Privilege and classism are vivid themes of Jordan Peele’s second feature, Us (2019), both working as accompaniment to the core subject of social separation: topographically, physically and ultimately, by a drastic act of metaphoric self-restriction, mentally. By re-imagining an eerie scenario nearly as old as horror cinema itself (dating back to the earliest expressionist films like 1913’s The Student of Prague), Peele exposes the concept of social advancement as a fairy tale, established to silence the conscience of the advantaged and to denounce the frustration of the disadvantaged.
Although exploitative structures are less obvious than in Peele’s astute debut Get Out (2017), the Tethered’s puppet-like subjection to their upper-world doubles indicates the underprivileged’s subordination to the actions of the prosperous. In this world of Us – or ours, as Red’s declaration “We are Americans“ emphasizes – decline comes as easy as stepping on an escalator. However, the only way up from mind-numbing deprivation is hostile acquisition. Red turns out to be the little girl who entered the hall of mirrors in the prologue and now reclaims her place from an imposter.
Check out the trailer for Us:
It’s here Peele fully unfolds his unsettling critique of immovable social hierarchies. When a young Adelaide (Madison Curry) manages to cross the figurative class barrier, it’s because she acts as ruthlessly as the authorities who created her ghastly underground world. Shades of H. G. Wells linger as she turns Morlock to her entitled other’s Eloi. But instead of eliminating her doppelgänger, Adelaide represses her like a childhood nightmare destined to revive as reality.
Once in the above-ground world, Adelaide’s parents‘ therapeutic encouragement represents imperative adaption to middle-class behavioral norms. To keep breathing fresh air, keep walking under an open sky, Adelaide must adjust. A slight misstep, such as getting the beat of a well-known song wrong, might betray her. Adelaide’s experience shapes her future childhood and adult life, invariably also shaping the underground Red, a Michael-Jackson-inspired image of ultimate social rejection. This double case study not only attests to milieu theory. It also indicates the corrosive effect of lower-class stigma.
The growing discomfort vexing adult Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) as she returns with her own family to the beachside of her deceitful ascension is not so much recollection of traumatic shock as fear of exposure. While Adelaide’s husband Gabe’s (Winston Duke) endeavors to keep up with their blasé friends play out as comic relief, her own desperate struggle for belonging is anything but. Anyone who has internalized class shame can relate to the constant dread of being judged not for who you are but where you came from.
Red explaining her rebellion to Adelaide
The plot’s multilayered systemic critique encompasses the ingrained concept of the lower classes as (especially intellectually) inferior–an inferiority, on which, in turn, low social status is blamed. In this vicious circle misery is considered private failure, just like the Tethered are considered scientific failure. Though Peele leaves no doubt no-one deserves the cruel imitation of life endured first by Adelaide, then by Red, their fatal reencounter doesn’t break the classist circle nor does it resolve any trauma. Instead, Adelaide is driven to turn against her fellow-sufferers, combat her own class and finally take self-destructive actions.
Killing the appointed leader of the Tethered, Adelaide undermines their justified uprising, effectively becoming a sustainer of the system responsible for the inhumane experiment that created them and her own early childhood mistreatment. Her triumph over the revolutionary Red marks Adelaide’s defeat by the system. It doesn’t verify the tale of class mobility but deconstructs it. The prominently placed quote from Jeremiah 11:11 has been widely interpreted as applying to the people above ground. Ironically, referring to the clones as “evil“ is exactly in line with the very prejudices the movie objects.
“Therefore thus saith the Lord, ‘Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.'”
Corresponding with the ordeal of the Tethered, the quote emphasizes the arbitrary cruelty of the („evil“) experiment as well as public lack of accountability. As she escapes with her family, Adelaide is still trapped in the system she helped to uphold—still forced to continue hiding her true nature, forced to play somebody else’s part, all the more an outsider.
Jason suggests he knows his mother’s secret
This rift is punctuated by her son Jason (Evan Alex) looking at her while putting on a toy mask. Outside the car, the Tethered’s re-enactment of “Hands Across America“ turns a trite emblem of human union in an allegory of inexpugnable social division.
You can stream Us on Amazon:
Lida Bach is a professional movie journalist and critic from Berlin, having been published and publishing in numerous online media. She has also written for Horror Homeroom on “10 Classic Films to Unlock the Uncanny.” You can check out her website, Cinemagicon, and find her on Twitter.
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