Get Out = Spectatorship

Question 1

How is spectatorship portrayed in Get Out?

Answer 1

• The film engages with the audience expectations to create tension and reflect on societal issues of race and power
• Get Out plays with traditional expectations of horror using spectatorship to encourage the audience to confront racial dynamics in an uncomfortable and thought-provoking way

Question 2

How is white spectatorship portrayed?

Answer 2

• The film positions its white audience in relation to the experiences of black characters and how uncomfortable they can feel with the subtle racist microaggressions
• The film forces white views to confront their own potential complicity in racial structures
• Chris is made to feel uneasy and alienated which mirrors the lived experience of Black people in predominantly white spaces
• There is subtle and insidious ways that white people use when considering themselves progressive.
• By placing us in the position of the oppressed black characters, the film forces them to question their own perspectives and privileges
• The white characters are unsettling and it forces the audience to feel uncomfortable

Question 3

Us vs Them Mentality =

Answer 3

• The notion of white privileged family and the notion of them, who are Black individuals who are systematically oppressed
• The film creates a situation where the viewer can identify with Chris because of his outsider status. The audience is able to share the growing paranoia and unease
• This allows the spectator experience to support Chris
• Get Out plays with traditional horror movie tropes such as the final girl and subverts their expectations. The audience are able to root for Chris but subverting the traditional narrative of the outsider status.
• It challenges racial divisions by making the audience aware of the social othering in predominantly white spaces

Question 4

What is the Black Gaze?

Answer 4

• The film allows Chris to resist the gaze of predominantly white characters who objectify and commodify Black bodies, the Sunken place serves as a metaphor for the control over black people in society
• The Black Gaze allows the perspective of Black experiences and resistance to the dominant white power
• White audiences are forced to see from Chris’ perspective which shows how aware he is of the subtle racism and microaggressions which are seen in the discomfort and alienation that he feels. Often white characters do not notice of choose to ignore so highlights how Chris feels in these moments by focusing on his facial expressions rather than the white audience

Question 5

The Sunken Place =

Answer 5

• He loses control over his body but remains fully conscious and aware which represents the feeling of powerlessness that Black people experience in a society controlled by systemic racial structures
• Historically, black people have been silenced, oppressed and reduced to objects
• The camera shows Chris’s inability to move which forces audience to witness the dehumanization of the Black body which is a metaphor for how society renders Black voices powerless
• The sunken place represents a state of powerlessness for control feeling helplessness
• The viewers are confronted with what it feels like to be powerless and unseen in a world which marginalises certain groups
• It mirrors the experience of people who experience racial oppression