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Student showcase

Blog 6

During the student showcase we watched a few short films and heard a reading from a short story.  While all of the films were unique and had different directorial style and original storylines, they all maintained a few common threads as far as their themes were concerned, centering around elements of afrofuturism covered in the course.  In the short film “New world order,” for instance, the plot took cues from the space traders, centering a mass deportation of the Black population as a source of political unrest and social contention.  The film also featured a speech given by Martin Luther King jr., melding past and present together in an inventive, seamless fashion.  Conversely, in “saving western,” the writers seemingly took inspiration from both pumzi and parable of the sower, featuring themes of resistance and revolution, as well as authoritarianism.  “Saving western” follows the lives of a group of oppressed peoples in a town called western which has fallen victim to apparent neo-imperialism at the hands of a dictator known only as Bella, who rules over the colony Biltron.  As the film progresses we see one of the workers growing increasingly more frustrated by her circumstance and condition.  She attempts to steward an uprising, but finds one of her peers is a robot, and has seemingly been planted in western by Biltron.  This film also reminded me of Janelle Monáes catalog and the many moons video as it focuses on subversive efforts by a marginalized individual, and also features robot or android characters.  The short film “seeing double,” also deals with robots and themes of artificial intelligence, focusing on the experience of android 001, and the apparently nefarious attempts by a malignant sony media group to craft an android with as little free will as possible.  I particularly enjoyed the way this film infused each scene with music, adding depth and changing the mood of each scene.  Finally, we heard the reading from “burning down the doll house,” a story which centered around the life of a “doll” from earth who has been chosen as a play thing for a “lunar” child.  The lunars are a race of people/extraterrestrials who have taken up residence on the moon while earth lays in environmental shambles below.  The story had great use of imagery and was very well written and clear.  Overall the showcase was very inspirational and all of the pieces were well done and thoughtful, encompassing the themes from class well while remaining unique and original.

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District 9

The film District 9 centers around a large population of aliens known as the prawns whose ship became marooned due to lack of fuel above Johannesburg, South Africa.  After exiting the ship, the prawns gathered and settled in a refugee camp type area in the city known as district 9, causing discomfort to the city's residents and the general population of South Africa.  Throughout the film, the prawns are subject to abject poverty and overt, violent abuse at the hands of weapons conglomerate and corporation MNU.  In an attempt to evict the prawns from district 9, MNU enlists the help of white South African, wikus, to deceive and coerce the prawns into signing paperwork approving the mass eviction.  While on the mission however, wikus becomes infected with alien DNA, causing his arm and other parts of his body to transform into that of a prawn.  After his transformation begins, Wikus becomes ostracized and persecuted by his colleagues and other South Africans, and is subsequently hunted for the explicit purpose of harvesting his organs for scientific research and the opportunity to utilize and operate alien technology.  Although District 9 ambitiously sought to serve as a metaphor for the apartheid by way of satire, it falls short in many ways and fails to deliver across the board.  One of the many shortcomings of district 9 is the representation of blackness seen in both the prawns, which are meant to represent indigenous south africans, and the nigerian population.  Although the prawns appear to be the victims in this film, they are characterized as inherently criminal, destructive and violent, all of which are common negative stereotypes of the black body.  The prawns possess great physical strength as well, which is one of the only positive stereotypical traits attributed to Africans and members of the diaspora, but which is harmful nonetheless.  Similarly, the nigerians are represented as cannibalistic, violent and primitive, another set of negative stereotypes propagated world wide.  Throughout the film, a majority of the gruesome acts of violence are committed by black people or without their objection, decentering whiteness from systems of white supremacy and practices of colonialism and imperialism which is both incorrect historically and in the contemporary modern day socioeconomic global hierarchy.  However, the film does represent the process of othering or racialization in an accurate manner through the transformation of wikus into a human/prawn hybrid.  As soon as Wikus shows signs of being part prawn, he is cast aside and labeled as other or bad.  This is a similar experience and linear ritual of transformation undergone by non-european immigrant populations.  A prime example of this can be found in the racialization of Dominicans and Puerto Ricans in the United states.  In their home countries and under the Carribean racial structure, many Dominicans and Puerto Ricans who are considered black in the United States and marginalized accordingly would not be considered black in their home countries, and experience a level of privilege not available to them in the united states because of their phenotype and out group racialization.

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Daughters of the dust

In the film Daughters of the dust, director Julie Dash tells the tale of the Peazant family, a creolized clan living on a remote island off the coast of the Carolinas, as they make a difficult decision between remaining on their lands or moving to the mainland.  Throughout the film, Dash focuses heavily on the generational split and its racialized implications.  Younger members of the family want to distance themselves from their African ancestry both culturally and physically; they view their African ancestry as folkloric, of the past, and mainstream “modern,” americanism as the future.  Conversely, older members work to maintain cultural diasporic artifacts of their African ancestors in the forms of religion, spoken words (linguistic heritage) and cooking.  Although the younger family members want to leave the island in the pursuit of education and access to economic resources not available to them in isolation, their grandmother Nana peazant argues that while the mainland offers some advantages of alleged “modernization,” the mainland cannot offer them access and education in their ancestral, cultural practices such as root work and basket weaving amongst other things.  Through this juxtaposition, Dash highlights the diasporic importance of cultural artifacts and a connection to the shared history of slavery, which is mentioned multiple times throughout the film.  Furthermore, although the family is clearly connected to their African heritage, they similarly contain aspects of Antebellum, mainly seen in their European inspired attire and fashion sensibilities, that mark them as distinctly African American.  Additionally, throughout the film, the color white can be seen as a motif.  The color white often represents innocence, divinity and purity.  The younger family members are generally seen wearing white with accents of other colors to differentiate their personalities and characteristics.  The grandmother is generally seen weaning the color purple which represents royalty and wealth which can be seen reflected in her abundance of religious and cultural history.  Similarly, yellow mary and her companion, who are seemingly ostracized and othered amongst the group, are seen wearing off white and more muddied tan colors signaling their division and separation from the others. Yellow mary is regarded as less than and undesirable in some ways and it is assumed she is a sex worker, however she bonds with her cousin in regards to their shared experience of sexual assault at the hands of a white man, which in itself seems to act as a unifying agent and mark of their diasporic identity throughout the film.

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Within Afrofuturism, a genre encompassing many forms of media and artistic expression, the theme of memory and time as a nebulous construct are centered prominently.  As a means of imagining a past, present and future in which the black body becomes liberated, artists of the genre obscure the linear nature of time and history through the use of dreams and the supernatural.  In the short film “Pumzi,” directed by kenyan film maker Wanuri Kahiu, dreams are utilized as a form of ancestral knowledge by which the main character is informed and directed toward her future.  Furthermore, through her dreams and visions which lead her to a site able to foster life and the growth of foliage following a war regarding water, Asha is able to procure a life and future for all of mankind.  Asha experiences a vision of the future, in the present, allowing her to access resources and further her path.  Conversely, in Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler  uses visions and dreams to prepare her main character, Lauren Olamina, for the future and her physical odyssey through the fire ravaged and water deficient dystopian landscape of 2050 Southern California.  Lauren experiences a recurring dream of flying through a raging fire in which she faces her fears.  This dream informs her experiences later in the novel when she is forced to escape from her walled town, setting out for northern california and forming her ideology “earthseed.”  Additionally, in the film Daughters of the dust, director Julie Dash features themes of magic and witchcraft, though not in the traditional western sense.  Daughters of the dust utilizes magic as both a social organizing tool and as a connection to the past and to ancestry.  Through root work, individuals in the film are able to connect to their families and those who have passed.  This can be seen in Parable of the sower as well in the acorn bread made by Lauren's father.  When Lauren reaches Bankoles plot of land, Lauren names the compound “Acorn,” passing on a piece of her father.  Through connecting the past to the future by way of dreams and diasporic traditions, Afro futurist creators strengthen and reclaim Black history, reimagining the ways Black people can exist and thrive in the future.  In each of the aforementioned works, the artists focus heavily on a preternatural connection between the black body and the natural world, solidifying their indigeneity which has been robbed from them in eurocentric narratives lf white supremacy that position African descended peoples as sub-human and second class citizens.

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Earthseed

Two issues which would make my earthseed community necessary are the climate crisis and global systems of White supremacy intrinsically tied to capitalism.  The climate crisis disproportionately affects the global south which is most densely populated by Black and Brown communities, and White supremacy functions to disenfranchise and colonize Black and Brown bodies for labor.  In light of these issues my earthseed community would band together sharing and cultivating mutual aid and resources as well as shielding and protecting one another from violence and subjugation at the hands of white suprmacists and the nation state.  My earthseed community would be situated in the mesa verde national park which contains ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings.  With the permission of the remaining indigenous Pueblos in the region, my earthseed community would form a coalition and learn indigenous stewardship practices from the Pueblos, as well as build our own housing nearby.  In order to make the world a better place my earthseed group would follow and honor indigenous practices and dismantle capitalism, practicing communism and utilizing a bartering system.  Through these practices we would aim to return the region to its state before settler colonialists arrived.  Furthermore, the Mesa Verde national park contains various ecosystems and natural resources while remaining free from most natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes and excessive fires or hurricanes.  My earthseed community would be open to women, femmes, and all members of the trans community however cis gendered men, single men would not be allowed to travel with, or join the group due to their socialization as violent and patriarchal.  However, if partnered they would be allowed to join.  Additionally, my earthseed community would utilize AI drones to scan the mesa verde national park for approaching groups/ individuals.  Once aware of outsiders, my earthseed community would gather together and approach the group as a united front.  Furthermore, my earthseed group would confiscate all guns from individuals entering the territory and dismantle and discard them in a secure facility.  Through disarming newcomers in the park, my earthseed group would created a safer and less violent landscape.  My earthseed group would follow a democratic, popular vote leadership model in which each member held the power to draft a bill or proposition and each individual would vote.  My earthseed model would not have representatives, only meeting leaders who would count the votes in front of the community to avoid corruption. One earthseed verse I would apply to my community is “your teachers are all around you.  All that you perceive, all that you experience, all that is given to you or taken from you, all that you love or hate, need or fear will teach you.” This verse would teach my community to value the natural world and to have a patchy and appreciation to our peers and the knowledge of indigenous peoples.  Another verse my community would utilize is “Belief initiates or guides action- or it does nothing.”  This verse would represent the necessity of self motivation and the dangers of blindly following the teachings of others.

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Afrofuturism blog one

Through use of drums and melodies finding their roots in traditional African tribal practices, African Americans and other demographics of the African diaspora utilize music as a form of revolution and cultural production.  Beginning with slave hymns and spirituals, recently enslaved Indigenous Africans maintained their agency and history through musical oration.  In the United States specifically we find the formation of a distinctly African American musical tradition in blues, a genre which employs many similar themes of the aforementioned hymns and spirituals, differing mainly in its reflection of Black life during the industrial age as well as within urban centers such as Chicago.  Birthed in the late 1800’s during the reconstruction era, Blues music sought to give a voice to the condition of the Black population.  Thoroughly impoverished and persecuted relentlessly by the state and rampant white supremacist groups, the Black community faced immeasurable adversity.  Through their songs, Blues musicians like Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Sun House and Lead Belly effectively chronicle a pain and struggle unique to the black experience, inspiring and spawning genres such as rock n roll which have become ingrained in American society and culture.  In concert, the genre of jazz further demarcates Black cultural consciousness, and can be viewed as a direct predecessor to the music of Afrofuturism which evolved and took shape as an amalgamation of Black creativity and a vision of a free future.  Artists such as Herbie Handcock, Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley combined a variety of instruments, breaking from classical form and setting out to dismantle the norms embraced by classical music and more conservative genres. Avant-garde by nature, Afro Futuristic music often features imagery of space and advanced technology like the works of the Sun-Rah Arkestra, George Clinton/ Funkadelic, and Janelle Monae, but Afro Futurism is not limited to the science fiction realm, it also encompasses the realm of the fantastic.  Furthermore, Afro futurism often juxtaposes utopian and dystopian themes.  In Janelle Monae's catalog “dirty computer,” we find the heroine Cindy Mayweather, an android, fighting for liberation in a not-so-far-off future, using music and dance as a weapon and means of resistance.  Coming full circle, Monae invokes images of the past while simultaneously affirming the present and signaling to the future.  Through choice of vintage costume and blues/rock n roll riffs, Monae creates a melting pot of the past, present and future.  In addition, Lil nas X explores the realm of the fantastic in “Montero,” a music video in which he resists western, European gender norms and imbraces a more indigenous approach to sexuality and gender expression.

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Black culture in media

In its inception, contemporary western media is intrinsically tied to the landscape of white supremacy established during the colonial and imperial eras of the 1500’s.  Canonized during the transatlantic slave trade and maintained well into the present, POC and members of the African diasporic community have historically been able to locate themselves in media only in opposition to whiteness. Represented as savages, or as sacrificial lambs who’s only purpose is to protect and further the progress of their white counterparts in popular culture, minority groups have long established their own creative circles to subvert these misrepresentations.  however this is an ongoing struggle as many of these works have gone unrecognized or been lost, becoming subjugated knowledges and ghostly hauntings.  Conversely, minority and African diasporic groups have historically used artistic mediums as vehicles for agency and resistance.  In film, Black actors have taken up space and roles, gaining notoriety and platforms.  Despite many early Hollywood films only allowing black actors to play roles of slaves, Black creatives have persevered in concert with civil rights movements and policy changes in order to obtain better representation.  The same can be said for the literary realm where Black authors have used their voices and experiences to explicate the black experience.  From slave narratives to more contemporary creative fiction, Black voices have used their ingenuity not only to draw attention to injustice and marginalization, but to continue cultural production through rhetorical performance, giving birth to new practices and societal norms while simultaneously preserving what was retained from their African ancestry.  Through writing, music and film making, African diasporic communities have sought to preserve and transform tradition, drawing on their indigenous African history while making new connections with their respective relocated lands.  We find evidence of this in short stories such as “Greedy choke puppy,” “summer,” and “The devil in America,” all of which blend traditional African myths and religious spiritual practice with western culture and violence, birthing a new kind of folklore in connection to the south and the country in its entirety.  This is also found in films “Love wanga,” “the lake,” and “eves bayou,” all h demonstrate a connection to the land and cultures of the americas, while still maintaining connections to African practices.  The formation of religious practices such as voodoo and voudon can be analyzed as a form of resistance to the colonization of the black body as a source of labor.  In creating and producing these cultural practices and societal structure which take both from Western religions and African religions, we find diasporic communities maintain autonomy within the systems of white supremacy and oppression which seek to control and subjugate them

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McQueen and Villahermosa photographed by Bruce of LA, 1959

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Autochthonous Africans: cultural production and rhetorical performance in the americas

In the short story “The devil in America,” author Kai Ashanti Wilson explores the chasm between autochthonous African religion and cultural production and puritanical, fire and brimstone violence of white supremacy and culture in the United States.  Following the spiritual journey of Easter and her matrilineal line, all of whom seem to be or have been in possession of supernatural access to ancestral magic, Wilson condemns the policy of ethnic cleansing birthed during the transatlantic slave trade which stripped Indigenous Africans of their histories and connection to their land and practices.  Wilson illuminates the brutal nature of White supremacy and the United States, arguing that traditional African religions and cultures kept away from teachings that preached condemnation for all, even the just, opting to use the trope or metaphor of “the devil,” as an organizing tool to keep unruly characters in line, not to inflict seemingly arbitrary suffering on members of their communities.  Wilson draws a comparison between the two cultures, arguing that whiteness in its inception is violent and ruthless, acting out against the black body with impunity.  The story ends with a violent massacre of Easter’s community following a church gathering in which all of Easter’s friends and family are brutally murdered and assaulted by a band of white nationalists.  Easter escapes only by completely sacrificing her humanity.  Similarly, in the short story “Greedy choke puppy,” author Nalo Hopkinson explores the myth of the soucoyant, a vampiric creature that generally takes human form, shedding its skin at night and adopting a nebulous fiery shape, taking to the skies and wandering far and wide to find its prey.  Hopkinson argues that African diasporic communities use the soucoyant as a tool of social organization, employing the latter as an explanation for infant child death as well as death during childbirth, both of which were rampant in some communities.  Although “greedy choke puppy” does not feature explicit violence against the black body at the hands of white supremacy like that found in “the devil in America,” Hopkinson still addresses and features diasporic themes and folklore developed as a result of white supremacy and a blending of indigenous African practices and colonial religions imposed on members of the diaspora.  Conversely, both stories feature themes of tradition, community, family and ancestry.  “The devil in America,” explicates the bond between mother and child Ned the inherent sacrifice within the relationship.  “Greedy choke puppy” centers around similar themes with metaphors for grief and death throughout the text.  “The devil in America” also discusses death and mourning, using magic as the vehicle to convey the immense loss experienced as a result of the aforementioned ethnic cleanings policy in the americas. Both of these short stories can be seen as vehicles of rhetorical performance and cultural production, serving to maintain what little African diasporic communities maintain from their indigenous communities and religions.

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Eves bayou

Eve’s Bayou: Voodoo, psychics and the magical negro

In the 1997 film “Eve’s Bayou,” director by Kasi Lemmons follows main character Eve Baptiste, a ten year old girl of Afro Caribbean or creole descent living with her family in a large Louisiana mansion sitting on the bank of a swamp.  The film features wide panned shots of the gorgeous and haunting scenery, the camera lingering carefully over the delicate faces of its characters emphasizing the deep emotions central to the films theme.  As the plot unfolds, Lemmons utilizes the trespasses of Eve’s adulterous father to explore deeper themes of magic and witchcraft woven into American southern diasporic communities.  Serving in some ways as a tool of social order, magic and voodoo create social hierarchy and, in some cases can even act as judge and jury and executioner in determining guilt and punishment.  This can be seen in the film, as both Eve’s aunt Mozelle Baptiste, a hoodoo priestess, and Elzora, Mozelle’s rival, use magic to determine fates, advise those who seek out their guidance, and exact revenge.  At one point, Eve turns to Elzora to punish her father for allegedly attempting to molest her older sister, and members of their community often seek Mozelle for her psychic abilities and conjuring gifts.  Their perceived powers put them in respected and powerful roles of leadership in their communities and families, giving them tools by which to guide those around them, bringing order to chaos.  Furthermore the religions of voodoo and hoodoo connect members of the diaspora to their indigenous African roots, calling on the souls of ancestors to guide them in their rites and rituals.  Hoodoo, Voodoo and other African and Afro-carribean religions and practices have often been maligned in film and pop culture, resulting in the depiction of Black people as evil sorcerers, conjurors, and ghouls, neglecting the fascinating histories and realities of voodoo and hoodoo and their ties to the trans Atlantic slave trade.  One might also argue the practice of such rituals and religions could be a way for Black folks throughout history to take back their agency and autonomy within a landscape of White supremacy and eurocentricity.  Through voodoo, members of the diaspora maintain their history and connection to religions stolen from them during slavery.  Enslaved peoples retained the practices of their ancestors, passing them down to their children and grand children for hundreds of years.  Additionally, Eve’s bayou reclaims the stereotype and trope of the “magical negro,” validating Black cultural practices rather than trivializing and marginalizing them through a white lens.  

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Tales from the hood

In the film “Tales in the hood,” Director Rusty Cundieff touches on sociopolitical issues affecting the Black community using metaphor and the fantastic to illuminate the systemic racism and deep rooted racialized pillars of American society. Following themes of ancestral magic, ritual, and community, Cundieff critiques the American racial hierarchy and institutions of anti-black violence such as police, government and slavery.  Conversely, Cundieff espouses controversial and outdated viewson crime and gang violence, arguing against “ black on black crime,” in the final chapter of his film leaving the viewer with a startling sense of dissonance at the films close.  However, despite the contradiction in the second half, Cundieff remains firm in his depiction and criticism of marginalization the Black body.  Following a group of young black men into an apparent funeral home to retrieve a batch of lost drugs, Cundieff sets the stage for the ensuing tales told by an eccentric and slightly off putting mortician by the name of Mr. Simms who is later revealed to be devil.  As his guests arrive, Simms tells four spooky tales, “rouge cop revelation,” which follows the experience of a Black rookie cop haunted by the malevolent spirit of a fellow Black man murdered by his partners in a traffic stop gone horrifically wrong, “boys do get bruised,” which follows a young boy named Walter, who is being badly beaten by his step father, and his use of magic and ritual to defend himself and his mother, “KKK comeuppance” which shows the fate of a racist politician who moved into a former plantation house as a snub to his black critics only to be menaced by one of the former murdered slaves voodoo dolls, and finally “hardcore convert,” which focuses on the sociological myth of black on black crime and a gang member named Jerome or “crazy K” and a bout of conversion therapy type torture he faces while incarcerated.  In “Rouge cop revelation,” Cundieff uses the idea zombies and the undead to exact revenge on corrupt cops, taking agency and control over the narrative not afforded to victims of police brutality, similarly to Walters use of unintentional voodoo to take back his power from his abusive step father in “boys do get bruised.”  In both of these stories, historically maligned demographics reclaim their stories from the hands of their aggressors.  The same can be said for the souls of the deceased slaves in “KKK comeuppance,” who exact their poignant revenge from beyond the grave through voodoo dolls.  With the exception of the final tale, the stories in Cundieff’s “Tales from the hood,” use imagination to right the wrongs of the United States racialized past and present.

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Nope

Nope: The history of Sci-fi and Black exclusion

Though Jordan Peele is hardly the first Black person to venture into the world of Sci-fi, otherwise known as Science fiction, we have often been excluded from fantastical narratives, assigned instead to roles of servitude and racialized normalcy; the horrors of normalcy for the Black body within a landscape of White nationalism and White supremacy serving as bountiful inspiration for White and Black creators both.  However, in genres that fall outside the immediate realm of possibility, most notably in films outside the genre of Afro-futurism, Black bodies are often left out of the narrative.  Through his most recent work, “Nope,” Peele challenges the norm, inviting his predominantly Black cast into a Sci-if scenario both unique, inventive and not based in their historical suffering.  Furthermore, Peele challenges casting norms, employing Asian and Latinx actors in leading roles.  The avant-garde film does not exploit the race of its characters for plot points, instead allowing its characters and their relationships to develop unhindered by stereotypes.  This is an arguably unorthodox approach, considering most films with a cast comprised mainly by people of color focus on race relations and related themes.  Although the latter themes and storylines are important and need to be told, Black creatives often find themselves marginalized, forced to tell stories and create art centering around violence against the Black body and details of a caste system that serves to marginalize and exploit them.  This unfortunately can be seen in the reception of “Nope” which garnered less acclaim than its predecessors “Get out,” and “Nope,” which featured more clearly defined racialized plot points.  In “Get Out” Peele addressed the role of White omen in upholding White nationalism, as well as what professor and author Tananarive Due describes as “covetousness of the Black body.”  In “Us,” Peele’s comments are more ambiguous but seem to center on wealth disparities and possibly xenophobia, however the film still appears to have a more sociopolitical stance than “Nope,” which reads through and through as a true sci-if flick, which, in itself, is revolutionary.  There should be more space for Black voices to tell stories that venture away from racialized violence and the perils of living within a sociopolitical system that survives off of your exploitation and subjugation.  Black people deserve to tell stories and be included in fantasy narratives and science fiction in mainstream media.  And “Nope,” accomplished just that.

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From “The Comet,” to “Get out”: White women, isolation & a landscape of White supremacy in the United States

In both “The Comet,” a short story written by revolutionary author and activist W.E.B Du Bois centering on the complicated relationship between a Black man and White woman brought together by natural disaster and “Get out,” a film directed by the innovative film maker Jordan Peele which serves as an expose on the  modern incarnation of racism and the commodification of the Black body illustrated primarily through the relationship between Rose, a White woman, and Chris, a Black man she brings home to her family, the role White women play in both engineering and upholding the violent sociopolitical structure of White Nationalism is explored using haunting imagery and metaphor.  Both DuBois and Peele argue that White supremacy could not function without the direct participation of white women, the DuBois seems to assign the latter a more passive role than that depicted by Peele in “Get out”

In “The Comet,” Jim, a messenger for a prominent bank in New York finds himself the last man alive within the sprawling metropolis following the arrival of a comet carrying with it a trail of poisonous gas, wiping out the entire population of the city.  Ironically it was the racism of his deceased boss that saved his life.  Having been sent to the basement to retrieve lost volumes from an old vault, Jim avoids a painful death, emerging from the vault surrounded by thousands of corpses.  There is no life to be found, save that of a lone White woman.  From the first meeting both are starkly aware of the difference in their circumstance and social status but choose to ally themselves and take off in search of their families.  However, as the day wears on to no avail, the woman begins suspecting her companion of harboring dangerous thoughts, thoughts historically cited as reasons for lynchings.  She is unconcerned with the validity of her assumptions, her perception of Jim alone is all the confirmation she needs. She flees, running through the streets, eventually returning to Jim when her fear for the unknown surmounts her fear of Blackness.  For Jim, danger lies in his proximity to the woman which is highlighted at the end of the short with the arrival of her family.  When her father and who I assume to be her fiancé discover the pair, Jim’s intentions are immediately called into question and the topic of lynching is promptly suggested.  Although Jim has been working along side the woman for the majority of the tale, his Blackness is offense enough for her family to take his life.  Conversely, in “Get out,” Jordan Peele argues that White women act as partners to their male counterparts, not just complicit underlings.  Through the relationship between Chris, a black photographer, and Rose, his upper crust White girlfriend whose family harbors a dark, violent secret, Peele probes the role of White women as recruiters for White supremacist organizations.  It is Roses’ job to entice Black bodies into her families home where they are commodified and used.  Rose understands her status and appeal, playing on the trope of the White woman as the helpless victim to disarm her prey, identical in intention and result to that of real life white women who participate in fascist, White Nationalist groups.  Hiding behind the hyper masculine image of White supremacy projected by media, the role of white women is hidden and that it what makes it so insidious.