Get Out fea­tures a dif­fer­ent kind of hor­ror protagonist

Jor­dan Peele’s Get Out is one of the break­out hits of 2017, hav­ing already out­reached the expec­ta­tions of most low-bud­get hor­ror films. The sto­ry cen­tres around a young black pho­tog­ra­ph­er named Chris, played by Daniel Kalu­uya, whose meet­ing with his white girlfriend’s par­ents turns from uncom­fort­able to hor­rif­ic when he learns of the plans they have for him.

Much of the praise heaped on the film so far has focused on Peele’s abil­i­ty to mix well-craft­ed genre thrills with a time­ly satire on race rela­tions in Amer­i­ca, lam­poon­ing the kind of dou­ble-edged lib­er­al­ism that per­vades many mid­dle class neigh­bour­hoods. His most strik­ing cri­tique, how­ev­er, is con­tained with­in Kaluuya’s per­for­mance, specif­i­cal­ly in the way his char­ac­ter con­fronts some very tough issues.

Per­haps the most obvi­ous sub­text can be found in Rose’s par­ents, Dean and Mis­sy. Vocal­ly lib­er­al and seem­ing­ly open-mind­ed, they wel­come Chris into their home only to almost imme­di­ate­ly begin betray­ing these char­ac­ter traits, which makes Chris increas­ing­ly uncom­fort­able. Dean insists that he would have ​“vot­ed for Oba­ma a third time” if he could, all the while talk­ing down to his house staff, both of whom are black. Chris qui­et­ly absorbs this infor­ma­tion, per­haps pri­vate­ly winc­ing but nev­er call­ing his guests out on what appears to be latent racism. In the face of so much igno­rance, he remains curi­ous­ly passive.

That’s because Chris is not your aver­age hor­ror movie lead. He’s no ​‘Final Girl’, who starts out rel­a­tive­ly care­free before dan­ger comes call­ing, fight­ing back at just the right moment. Indeed, he is primed and ready from the word go. When we first meet Chris in his apart­ment, he already appears on edge. Nor­mal ​‘meet the par­ents’ nerves are com­pound­ed by the fact that his new part­ner (Alli­son Williams) hasn’t told her folks that he is black. This is fol­lowed up by a con­fronta­tion (or lack there­of) with a police offi­cer, who pulls them over on the road and asks for Chris’ ID, despite the fact that Rose is dri­ving. Two very dif­fer­ent scenes, each of which is cru­cial in estab­lish­ing a recur­ring theme for our a hero – a man who has to be on guard con­stant­ly, sim­ply because of who he is.

Get Out is a film about the every­day strug­gle faced by peo­ple of colour. Chris, like so many black peo­ple liv­ing in Amer­i­ca today, has grown used to being treat­ed with sus­pi­cion. He has read enough head­lines and heard enough hor­ror sto­ries to know that if he is in an unfa­mil­iar sit­u­a­tion and trou­ble starts, he will come off the worse for it no mat­ter what. This is a very real prob­lem for any­one viewed as ​‘oth­er’ by a large por­tion of society.

Peele has spo­ken about Get Out being a response to the idea that racism end­ed with Obama’s inau­gu­ra­tion, that we live in a ​‘post-racial’ world when in fact the real­i­ty is some­thing very dif­fer­ent. Chris is the embod­i­ment of that response. Before we even see ​‘The Sunken Place’ or Dean and Mis­sy reveal their true inten­tions, the hor­ror of Get Out’s first act lies in being forced to see the world view of some­one fac­ing poten­tial dan­ger in a great many facets of their life.

While Chris’ sit­u­a­tion is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of what African-Amer­i­cans and oth­er minori­ties have been deal­ing with for cen­turies, the impor­tance of the film’s tim­ing should not be over­looked. In the last few years, the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment has shone a light on police bru­tal­i­ty, expos­ing the sys­temic racism that is still ram­pant in law enforce­ment depart­ments across Amer­i­ca, rais­ing pub­lic aware­ness to the point where Peele felt the need to change the end­ing of Get Out (which orig­i­nal­ly saw Chris being dragged off by police hav­ing killed Rose and his fam­i­ly). Nev­er­the­less, a broad­er knowl­edge of these issues makes Chris a more empa­thet­ic and com­pelling char­ac­ter for mod­ern audiences.

In cin­e­ma, the great­est ter­ror is often that which brush­es clos­est with real­i­ty. Exor­cism movies poke fun at faith, while there is a ten­den­cy among mod­ern hor­ror films to skew towards gen­der and pol­i­tics as breed­ing grounds for our dis­com­fort. Get Out and its young black pro­tag­o­nist reflect a soci­ety far removed from its PC pre­ten­sions, and in doing so reveal a truth that is far more fright­en­ing than any blade-wield­ing hood­ed figure.