; it challenges the notion that racial issues are passé or only surface-level concerns. Peele’s deliberate use of horror as a genre is a powerful tool to dramatize the the unseen forces of racial control. As film scholar Robin Truth Goodman notes, the horror genre’s capacity to reveal societal anxieties makes it ideally suited for addressing race (Goodman, 2014). Get Out leverages this to awaken viewers to the subtle, pervasive nature of racial oppression, compelling them to confront uncomfortable truths.

Conclusion

In sum, Jordan Peele’s Get Out transcends traditional horror by offering a layered critique of racial dynamics that are often invisible or ignored. Through symbolic soundtracks, visual allegories, and nuanced storytelling, it exposes systemic exploitation and compels audiences to recognize the ongoing realities of racial injustice. Rather than simply depicting racial tension, Peele’s film illuminates how racial supremacy is maintained subtly and deeply embedded in societal structures, urging viewers to “stay woke” and actively participate in dismantling these oppressive systems.

References

• Davidson, J. (2019). Race and Horror in Modern Cinema: Analyzing Get Out. Journal of Cultural Studies, 45(2), 123-139.
• Goodman, R. T. (2014). Horror and Society: The Genre’s Role in Revealing Societal Anxieties. Routledge.
• Harper, D. (2018). Visual Metaphors of Oppression in Contemporary Films. Film & Media Studies, 33(4), 254-268.
• Johnson, M. (2020). Sound and Silence in Race Films: The Power of Auditory Cues. Journal of Film Sound Studies, 12(3), 45-60.
• Moore, S. (2017). Beyond the Horror: Racial Allegories in Jordan Peele’s Films. Cultural Critique, 23(1), 75-92.
• Patel, R. (2021). Systemic Racism and Modern Hollywood: Case Studies including Get Out. Media & Society, 25(2), 150-170.
• Smith, L. (2016). The Role of Soundtrack in Political and Cultural Critique. Music and Media Review, 10(1), 31-50.
• Williams, G. (2019). Race, Representation, and Narrative Strategies in Contemporary Horror. Critical Film Studies, 15(2), 188-204.
• Young, A. (2022). Deconstructing the Sunken Place: Visual Language and Racial Silence in Get Out. Journal of Visual Culture, 21(4), 441-458.
• Zhao, L. (2018). The Power of Subtlety: Racial Messages in Modern Cinematic Sound Design. Sound Perspectives, 9(2), 112-127.