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Blog 1-6

                                                       Get Out

        As someone who cannot really watch horror without having nightmares and thinking about, Get Out is a film I admired and watched even before taking this course. Watching Get Out years ago when I always stay away from horror movies is a huge step for me and I definitely did not regret watching it then. However, after watching the sensational film, Get Out for the second time, I definitely noticed large symbols depicted in the film.

I didn’t have any knowledge on the momentous symbols portrayed throughout the film when I had watched the film for the first time a few years prior. Had I never taken this course I would have never known of the hidden meanings Jordan Peele imputed throughout the film. For instance, I had never even considered the sunken place of being a symbol for mass incarceration. However, I can’t stop thinking of how talented Jordan Peele and others that have worked on the film to bring such a powerful meaning to the movie that is a large issue with people of color. 

Another large symbol that was shown in the film was the deer. In the scene where Chris and Rose are on the way to Rose’s family’s home, they hit a deer. Rose is not too interested in the deers wellbeing, whereas we see Chris strongly concerned. He then finds the deer dead, which causes Chris to tear up. We then saw the deer towards the end of the movie where another deer was hung up on the wall in front of Chris while he was trapped in the chair by Rose’s family. He then uses that same deer head to kill Rose’s father. Another theme I saw with the deer was how Chris had to get out of the car after hitting it and check on the deer. Chris’s actions during that scene stems from severe trauma he has endured with his mom being killed in a hit and run. The driving deer scene is not the only segment where Chris’s actions were determined by the event of losing his mother from a hit and run. We also see Chris doing the same thing towards the end of the movie with Georgina. He ran Georgina over in order to escape from being killed, however, he couldn’t bare to leave her alone and die. This is probably because he knew there was some life leftover from the real Georgina and he didn’t want to leave her alone to die just as his mother did. The event of the hit and run with his mother had a massive impact on Chris’s decisions throughout the film, one time being life or death for him.

To conclude, there are countless symbols in Jordan Peele’s movie that have been cleverly imputed and have spoken volumes, whether it’s racial themes that exist in today’s world or connections. However, these are the symbols that really stuck out to me having analyzed the film. I am grateful to learn all of this knowledge and look at the movie differently because of this course, it made me look at this great film very differently, and see things from a new perspective. 

BLOG 2

                                                              Us

          After watching Jordan Peele’s second most popular film, Us and discussing it in class there was a plethora of symbols throughout the movie. In today’s blog I’d like to get into the themes and talk about the movie in depth.

In the beginning of the movie we are introduced to a little girl and her 2 parents at the pier which we later find out is Red. Red goes to the hall of mirrors where the tethered are and comes across Adelaide. After that we are not sure why the little girl is acting differently and her parents go to a psychologist. At this point in the movie the viewers don’t know what happened until the end of the movie which explains how Adelaide switched places with Red. We are then introduced to the main characters which are the Wilsons. The Wilsons are a middle class family who take a vacation to Santa Cruz with their friends who have kids the same age. We are first introduced to this white middle class family (the friends) when they meet at the beach. This is where the first theme is seen, isolation. We can see that the Wilsons are the only black family surrounded by white families, which creates a sense of loneliness. Even though the Wilsons experience the feeling of isolation, they are a privileged black family. They can afford to rent this beautiful house during their vacation and Gabe being able to buy a boat. 

Another theme would be the Preparedness and Survival Mindset. When the Wilsons first encountered the tethered in front of their house Gabe’s first reaction was to handle the situation himself. When they learned the police wasn’t coming for a while Gabe quickly grabbed a baseball bat as a weapon and was preparing. Although they were more fearful when they first broke into the house after the scene where Red explained who they were by the fireplace, the Wilsons quickly went into survival mode. Whether it was tricking the tethered or running them over with their car the Wilsons quickly got into the survival mindset and were not willing to give up. 

That being said there were many themes and symbols in the film, many were not listed. This movie was very well done and was very much so a plot twist that I didn't see coming at all. The themes of isolation, privilege, and survival mindset were the ones that stood out to me the most while watching the film and reviewing the lecture.

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                                                   Eve’s Bayou

          Eve’s Bayou is about a little girl, Eve and her family. She has 2 siblings, a beautiful mother, and a father who is a doctor and they live in this small area. The dad is seen as some kind of superhero to everyone and is unfaithful to his wife. Eve just wants to be the apple of her father’s eye but is jealous from the attention her older sister and younger sister get. The movie starts out showing a party thrown by the family. In the scene we are shown the father dancing comfortably with another woman who is not Eve’s mother so we quickly suggest something more is going on. He later sleeps with that woman in the shed where Eve fell asleep in and catches his father doing the act. Eve is traumatized and doesn’t tell her mother, but she does tell her sister. Her sister who believes her father can do no wrong and is in denial convinces Eve she made a mistake in which she saw. 

The most climactic moment of the film is when Eve’s sister, Sicily is acting completely different or depressed. They don’t know what’s wrong with her and she finally tells Eve what happened to her. That their father kissed Sicily then hit her. Eve is infuriated that her father abused her sister but is not allowed to tell anyone what Sicily told her in private. She decides to go to the “crazy” voodoo woman so she can kill her dad for what he did to her sister. The dad eventually dies not from the voodoo but from being shot by an angry husband whose wife Eve’s father was having an affair with. We then later learn after the father is dead, that Sicily was lying and twisting the story the whole time. Sicily was in love with her father and was rejected by him when she tried to kiss him. Eve is furious once she learns this and believes she is the one that killed her father for no reason. 

In the film, we saw the themes of curses, voodoo, manipulation, and deception. Eve’s aunt Mozell loses her third husband in a car accident and everyone including herself believes she is cursed. We see the theme of voodoo with the woman with the face paint who has a stand at the marketplace who Eve goes to for help in killing her father. We also see manipulation from Sicily when she tries to convince Eve that she didn’t see anything happen in the shed because she was in love with her father. She also manipulated and deceived her sister into thinking that her father hit and abused her, when she twisted the story because she resented him for rejecting her love. 

To conclude, Eve’s Bayou included many themes and is very different than other black horror films, which I really enjoyed. I wasn’t scared or waiting for something horrifying to happen, but I was very much intrigued.

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                                       The Girl with All the Gifts

         When you first watch the movie, we see a bunch of normal looking kids in a prison setting who are locked into chairs. We are then shown all of the kids in a classroom where there are guards watching them and they are strapped into their chairs. We are then introduced to the main character, Melanie and Ms. Justineau. Ms. Justineau is not like the rest who treat the kids like monsters and are disgusted by them. She sees them as children and is particularly fond of Melanie. She even nuzzles Melanie’s head in the same scene in which the guards barge in and forbid her to do that ever again and show what these “abortions” are capable of. We, the audience also learn more that these children are called abortions.

Abortions are half human half hungry but they are still considered alive. They are kept in this prison strapped into the chairs in order for the humans to be safe and in control of them. However, they are also experimented on and killed by Dr. Jean. The reason why they are experimenting on the kids is to create a vaccine. The rest of the world is filled with hungries that are trying to dominate the world and unless they find a vaccine the rest of the humans will become hungries. 

Eventually they need to evacuate just as Melanie is about to be killed by the Dr. The hungries take over. The guards, Ms. Justineau, Melanie, and the Dr. venture out keeping Melanie in this mask like thing to control her urges at some extent. Throughout the journey Melanie helps them survive and they start to look at her differently, everyone but the Dr. who still sees her as a test subject that is the key to the vaccine. During the trip the Dr. gives some information to Melanie in which Melanie later remembers that causes everyone to become hungries. This is when Dr. Jean is almost about to die and gets Melanie alone and tries to manipulate her into letting her experiment and kill her for it will help Ms. Justineau. As Melanie is about to give in and is having a heated conversation with her she remembers what Dr. Jean told her about the growing spores they had seen. She asks the Dr. why it must be us sacrificing for you guys (humans). She then leaves the Dr. and runs to light the spore like tree on fire, which will either be destroyed or the disease that makes humans into hungries will be airborne, therefore, everyone will turn into hungries. Well, it doesn’t get destroyed and everyone is turned into hungries. During this time Sergeant Parks who was once disgusted with Melanie and her kind went out looking for Melanie to make sure she was alright. He was then exposed to the airborne spores and was turned into a hungry but did not want to end up as one so he told Melanie to kill and shoot him immediately, in which she did. This showed me that as soon as the Sergeant began to let his guard down and see Melanie as a caring child rather than a monster he ended up turning into something horrible. The ending was the most interesting for me. Ms. Justineau was in the enclosed pod teaching a class to the Hungries and Melanie only this time she was the one “locked up” and they were free. This showed the domination of Hungries being the new humans of the world.

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                                                      Candyman

         Candyman is like the boogie man in which he is an urban legend. They say that his spirit can appear by someone who says Candyman fives times in the mirror. Once he is there he kills the person who summoned him using his hook that is attached to the bloody stump of his arm. Helen, who is a white woman, hears a rumor that someone was killed by him and that there have been tons of similar murders. Helen and her friend then decide to say Candyman in the mirror, however, no one appears and nothing happens. After, Helen writes about how people use Candyman as a way to deal with their problems. She and her friend then go to where a murder took place and notices offerings that were for Candyman.

Helen and her husband then go out with a Candyman expert, who tells them that Candyman was the son of a slave who was also an artist who painted portraits of rich white people with land, as well as their families. But then he fell in love and had a kid with one of the daughters of the white landowners. The expert then says that a lynch mob set up by the daughter’s father came after him where they cut off his right hand. Not only that, they took his cut hand and put honey so he could attract bees to sting him, so he can be stung to death. They then burned his corpse and scattered his ashes on the land that was now Cabrini Green.Helen is later attacked by someone who is in a gang and calls himself Candyman, all while carrying a hook. After she is assaulted and tells the police, they believe he is responsible for the murders. But then, Helen is approached by the real Candyman in a parking garage, he tells her she has discredited him. Helen then becomes unconscious and wakes up covered in blood. He then later breaks into Helen's apartment and cuts her neck, she then bleeds and passes out. Bernadette finds Helen at her apartment and is killed by Candyman and Helen is blamed for the murder, they then place her in a psychiatric hospital. She tries to prove she’s innocent when she speaks with her psychiatrist and summons Candyman, who then appears and kills the doctor. A lot happens after but basically Candyman was in love with Helen, but she died in the end. 

The new adaptation of Candyman has many differences. One being that the new one is set in the United States, instead of the UK. Candyman is black and is a victim of racism and the setting takes place at a black housing project, Cabrini Green. Helen, the lead white woman is attacked in this film by black thugs and Candyman is actually falling in love with her. Candyman can also be summoned by someone if they say his name five times in the mirror.

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                                                      Beloved

          The movie Beloved is about a former slave, Sethe, who is living in Ohio post Civil War. However, her and her three children are terrorized by this demon-like creature that scares away two of her children. Years later, it’s just Sethe and her one daughter named Denver. Until one day a former friend of Sethe, Paul shows up. He decides to stay with Sethe and Denver. One day Denver finds Beloved and loves to have her around, but then finds out she is actually Sethe’s reincarnated daughter. Sethe’s daughter, Denver decides to keep this a secret from her mother. However, one night Beloved casts a spell on Paul and rapes him. Paul then wants to tell Sethe what happened but then professes that he wants to have a baby with her. But then when a confidant of Paul hears of this, he tells him the story of how Sethe was raped by the nephews of the schoolteacher. And how they whipped Sethe leaving nasty scars on her back. She was very pregnant with her child and she was trying to escape. She was then raped while searching for her husband in the barn. The nephews pinned her, raped, and took her breast milk.

When she managed to escape she met a white woman, Amy Denver who helped treat her and her injuries, as well as delivering Seth’s child (ther daughter is named after this woman). She then got to Baby Suggs house, but the schoolteacher came to collect Sethe and her kids. In a panic, Sethe slit her eldest daughter’s throat, as well tried to kill the other children. She said she rather her kids be dead than enslaved. But they stop her and leave disgusted. Paul now understands where the poltergeist comes from, and decides to leave. After, Sethe then discovers that Beloved is actually her dead daughter. She then spoils her, while forgetting Denver. But shortly after, Beloved causes chaos and things start to fall apart. Sethe is unable to work and Denver becomes depressed.

To solve the problem of Beloved, Sethe’s coworker performs an exorcism. It leads to the disappearance of Beloved and Sethe and her family are finally free. A few months later Denver and Paul run into each other in town and he sees a change in her that she’s grown up and matured. But when he comes back to the house, he finds Sethe to be very sick. She tells Paul that she lost the best thing, Beloved, where Paul tells her that she herself is the best thing.