The Ghosts of Othello in Get Out
*SPOILERS FOR THE FILM GET OUT*
When I first saw Jordan Peele's directorial debut Get Out, I never thought there was anything particularly Shakespearean about it. But thanks to this class--and my newfound ability to find Shakespeare references literally everywhere--I managed to somehow get more out of this amazing film than ever before. In particular, this film stuck out to me as almost a companion piece to discussion surrounding the play Othello.
The race allegory is an obvious one. Photographer Chris Washington goes with his white girlfriend to meet her equally white family, and discomfort and micro-aggressions ensue from the first hello. We can make parallels between Chris and Othello: both are black (or at least POC) men who seem out of place in the white societies of their respective universes. Their skin color seems to be their defining trait to everyone around them, to the point that almost all conversations with or about their characters involve their blackness in some way or another.
Both are romantically involved with white women and singled out for that specific reason. Their respective love interests, Desdemona and Rose, are also racist in their own small ways and complicit in the ostracizing of their partners. Rose saying, "My father isn't racist, he voted for Obama" reflects a similar ignorance displayed by Desdemona whenever she referred to her husband as "the Moor." Almost from the start, their relationships were set up to fail, and these hints were left as a trail for the audience to follow to inevitable tragedy.
What stuck out to me as the biggest parallel to Othello was the strangulation scene toward the end of Get Out. Rose revealed herself to be perhaps the biggest psychopath, the kind who wears all white and eats dry cereal and drinks from a tall glass of milk like it's a foreign activity. Chris strangles her as a final blow after she's been shot, though he stops just short of actually killing her, unlike Othello with Desdemona.
To me, Get Out serves as an alternate, more triumphant (if such a thing is possible in a horror film) ending to the classic Othello tale. Unlike Othello, Chris isn't killed by the horrible racism, trickery, and manipulation of those around him. He gets to live and tell his side of this horrible story, though whether or not he would be believed is up to debate. Peele did have an alternate ending where Chris is picked up by the police, not his TSA friend, and is put in prison, his life effectively ended by his own desire to live. But thankfully, Peele went with the theatrical version in the end, offering a glimpse of a hopeful ending for an objectified and persecuted black man.
Get Out is a bigger beast than some give it credit for, and this is even more apparent when we dig deeper behind the rampant symbolism. For me, thinking about it as a vague re-working of Othello made it less tragic. Chris faced a white woman and did what his contemporaries--the likes of Othello and Tom Robinson from To Kill A Mockingbird--could not: he won.
When I first saw Jordan Peele's directorial debut Get Out, I never thought there was anything particularly Shakespearean about it. But thanks to this class--and my newfound ability to find Shakespeare references literally everywhere--I managed to somehow get more out of this amazing film than ever before. In particular, this film stuck out to me as almost a companion piece to discussion surrounding the play Othello.
The race allegory is an obvious one. Photographer Chris Washington goes with his white girlfriend to meet her equally white family, and discomfort and micro-aggressions ensue from the first hello. We can make parallels between Chris and Othello: both are black (or at least POC) men who seem out of place in the white societies of their respective universes. Their skin color seems to be their defining trait to everyone around them, to the point that almost all conversations with or about their characters involve their blackness in some way or another.
Both are romantically involved with white women and singled out for that specific reason. Their respective love interests, Desdemona and Rose, are also racist in their own small ways and complicit in the ostracizing of their partners. Rose saying, "My father isn't racist, he voted for Obama" reflects a similar ignorance displayed by Desdemona whenever she referred to her husband as "the Moor." Almost from the start, their relationships were set up to fail, and these hints were left as a trail for the audience to follow to inevitable tragedy.
What stuck out to me as the biggest parallel to Othello was the strangulation scene toward the end of Get Out. Rose revealed herself to be perhaps the biggest psychopath, the kind who wears all white and eats dry cereal and drinks from a tall glass of milk like it's a foreign activity. Chris strangles her as a final blow after she's been shot, though he stops just short of actually killing her, unlike Othello with Desdemona.
To me, Get Out serves as an alternate, more triumphant (if such a thing is possible in a horror film) ending to the classic Othello tale. Unlike Othello, Chris isn't killed by the horrible racism, trickery, and manipulation of those around him. He gets to live and tell his side of this horrible story, though whether or not he would be believed is up to debate. Peele did have an alternate ending where Chris is picked up by the police, not his TSA friend, and is put in prison, his life effectively ended by his own desire to live. But thankfully, Peele went with the theatrical version in the end, offering a glimpse of a hopeful ending for an objectified and persecuted black man.
Get Out is a bigger beast than some give it credit for, and this is even more apparent when we dig deeper behind the rampant symbolism. For me, thinking about it as a vague re-working of Othello made it less tragic. Chris faced a white woman and did what his contemporaries--the likes of Othello and Tom Robinson from To Kill A Mockingbird--could not: he won.
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