By Grayson Taylor
Jordan Peele is known for his carefully calculated and deeply rooted films. Get Out and Us being some of his most popular. Each film consist of a specific animal that symbolizes a key aspect of the world of the movie. Jordan Peele is able to accomplish a psychological terror in each of his films. He messes with the mind of the audience while his characters endure their own mind tricks and psychological troubles.
In Get Out, the main character, Chris, endures his own form of psychological warfare by being hypnotized and having his mind controlled by the Armitage family. However, deer show up a lot within this film. One of the first times we see a deer is when Chris and Rose are driving to the Armitage family home. They end up hitting the deer who smears its blood across the front of the car. Conveniently, the blood is only spread across the side of the car Chris is sitting on. This is one of the first indications that Chris is in danger.
When the police arrive, a stiff feeling of energy blankets Chris when he’s asked to show his ID. Rose sticks up for Chris and questions the officer on why he needs to show is ID when he wasn’t the one driving. Chris says he doesn’t want any problems and offers to show his license. This opens Chris up to one of the first racist elements within the movie.
The next time we see a deer, it’s hanging on the wall when Chris is strapped to a chair. The deer head is hung in alignment with Chris’s head when he’s trying to figure out where he is. This creates the connection between Chris and a deer, an animal that is typically hunted, much like African Americans within Get Out.
Later during this sequence, Chris rips the deer head off of the wall and uses it to stab Dean to death and escape from the basement. This connects and ends the triangle of the symbolism of deer in Get Out. Chris gets the last laugh in the end by refusing to be hunted and being able to escape and make it out alive.
For Us, rabbits are a symbol in the film. The movie opens up with a wall of caged rabbits. Jordan Peele chooses to spend an awkward amount of time on the cages of rabbits for the opening sequence. This gets the viewer used to the reoccurring theme.
We see a stuffed rabbit doll while in the family cabin, Zora wears a shirt with a picture of a rabbit on it, and she also has a sweatshirt with the word “Tho” which translates to “rabbit” in Vietnamese. There is also the underground scene, where the climax of the film is occurring when rabbits begin to hop around the hallways.
Peele has never outright explained the meaning of the rabbits in Us. He explains it best by talking about how rabbits are cute looking, but terrifying by their look. Their eyes are usually intimidating. Peele says that their eyes look like they’re sociopathic. They balance out a feeling of safety and terror.
In the beginning scene, the rabbits are locked in cages which shows a loss of freedom and movement, much like the Tethered. These rabbits are connected and tied to a doppelganger, but when they are freed, the rabbits find themselves free as well.
Animals are a great symbolic easter egg in each of Peele’s films. They always provide a deeper meaning to the film in an interesting and psychologically perfect way.
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