Get Out - Google Slides

Social context

Generational identity - major focus of the films

Millennials - 1981 - 1996

Millennials

Often portrayed as lazy and selfish

New generation of creative people in New York

American Dream has to e re-assessed in the context of the new generation

New sense of individuality has shaped a new sense of success

Political context/historical

Black Lives Matter - started in 2013 after George Zimmerman was acquitted on all charges after the murder of black teen Trayvon Martin

Racial implications in America since its colonisation in 1492, and white people have continually been oppressed by white people: Jim Crow Laws, lynching, segregation.

Cultural contexts

Black cinema has typically focused on issues of black people/social realism

Oppositional reading: Some black viewers have expressed a desire for more ‘black joy’ in cinema.

Become more aware of the black culture they have erased.

Cultural contexts - Oscars

• 2015 Oscars

• #oscarssowhite - drew attention to the lack of diversity in the Oscar field.

• Films like ‘Get Out’, ‘Black Panther’, and ‘Coco’ heavily impacted a multi-cultural gold rush at the Oscars.

• 13 winners of colour took home awards in 2019 alone - however still faces some issues with diversity

Social Thrillers

• Suspense and horror used to augment instances of apparent oppression in society.

• ‘Get Out’ generated an interest in the genre.

• Inspirations: Rosemary’s Baby (Polankski, 1968) and The Stepford Wives (1975)

Influences - research

• Rosemary’s Baby: increasing paranoia cut off as nonsensical: bodily autonomy: women were just getting more rights in the 1960s

• Stepford Wives: Men replaced women/wives with robots. Seen in the presentation of Georgia.

Post-colonialism - ideology

• Academic study on the cultural, political, and economic legacy of colonialism = imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control + exploitation and their lands.

Catharsis

Disappointed music = after microaggression, black people and people of colour would react the same way

Ideology - Peele’s thoughts

• Thought that ideology would be difficult for the audience to digest and make it a failure

• Howeve3r, it did not. Proably because the audience is lead to emphasise with Chris throughout the whole film.

Critical race theory

• The idea that race is not based on genetics, but instead a social construct - idea coined in the 1960s.

• Despite progress such as Obama, the racism that was a result of slavery is still rooted into modern America - that black Americans still have to deal with the prejudice.

• America isn’t overtly racist, but the attitudes of ordinary Americans, instituations, are inherently biased - unwillingly or not. ddeeply rooted in American behaviour.

Criyical race Theory - supporters + critics

• argues it points out the deeply rooted racism in American society + ways they are excluded from American society

• Criyics: diminhes the role of social class = group identity turning America away from universal inequaliyyies.

Types of self

• Social self = interprets a movie similarly to those with same ideologies

• Cultural self; intertextual references

• Private self = Person’s own memories

• desiring self = rings own desires and energies that often have little to do with the film

Readings - stuart Hall

• Preferred; how a director wants it to be interpreted

• Oppositional: how others might interpret it

• Negatotiated reading - compromise between oppositional + preferred

Spectatorship - 3 Pioints

Recognitition - how we identity the protagonist

Aligned = aligned = camera focusing on the protagonist - emotional bond with length

Allegiance = whether we agree with character’s choices