Ways in which the seminal Black horror film "Get Out" by @JordanPeele reflects (and inverts!) aspects of Homer's Odyssey:

A THREAD

Alright, I know I actually have to explain this one before diving in.

So recently I've been looking at a large range of Black interpretations of the Odyssey, particularly at a lot of the representations of Odysseus and the Cyclops.

I came to this idea via Justine McConnell, reading her chapter on Ellison's "Invisible Man" that analyzes parallels from the Polyphemus episode in the Odyssey with aspects of identity in the 1952 novel. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199605002.001.0001/acprof-9780199605002

Then right at the start of this year, I heard @samasabag give a talk at @eosafricana's "Black Classicisms in the Visual Arts" panel at the SCS meeting about looking at the character Mr. _______ from Boots Riley's "Sorry To Bother You" as both Odysseus and the Cyclops.

From that point onward (ty again Sam) my brain started hopping through a lot of different Black visual media I've watched over the past few years, wondering if there were similar threads around the Odyssey that I'd somehow missed.

Ironically, my brain went to an entire other Lakeith Stanfield role where he needs to escape a situation--I wasa thinking through the Teddy Perkins episode of "Atlanta", especially with that ostrich egg good lord--before I realized the movie I needed to focus on was "Get Out".

But also why? Well, I think there needs to be more comparative media, and I genuinely think you can learn more about the concepts being expressed in Homer's Odyssey by seeing the ways in which they're refracted into our own contemporary story telling.

At the same time, I love how Black art can draw from so many different sources and points of storytelling and layer them on top of each other. Finding the different lenses to help draw forth different colors, patterns, and textures is all part of the process.

So let's get into it! First we have the conventions of genre: the Odyssey is a part of the "nostoi" epics--oral tales around homecoming anxieties that speak to a generation of men gone off to war and unsure if the world they left will still be hospitable to them on their return.

In Get Out, the horror movie is a riff on the "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" movie trope around interracial relations in America, which speaks to Chris' central plot throughout the film--his uncertainty if the home that he is in is hospitable. (also there will be spoilers etc)

Chris is also going on his own odyssey--into territory that is unknown, yet he has a familiarity with. He is about to enter into a realm of shifting cultural customs that he has to keep his wits about him in. His odyssey with the Armitages shows him many fascinating sights:

1. SIRENS--this was the first parallel I noticed, partly in the role that Rose has within her household to lure different Black bodies in for the coagula process. There is also an interesting cultural pun with police sirens that get used with her in the film.

She literally attempts to control the other sirens (ie, the police sirens) by first curtailing them in the beginning, then trying to ally herself with them in the end (which had a nice echo of Rod getting to pull one over her when she remained two steps ahead of him).

Speaking of Rod, her scene where she tries to vocally mislead him over the phone while staring dead off into space is just... *chef's kiss* so much to think about with sirens

2. PHAEACIANS--Or are they? The guise that the Armitages put on for Chris is strongly reminiscent of the trio Nausica, Arete, and Alkinous, the "good" strangers that will be hospitable to his ways, unlike those other barbarians he met who really didn't know him.

2. CIRCE--now originally Missy Armitage's little tea cup tinkles made me think of sirens before I realized she was the Circe of this Odyssey. She definitely shares the powers of metamorphosis over Black bodies with her husband, but her role is far more emphasized.

There is also the matter of narcotics--s/o to @platanoclassics for specifically asking this at that panel--and the language around drugs and drug-induced states that happen in the film offer a fascinating parallel to the drugs which Circe used to change men into animals.

Not to mention the fact that she takes Chris' addiction away from him! And interesting parallel to Odysseus coming to Circe prepared with the "moly" plant to stave off any incantations--instead Chris is stripped of his non-magic narcotics in a purifying ritual.

4. THE UNDERWORLD--following from Circe, in the Odyssey she gives instructions on how to get to the Underworld so that Odysseus can get the information that he needs. He then learns that his mother has died when he sees her shade as he's trying to get information.

Inverting this, Missy psychologically causes Chris to sink into the ground like a libation into the Sunken Place. She triggers this by pulling forth the traumatic experience of his mother's death and making him incapable of moving past that point.

In this way, the Black bodies in the film that have undergone the complete coagula process have effectively become shades of society (all forms of that pun intended) existing in this mingled afterlife.

5. POSEIDON/SCYLLA & CHARYBDIS--Dean & Jeremy Armitage represent some of the most clear and present dangers of Chris's odyssey. Jeremy is referred to as the "worst option" as opposed to his sister and literally snatches bodies and attacks his victims when he has the high ground.

Dean as Poseidon I've definitely still thinking through more, and I think I'm only stuck on if instead I think his father Roman is a Poseidon in the guise of Walter (which would then tuck Dean more neatly into being Charybdis to Jeremy's Scylla).

I would probably say broadly: Poseidon is Coagula--so whichever patriarch best represents Coagula I think should be Poseidon because the Coagula process seems to be the main catalyst for action and delaying Chris's homecoming.

6. THE LOTUS-EATERS--The Party-Goers Seeking to Embody Chris. The dinner party scene in particular goes out of its way to show how hungry the Armitage's social network for Blackness to consume (in more ways than one).

7. ATHENA/HERMES--it's not all enemies for our Ochrisseus! He has a voice of wisdom (or at the very least some common black ass sense) and innovation from his best friend Rod, who pulls a Hermes ex machina in the end to literally deliver him from evil.

And that's most of the parallels that I've been considering. I wanna think through Georgina and Walter's figures throughout the film and how they play into different aspects of cloaking and disguise that are common in ancient epic.

But mostly I think my brain just wanted to do something interesting, and it was already throwing around so many ideas about Odysseus that they were starting to get sticky. And I want to bring things back to a need for more comparative media and genre studies! Esp with antiquity!

On a more personal note, I don't have health insurance right now, so I also wrote about Odysseus and Kubrick and my father in lieu of therapy, if anyone's interested in that angle: https://medium.com/corona-borealis/o-father-where-art-thou-patriarchal-poetics-athenian-mechanics-kitchen-intuition-8809a9e58693

8. THE CYCLOPS--[WOW Y'ALL OF COURSE I FORGET THE GODDAMN REASON I MADE THIS THREAD] Jim Hudson! While Jim is a part of our Coagula Crew, he identifies himself as apart, different from the others, and inverting the Homeric episode, he's the only one at the party to "get" Chris

However this pretense is hiding a much more sinister plot! As Jim says, he's not racist, he doesn't care about Chris's Blackness, "I just want your EYE, man" because he wants to be as good of a photographer as Chris (missing that photography requires not an eye but perspective)

9. TIRESIAS--Andre Hayworth. Andre acts as the "prophet" of the film by letting us know in the first scene the potential dangers that are awaiting our protagonist. He even plainly utters aloud that he doesn't trust the situation he's in and needs to escape it.

He later returns as a Coagula Shade and it isn't until Chris "blinds" him with the flash from his camera that our Tiresias wakes up from his shade state to tell Chris the prophetic and titular imperative of the film //GET OUT// before our Circe changes him back again.

10. ODYSSEUS POLUTROPOS/POLUMECHANOS--Chris, in the end. Odysseus is a wily protagonist of many devices who uses his cunning to escape from situations. Chris resists this impulse the entire film, despite the mounting dangers and alarms (and literal warnings from Rod).

When he has every pretense around his situation stripped bare and has to face his Poseidon (Coagula) head-on, he starts assuming many of the aspects of resourceful Odysseus, including remixing some truly fascinating genres and tropes so that he can get out. Let's go through them:

I. He picks cotton: He pulls out the stuffing in the chair he's tied to and stuffs it in his ears to block out the aural signal from Missy's tea-cup--not only commentary on the history of cotton labor in America, but also a clever riff on Odysseus' crew with the sirens.

II. Re-utilizes bodies of sacrifice: he uses the deer (which has been a metaphor for both him and his mother throughout the film, and black people more broadly) to kill Dean in a way that reverses many narratives of the hunter/hunted.

III. Bringing a Knife to a Scylla Fight: after some frightful manual mechanics to get the knife from Missy, Chris is prevented leaving by Jeremy who puts him in a chokehold and is constantly kicking the door shut in a very visual "stuck between a rock and a hard place"...

...Chris then plays into Jeremy's choreography to eventually overcome him by knifing his leg and (finally) double-tapping.

11. CALYPSO--Alternate Ending/Prison - So I wasn't sure if I wanted to include this one, but I think that it fits in nicely with the way this film was written for the Obama era and serving as a reminder of the pitfalls that can befall being an Odysseus.

Originally, Chris does kill Rose on the street and it's the cops who show up, not his friend Rod. Chris then goes to prison for the murder of the Armitages but finds solace in his inner guilt about his mother because he went back for Georgina after he hit her in his car.

Chris has found peace being in prison because his inner trauma has finally been resolved for himself. This directly inverts the Odyssey, which kicks off with Odysseus with Calypso, being nearly net to the gods but being dissatisfied without his homecoming.