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Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s not every day that I utter a phrase that kicks off such an epiphonic (that’s a word, I coined it years ago) resonance within the reader that the residual sting experienced both in the open palm and the forehead it hits hangs around for a few hours if immediate medical attention isn’t sought out following the sudden realization.
Go ahead and get your smelling salts and gauze bandages out, because I have a doozy for you.
*pauses to allow the reader to prepare*
There comes a time in our lives when we have to interpret the message in film to be something other than what the film thinks it’s saying.
Right?
Case in point, let’s talk about Get Out.
I watched this film this last weekend with the express intent of coming to the internet a few days later to spoil the Dickens out of it.
That’s not really true. I watched it because I had plenty to do around the house like cleaning out the garage, and I was using the digital tools of the 21st century to avoid such a physical exertion of effort in the June-inspired heat of my garage.
Spoiling the film for you is just icing on the cake where I’m concerned.
Let’s face it people. The movie came out last year and got a bunch of critical acclaim. It’s also been streaming for a while. If you haven’t seen it yet and what you read here serves to spoil the ending for you, that one’s on you. I would expect you haven’t seen it because you don’t want to. You haven’t exerted the effort to cut time out of your busy day to incorporate this statement on race relations into your life.
Believe me, it’s no big deal where I’m concerned. I’m just exploring other material in which to offer up commentary. The alternative is that I sit here and discuss some colonic distress I experienced last night about an hour after going to bed.
Better yet, I’ve yet to discuss the unscheduled appearance of a soiled (the nasty kind) of boxer shorts in my trash container last week on my birthday.
Had I not gone out to the curb where I lovingly deposited the container in anticipation of a weekly pickup to see if the truck had made its weekly smash and grab at my residence, I would have remained blissfully ignorant about the guerilla (or gorilla) warfare that had been perpetrated upon my domain.
Instead, I was faced with the unhappy presence of mind that some incontinent malcontent had used my dumpster for their own personal use to avoid the additional work it would take to liberate the blue/green plaid boxers of the contents of their booty.
Think about it. That last statement has two different meanings which in all reality mean the same thing. This is why you come here for a healthy dosage of verbal brilliance.
What were the actual circumstances around the occasion of dumping a pair of pre-dumped boxers in my dumpster? Consider the options:
Option 1: Someone walking by the house with an unpalatable article of clothing selects the trash receptacle in front of my house to facilitate the extrication of the aforementioned boxers. Keep in mind that the Friday morning trash pick-up doesn’t happen just at my house. All of my neighbors have their trash out at the curb. Why was mine selected?
Option 2: Someone driving by the house with the product of an intestinal issue decides to stop the car, shuck their boxers, and leave them in my trash. Again, why mine?
Option 3: Maybe I did it. Strange enough I have a pair of boxers that look just like that, sans shartage. When I saw them in there, my first inclination was to check my drawer of unmentionables to make sure I was looking at a duplicate pair. Fortunately, they were there. The only way I could have done that would involve an elaborate scheme to cover up events in my life where maybe I consumed too much dairy after a particularly spicy meal. After all, I did have Mongolian barbeque the previous day for lunch. Of course, a quick trip to the Wal-Mart to replace the tortured boxers would have been on order before hitting myself with a roofy or two to forget the whole colonic indiscretion and any follow up shame involved with the incident. If memory serves, I was quite the challenge when it came to housebreaking. There would have been shame.
Option 4: Someone is sending me a message. Since the passing of my beloved pit bull Hope, I’ve incorporated a new practice whenever I walk our other dog Faith. A small portion of Hope’s ashes are in a small container which is attached to the clicker I use to signal to Faith that she’s doing what I’ve told her to do. I’ve referred to the entire process as ‘Freak on a Leash, Bitch on a Clicker’. Those two dogs didn’t like each other, and it’s a safe assumption that such a term is one that Faith would use about Hope, given the opportunity to audibilize her opinions in human-speak. Sometimes when we’re walking, Faith will try to stop and take on the pose of hidden dragon, crouching tiger in an effort to extrude the digested contents of her colon on the street where we’re walking. I don’t tolerate this behavior and make her keep walking. Sometimes, she’ll successfully deposit something on the street. The last time this happened a few weeks ago, a blue baggy of dog poop appeared in the gutter out in front of my house a few days later. Someone obviously dropped it there for reasons that can only be answered in the aforementioned options, save for number 3. Maybe the Rorschach test on blue/green plaid was someone’s twisted way to admonish me to clean up after my dog. To that, I say this. The day I clean up after my dog like that is the day I’m telling the canine population as a whole that they’ve won the war.
All things being equal, pondering the appearance of a pair of discarded and obviously (or obliviously, take your pick) used pair of boxers in my trash dumpster is a hell of a way to mark my 50th birthday.
Now of course we aren’t here to discuss a mysterious pair of soiled unmentionables in my trash can, are we?
Nope.
Instead, we’re here’ to talk about Get Out, of which I’ll opine the following:
- The level of white guilt characterized in this film is pretty darned insulting. At least it was until the film progresses into the true intent of the characters who were unabashedly putting it on display.
- Going into the film, you see Whitey as the antagonist because this premise is perpetuated in films about race relations. The twisted thing was that our collective confirmation bias was put to the test, and we were given a whole new reason to be hating on Whitey.
- This film has created a whole new white on black micro-aggression in the form of tapping a tea cup with a spoon three times.
- As a whole, the film is not one about a twisted version of race relations in America. Instead, it serves as a ringing endorsement of the unsung abilities of the Transportation Safety Administration.
