Author: Sierra .B
Get Out (2017) transitions from a tale of an average African American experience towards a terrifying demonstration of the black body commodified once more for eugenic ideology within sci-fi means of achieving such a result. Eugenics is the “science” of positioning a particular idea of what a person with genes of quality would merit reproduction through developing social, legal, scientific, and medical interventions for the sake of reinforcing said eugenic concept for humanity. Eugenics originated by way of what we most date back to Sir Francis Galton. I believe it is only due to the dominant narratives through history that one would not consider Get Out to be concerned with eugenics. I argue that it is this very logic that the movie is founded upon, as it holds the following: scientific justifications and aims being the elite’s agendas, actualized through illegal scientific/medical interventions to form the perfect vessel for the white mind, to operate a black body for their second life in a continuation of their intellectual as well as socio-economic superiority as driven simply by the greed of white supremacy by way of a eugenic formula.
In the 21st century, we’ve observed with the rise of social media how eugenic faces in the online world often appear as a mixture of qualities that register as racially ambiguous: as numerous micro to macro celebrities mimic them so far as to even deepen their skin tone to passing the line of tan to bordering black face for the sake of the aesthetics. The commodification of the black body has only shuffled from enslavement to appropriating our essence down to the very luster of our flesh. Peele’s work was released at a time when this trend was still on the rise and was gradually being called out for its problematic nature. The black body is in.
For the context of the film, Chris, our protagonist, goes to his white girlfriend’s family home for the weekend despite his concern that her parents not knowing his ethnicity would result in a negative outcome. This is further emphasized in his best friend Rod’s remarks, that going to some white girl’s parent’s home is an unforced error of a situation to begin with… What follows are a series of severely common African American experiences, as stereotypes and microaggressions are expressed. The Armitage family begins to slowly but surely sicken Chris into the “sunken place”, through the trauma he experienced as a child as accessed by the hypnotherapist of the clan. Chris’s awareness of the depths of this situation leads to his entrapment, as their cult of elites is not simply interested in enslaving Chris. Chris as well as those African Americans before him were and are being selected for their physically eugenic traits and innate marketable talents, so that they could have their minds swapped with white elites who wish to live another life at the end of their own. A society of white supremacists gathers annually to auction for a black body to take on the physicality of living a second life, through the perfect eugenic existence by new, contemporary standards of aesthetics and living.
Scientific management, in assessing the genetics, potential, and natural talents that purchasers may be interested in is imperative. “Behold the Coagula” allows elites to seek heredity beyond their bodies’ capacity, as the wealthy continue their lives through the bodies of people they’ve been transplanted into. Once we discover that the family is not going to let Chris leave, the father says the following: “…Even the sun will die someday, but we are divine. We are the gods trapped in cocoons.” (Get Out, Peele 2017, 1:08:45). After Chris is captured we see him strapped to a chair watching a TV underneath the head of a stuffed deer, in which the “service” is presented in its advertised form, and the following is stated: “You have been chosen because of the physical advantages you’ve enjoyed your entire lifetime. With your natural gifts and our determination, we could both be part of something greater. Something perfect.” (Get Out, Peele 2017, 1:14:03). As long as wealth is in the hands of white minds, under the guise of black bodies which seems eugenic in contrast to white bodies during this time, eugenics is not only committed to achieving this but white supremacy can be sustained in disguise; a foundational narrative of the country this is depicted in that would influence their eugenic ideals and subsequent practices.
Throughout the film there are focus points concerned with analogies and common usages of the body of the deer, specifically, its social perceptions differing among individuals are showcased. At the beginning of the film, the couple hits a deer with their car, and in being informed of this upon their arrival, Dean, the father, explicitly says that he hates “the deer” in the same way one would refer to a group of people or species they view as less than, a nuisance. He feels they are taking over and repopulating at a rate and value similar to that of rats. Consider Margaret Sanger’s perceptions of the poor and minorities. As they grew in number, she perceived them as non-eugenic, spreading their degradation of society, it’d be a better world without them (Shivers 2022). Lastly, as Chris is being prepared for the medical/scientific process of transferring the white mind into the black body, we see a stuffed deer’s head on the wall opposed to him, stuffed with white material within a dark exterior.
For the medical intervention process, the cult seeks African Americans with traumas they can prey upon as it makes the “sunken state” more effective. Historically, eugenic practices would not favor the mentally ill or traumatized. This component would be in opposition of C.K. Clarke’s views on the “defective immigrant”, who may be psychologically unfit and lack eugenic quality as a result (Clarke 1916). In the case of the legal aspect, for which I’ve drawn an abstract analysis to acknowledge that component of the general eugenics development process, consider the political philosophy demonstrated by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, in which consent even under duress is consent nonetheless to an authority (Hobbes, 1651). Targeting people who meet such a mental description is crucial for the sci-fi aspect of transference of control that allows for a eugenic creation, and so, one must be susceptible to consenting to the experience, in the same way, one may be coerced or forced to submit themselves to a process by the enforces of a eugenic agenda. Furthermore, what remains is not much of the traumatized black mind, but the portion that allows for the motor function to be accessed, meaning once completed, that illness is no longer of concern.
Their concern is only with positively ensuring their being through the best bodies possible rather than encouraging or discouraging the masses’ reproduction. The transplantation is restricted to those who are already of a categorical advantage socio-economically, to begin with, and eugenic in its foundations despite its divide from the rest of society as depicted in Peele’s work. In conclusion, the eugenics/eugenic practices Peele implemented throughout his film are incredibly apparent, however much they may mesh with our stark understanding of the nods to the enslavement of African Americans through a contemporary view. It is within the aforementioned lines of reasoning that I implore one to concur that this film was founded in eugenics with a twist from, say, its typical conception, as further evidenced by Galton, Sanger, Clarke, and Hobbes’s beliefs as expressed among their works.
Bibliography
CLARKE, C. K. 1916. “THE DEFECTIVE IMMIGRANT.” The Public Health Journal 7 (11): 462–65. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41996918.
Galton, Francis, and JSTOR. 1904. Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims. Internet Archive. The American Journal of Sociology. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762125/page/n1/mode/2up.
Hobbes, Thomas. (1651) 1651. Leviathan. S.L.: Ancient Wisdom Publication.
Peele, Jordan. 2017. Get Out. United States: Universal Pictures.
Sanger, Margaret, and Robarts – University of Toronto. 1920. Woman and the New Race. Internet Archive. New York Brentano’s. https://archive.org/details/womannewrace00sanguoft/womannewrace00sanguoft/.
Shivers, Abigail. 2022. “Margaret Sanger: Ambitious Feminist and Racist Eugenicist.” Woman Is a Rational Animal. September 21, 2022. https://womanisrational.uchicago.edu/2022/09/21/margaret-sanger-the-duality-of-a-ambitious-feminist-and-racist-eugenicist/.
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