TECHNICAL CODES:
 
Sound
  • Opening of the film: Run rabbit run. A warning. “farmer will get his gun” – a reference to slavery. This song plays again when Chris is trying to drive away at the end of the film.
  • Swahili song: Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga
Brother,
Listen to the ancestors.
Run!
You need to run far! (Listen to the truth)
Brother,
Listen to the ancestors
Run! Run!
To save yourself,
Listen to the ancestors.
  • Childish Gambino – Redbone includes the lyric ‘stay woke’ which means wake up. Stay alert. Look for the signs. (as we see the paintings) Its another warning.
  • Loud notes are played to emphasize jump scares. Typical of the horror genre.
  • The sound of the tea being stirred is repetitive and becomes ever increasingly louder. It feels like entering a trance
  • The sunken place – the sound of Chris’ voice is removed in the sunken place. This absence of sound is a metaphor for how Chris (and the black community) feel voiceless in white America.
  • After the camera flash there is no sound, and then a ringing. This is typical of hearing loss after a loud sound. It helps emphasize that Logan has had a temporary awakening of his consciousness.
  • Rose sits on the bed drinking milk in perfect symmetry. She listens to “I had the time of my life” which is ironic as she begins the next phase of searching for a black victim online.
  • In the background, when rod is on his mobile phone, there is an announcement for flight 237. 237 is also the most haunted room in the Shining. Another warning sign.
 
Camera
  • When Chris enters Rose’s parents’ house, the shot stays in a wide and zooms out. The house and environment encapsulates the frame and envelopes Chris. We then see that this is Walter, the groundskeeper’s, POV and this feel ominous. We understand this is the beginning of disequilibrium for Chris
  • During the hypnosis scene the camera shots become ever increasingly tighter and tighter. Helping the audience understand the narrowing of Chris’s focus as he becomes hypnotized.
  • The sunken place – Chris is framed in an extreme long shot, with the absence of anything in the frame apart from blackness. Jordan Peele describes the sunken place as a metaphor for the system that is suppressing the freedom of black people. This extreme long shot makes Chris look insignificant in comparison to the blackness.  Is is supressed by the very colour of his skin.
  • At the silent auction, Dean is framed from a low angle making him look large in the frame. We are now beginning to understand his dominance in this storyline.
 
Editing
  • Hypnosis scene. A match cut of Chris’ hands as he scrapes the arms of the chair as both a child and an adult show that he is feeling the same feelings of fear that he had as a child. He couldn’t react as a child and he can’t escape now.
  • The sunken place – Chris moves in slow motion. This emphasizes how black people can often feel trapped in a white world and unable to do anything. He is a tiny spec with no agency to do anything.
  • The sunken place. The frame of Missy hypnotizing zooms so far out into blackness that Chris is no longer able to communicate with her. HE yells and is unheard. The frame zooming out to the point of miniaturization helps emphasize the separation Chris feels (and black people feel) from the white majority in America
  • Slow motion is again used when Chris sees Jeremy playing the ukulele on the porch. Another throwback to slavery times.
 
Lighting
  • Hypnosis scene – the hue of the lighting is warm in Missy’s office and cold in his memory of his younger self. This emphasizes how uncomfortable the memory is for Chris
  • When Rose talks to Rod on the phone, she is strongly lit with a single key light from the side, casting half of her face in a shadow. This emphasizes the dark and light side to her personality (although the light side is fake.)
 
SYMBOLIC CODES
 
Setting
  • Opening – The film opens on a black man scared of a wealthy white neighborhood. Subverting the classical horror settings
  • Rose’s parents live in a colonial house, complete with black groundskeepers, maids, a front porch with rocking chairs, colonial furniture. Heralds back to pre-civil war and slavery era.  
  • Tea. Missy hypnotizes using tea. Tea is seen a civilized, but is actually the cause of many wars (like the American revolutionary war). There is a theme here. Civil vs darkness.
 
Acting
  • Logan, the black man at the dinner party seems robotic and devoid of a soul. He moves slowly and his eyes are fixed in one location. He stares without blinking and his facial expression remains stuck in a polite smile throughout the conversation. He even handshakes a fist bump – a strong indication that his cultural background has been erased.
  • Chris gives many hints that he is uncomfortable throughout the film. From subtle glances sideways, to short smirks, he is always trying his best to cope with an awkward situation.
  • A tear rolls down Georgina’s face as she laughs. There is a duality here. Happy on the outside and tormented on the inside.
  • When Rose talks to Rod on the phone, her voice is concerned and strained, while her face is devoid of any emotion, demonstrating a duality in her personality as well.
 
 
Mise-en-scene
  • The paintings are black and white. Symbolic meaning. All reference horror movies. It, rosemary’s baby, Cujo, Trick or Treat, The Crow, etc. There are the signs he is missing.
It also tells us that he sees the world in black and white. They are his photos.
  • Jim Hudson’s costume is all black. This foreshadows his desire to be black and take Chris’ eyes.
  • Not only does Jeremy play a ukulele (a symbol of slavery times) but he also uses a lacrosse stick as a weapon (a symbol of the white elite). Later in the film, Jeremy is ironically knocked out with a lawn bowls ball.
  • when Rose is shooting at Chris at the end of the film, her white top and brown pants evoke the image of a white hunter in Africa. This is no accident.
 
Visual Composition
  • When Chris wakes up in the basement, the shot is perfectly symmetrical. Life isn’t symmetrical. Something is not right here. It is too orderly, too ritualistic.
  • Rose sits on the bed drinking milk in perfect symmetry. Once again, the audience associates this with perfection to the point of obsession.
 
Colour
  • The car that pulls up at the start of the film to kidnap Andre (later Logan) is all white. A big warning sign.
  • Subsequently, all the guests to the dinner party arrive in black cars. Symbolic of their desire to inhabit black bodies.
  • Rose sits on the bed drinking milk in perfect symmetry. She is dressed in white, the walls are white and she drinks white milk. The inference here is that she is a  succubus that cares only for the advancement of her race. She eats fruit loops (symbolically meaning she devours coloured people.)
 
 
WRITTEN CODES:
 
Dialogue
  • “my dad would have voted for Obama a third time” – this sets up our historical and cultural context – a post Obama and supposedly post racist era.
  • “such a privilege to experience another person’s culture” – again Dean’s dialogue is foreshadowing his intentions
  • “black mould” in the basement. Double meaning. That is where they literally mould black people.
  • Comments during the dinner party “I know tiger”. “is it better?” “black is in fashion” – all these people can see is Chris’ blackness.
 
Language
  • “this thang” – Rose’s dad (Dean) tries to sound black. It’s the first warning sign that this will be uncomfortable for Chris (but later on we find out Dean’s real intentions)
  • Walter and Georgina both speak very articulately. Without any indication of the black cultural way of speaking. This creeps Chris out. To him, they are zombies.
  • “Snitch” – Georgiana doesn’t understand basic street slang.
 
CONVENTIONS:
 
Storyline
  • the deer is struck by their car. An animal sacrifice. Another warning. The deer will come back again as a trophy and ultimately be used to forge escape. Once the police arrive Chris is pondering the warnings. He is traumatized by his mother who was also hit by a car. When Chris sees the deer again mounted on the wall in the basement it is a symbol of death, and his impending death at that. It watches him as he struggles in the chair, just like he watched it struggle to survive earlier in the film.
  • Chris picks cotton out of the chair to block his ears during the final hypnotism. Picking cotton (which was used to enslave black people) is literally the reason for his liberation in this film. Another clever plot device.
  • Rods arrival at the end of the film is an example of Dues ex Machina (god from the machine) a plot device where someone or something drops in at the last second to save the day
 
Characters
  • Rose has a duality to her personality. On the surface she seems to be a liberal (when she questions the cop for asking for Chris’ ID) but really her motivation was to not leave a paper trail.
  • Georgina the maid is a Stepford Wives version of a black woman. Chris finds this creepy because she exaggeratedly ‘white’
  • Rod is the comic relief and the heart of the film. He is 100% always on Chris’ side, but also provides the comedy to supplement the tension is Chris’ storyline.
  • Chris has to use his smarts to escape the house. When Jeremy is wrestling him at the door, he kicks the door closed over and over again. Chris thinks 3 steps ahead (just like Jeremy told him he does at the dinner table) and knowing that Jeremy will kick the door, he stabs him in the leg. This is a good character arc. He has to learn to progress.
 
Genre
  • Walking around a strange house at night is a typical convention of the horror genre. Chris goes to have a cigarette at night and is subsequently scared by the black servants behaving strangely.
  • Phone disconnected. Another horror trope. But this time it is an uncharged cell phone.
 
Point of view
  • Hypnosis scene – Chris looks directly at the camera (this happens a few times in the movie) as if to look straight at the audience and plead for help. Like him, we are unable to act and help. We feel his point of view
 
Structure of time
  • As Chris heard the details of the surgery to take his eyes, flashbacks accompany the details that are exposed to him. These flashbacks in time help the audience understand the connections he is making between what is being said and what has unfolded so far in the film. It helps the audience join the dots and understand how each character is connected to the narrative.