By: Kinzie Baker
Thesis: Get Out is a popular horror film that addresses the perpetuation of racial terror and dehumanization of black people in America through the film’s focus on the sense of sight.
For my final project in “Gender & Diversity in Film”, I examined how the popular film Get Out communicates racial terror in “post racial America”. I studied this film because it is unique in that it breaks the typical structure of horror movies while maintaining shock-value and the integrity of its purpose: to stop passively keeping the peace about racial issues that need addressing solely to avoid conflict and to deconstruct racial terror perpetuated in modern society by bias, racism, white liberal ignorance, and colorblindness. The goal of my project was to articulate how the movie achieves this purpose through the use of the sense of sight.
Medium & Methodology: I made the creative choice to construct a Wix website, because I did not have prior experience in website construction, and wanted to challenge myself. I saw other students’ websites during our flash presentations and enjoyed how visually appealing they were so I wanted to attempt to do so as well. My creative choice intertwined with my analytical choices as I chose to include many screen grabs and gif’s from the film on my website as evidence of my visually focused analysis.
Sources:
Alleva, Richard. “Timely Provocations: ‘Get out’ & ‘I Am Not Your Negro’”. Commonweal, no.7, 2017, p. 24.
Benjamin, Rich. “‘Get Out’ and the Death of White Racial Innocence.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/get-out-and-the-death-of-white-racial-innocence.
Cruz, Lenika. “The Meaning of Eyes and Cameras in ‘Get Out’.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 3 Mar. 2017, http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/in-get-out-the-eyes-have-it/518370/.
Hill, John & Gibson, Pamela Church. “Film Studies Critical Approaches”.
Nichols, Bryan K. “Get out: A Study of Interracial Dynamics in an Unrepaired and Unrepentant America – A Modern Day Racial Horror.” Psychoanalytic Review, vol. 105, no. 2, 2018. Pp. 223-236.Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.
Peele, Jordan, director. Get Out. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, 2017.
All images & gif’s: Get Out, © 2017, Blumhouse Productions.
Gender and Diversity in Film 