21 pop culture moments in 2017 that spoke to the zeitgeist

Get Out

When I pressed “play” on the trailer for an upcoming horror movie directed by Jordan Peele, I had low expectations. Even aside from my squeamishness about the genre, horror movies tend to bring out the worst in trailer editors, all loud noises and abrupt cuts — the visual equivalent of Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho theme. By the time the words Get Out appeared onscreen, though, I was thoroughly rattled.

Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is nervous about meeting his girlfriend’s family. Not only might they disapprove of him, but they might be actively hostile toward him. See, he’s black, and Rose (Allison Williams) is white. Although she insists that her parents aren’t racist (her father would’ve voted for Obama a third time if he could!), he knows good intentions can be deceiving. This being horror, his suspicions turn out to be well-founded, as the visit goes from awkward to sinister.

Frankly, when I saw Get Out in theaters, I left underwhelmed; the trailer had me braced for terror, but the movie provided mostly suspense and off-kilter humor. Only on rewatch did I come to appreciate the cleverness of Peele’s satire, from the casting of Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener as Rose’s parents to the use of deer symbolism, and the fury seething underneath.

There is a conspicuous tinge of irony to the attention that awards ceremonies are (deservedly) heaping on Get Out. For one, it skewers benevolent white liberals with a viciousness that feels tailor-made for the Obama era but still stings at a time when the KKK and neo-Nazis can openly march in the streets. And among other things, the film is a meta narrative about cultural representation — the dehumanization that occurs when people are denied the ability to see and control images of themselves. In essence, it is about the experience of being black in Hollywood. Watch Peele very patiently explain racism to talk show hosts and tell me you don’t get flashbacks to the Armitage garden party.