It's a long overdue to point out and verbalize awkward race relations in this country. The Obama presidency was supposed to be a pivoting moment to usher us into more harmonious, color-blind society (or so we wished). Now we find out that the racism and bigotry hasn't diminished since the Civil Rights era by one iota, but now with the hate-filled orange blob as our prez, that show of racism and bigotry is more out in the open than ever before - just over last week, I saw a news that a white man from North Carolina came up to New York to kill black men.
Get Out seems to be coming out at the right time and place to visualize this awkward, shaky race relationship almost at a tipping point of all out civil war we have got going. Success of it at the box office is completely justified. This is not some Wayans Bros' buffoonery of the 90s. Jordan Peele is a little more sophisticated than that. He wisely taps into horror genre where he can be more subversive (more like Romero's Night of the Living Dead and less like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) and get away with killing white people in various ways. His comedic sensibility helps too. Loved Peele rehashing the idea of a generation collectively hypnotized by TV screen (think of Halloween II, Poltergeist, They Live, Videodrome, etc). Definitely the scariest part of the movie is the scene pictured above.
Not perfect or complete by any means, but Get Out touches upon a lot of issues this country is suffering and give them a voice. Unfortunately, it remains urban/Northeast movie that would never make an impact in flyover states.
