Justice

One Tweet Shows Why People Are Freaking out Over a Terrifying Interracial Horror Movie

October 5th 2016

A new psychological horror movie doesn't come out until next year, but the trailer already has people freaking out — for multiple reasons.

The trailer for "Get Out," a movie written and directed by "Key and Peel's" Jordan Peele, starts with an interracial relationship but ends with an insane and terrifying commentary on race and American society.

"Get Out" trailer. Youtube/Movieclips Trailers - youtube.com

Based on the trailer, the movie follows an interracial couple played by "Sicario's" Daniel Kaluuya who is black and "Girls'" Allison Williams who is white. The couple travels to her family's estate, and a racially charged conspiracy with frightening imagery reveals itself, according to the glimpses we get in the trailer.

One tweet by @nuffsaidNY explains why the themes in the two minute trailer for "Get Out" have social media shaken more than four months before the movie's release.

Tweet about the trailer for "Get Out." Twitter/@nuffsaidNY - twitter.com

Peele's movie touches on multiple issues — systemic racism, interracial relationships, stereotypes, and white privilege — in just a two minute movie trailer. These are all themes common to the current political conversations about police shootings, racial inequality, and classism.

Based on the trailer, here are four ways "Get Out" is a modern movie about race in America:

1. The movie's two main characters are in an interracial relationship.

The movie touches on the growing trend of interracial relationships. Pew Research Center says that interracial marriages are on the rise in the U.S. and that the overwhelming majority of Millennials are accepting of interracial relationships.

2. There are racially charged interactions with the police.

In the trailer, the couple has to interact with the police after hitting a deer. The police officer demands the black boyfriend's license even though the white character was driving during the accident. Black people are more likely to be searched by the police, though it's less likely that illegal material is found on them than white people, according to The Washington Post. Native Americans, black people and Latinos are all more likely to be shot and killed by the police when compared with white people, according to the Counted project by the Guardian.

3. The girlfriend's family enjoys tremendous economic privilege.

Income inequality in America is the highest it has been in four decades, according to Pew Research Center. The black unemployment rate has consistently been twice as high as the white unemployment rate for the past 50 years, and the gap between white and black household incomes hasn't closed in that time period, according to The Washington Post.

4. A black man is the main character in "Get Out."

Horror movies have a reputation or killing off black characters fairly quickly. The reputation is so pervasive that Madam Noire made a list of black characters who actually survived in horror movies.

"Black Actors Who Survived Scary Movies"Madame Noire - madamenoire.com

However the other important point is that Kaluuya is a person of color with a lead role in a film. A study earlier this year by the Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California found that Hollywood is still lacking in speaking roles for minorities and women. The researchers analyzed more than 400 films and TV shows.

Characters with speaking roles in TV and film:

  • 71 of percent were white.
  • 12 percent were black.
  • 6 percent were Latino.
  • 5 percent were Asian
  • 2 percent were Middle Eastern.

The film industry in particular saw backlash earlier this year for a lack of diversity in the Oscar nominees.

However the Academy Awards of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sent out a record number of invitations over the summer as a first step to addressing the problem. Academy members vote for for the Oscar nominees. About 46 percent of the new member invitations went to women and 41 percent went to people of color.

You can watch the full "Get Out" trailer on the movie's Facebook page.

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