Get in to Get Out: Peele-ian Horror and Consciousness-Raising

Abstract

One area that has not fully been explored in terms of its ability to engage in Black feminist consciousness-raising (CR) is the horror film genre. This project examines Jordan Peele’s 2017 Black horror film Get Out, arguing that this film engages in Black feminist CR by overtly and covertly addressing systemic racial oppression, white privilege, and the falseness of American post-raciality. I rhetorically analyze Get Out through the lens of Black feminist CR, which places an emphasis on collective experiential knowledge and combating intersectional oppressions while holding white/privileged participants accountable for their own complicity in perpetuating oppressive systemic racism. Ultimately, I argue that Peele’s goal in writing, producing, and directing Get Out was to raise the consciousness of white/privileged audiences by forcing them to take note of systemic racism’s presence in the present day, as well as recognize their complicity in keeping it intact.