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‘An analysis of Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’ in relation to The Uncanny.’

Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele is a movie about an African American man who travels to

his Caucasian girlfriend’s parents’ house for the weekend, unprepared for horrors ahead. In

this essay I will highlight how Get Out emphasises the concept of the uncanny in relation to

Sigmund Freud’s theory of ‘The Uncanny’ (1919) as my focus.

Sigmund Freud was a psychoanalyst who became the founder of psychoanalysis

with his work. Despite his influence, he has been heavily criticised for his infamous and

problematic thoughts regarding masculinity.1 He believed those without phallic and white

masculine power, are incompetent and lacking. The Oxford English Dictionary defines

‘uncanny’ as ‘partaking of a supernatural character; mysterious, weird, uncomfortably

strange or familiar’ or ‘Of persons: Not quite safe to trust to, or having dealings with, as

being associated with supernatural arts of powers’.2 This definition focuses on the

supernatural as well as encountering an experience of familiarity. This originates from Freud

who defined it as ‘something repressed which recurs. This class of morbid anxiety would be

no other than what is uncanny, irrespective of whether it originally aroused dread or some

other affect.’3

1
Martin Evan James, Psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Freud/Psychoanalytic-theory [accessed 30 April 2022]
2
Uncanny, adj. 4b, in OED online, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022) https://www-oed-
com.ezproxy3.lib.le.ac.uk/view/Entry/210106?redirectedFrom=uncanny#eid [accessed 27 April 2022]
3
Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny, (London: The Hogarth Press, 1919), p. 13

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He begins a large passage on the ‘different shades of the meaning the word

Heimlich’ and ‘What is heimlich thus comes to be unheimlich’.4 The term ‘heimlich’ is

defined as ‘familiar’ and ‘unheimlich’ being the direct opposite, ‘unfamiliar’. He believes that

if the terms can be linked through language, then they may be a correlation with our psyche

with multiple meanings. ‘Unheimlich’ is not an unambiguous term that belongs to two sets

of ideas which differ without being contradictory.5 The first idea is that it is familiar and

congenial and the other being that something that is hidden and kept out of sight. This dual

meaning of Heimlich that Freud draws on is the concept of homely and familiar, and the

eery and uneasiness of things that we actively see with the parts that are kept hidden. He

presents the idea that the familiar and the unfamiliar then can be defined as the same thing

which are actively linked with the uncanny. Freud is intrigued with the relationship between

our experience with the uncanny and seeing it is an encounter with the unconscious. Freud

believes that ‘everything is uncanny and ought to have remained hidden and secret, and yet

comes to life’6 meaning everything that is repressed, returns at some point. Hence why the

cycle of the Armitage’s actions is broken in the end. The unconscious underpins all

subjectivity in our personality and suggests that our psyche is constructed into three parts:

the ego, super-ego, and id. The ego is the part that mediates the rational parts of the super-

ego and the part that we are most in touch with unlike the id which is entirely unconscious

and does not manifest in our conscious self where our desires are formulated. The super-

ego is the middle ground, our ideal self, and the moralising part of psyche link between the

two.7 Our psyche actively pushes down the unconscious and the uncanny being the return

4
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 4
5
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 4
6
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 4
7
Sigmund Freud, The Unconscious (1915), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of
Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914- 1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on
Metapsychology and Other Works, p. 159-215

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of the repressed, the repressed being re-emerged which is portrayed within Get Out during

several occasions.

The horror genre draws from the uncanny which Get Out executes with the

unsettling nature created for both Chris and the viewer. In fiction, Freud argues that all

versions of the uncanny are to some extent dependant on the reality of the world in which

they occur, especially within the horror genre.8 This is because there is more scope for

uncanniness as there are no constraints by things that could occur in our reality. Get Out

accomplishes this by depicting things that are deemed as normal but would be extremely

odd if occurred in real life and draws on this structure and idea to tell Chris’ story.

The first element within Get Out that draws the uncanny is animating the inanimate

which is based on the fantasy of toys and dolls being real and coming to life and creating

human-like personalities for them.9 This interpretation would not be viewed as sinister as a

child but if this were to return later in adult life, the sinister undertones produce the

eeriness of the uncanny. Reanimating of the animate to dismembered body parts being

animated, is seen in horror movies. In Get Out we seen the reanimating of the ‘aid’ which in

this case are Georgina, the housekeeper, and Walter who is the Armitage’s groundskeeper

both African American similarly to Chris. These reanimated characters create an eery and

uneasy atmosphere for both Chris and the audience through several mediums. The uncanny

movements of characters for example when Walter runs at a fast speed towards Chris and

then diverts his location during the night. The sudden movement from Walter is an
8
Freud, The Uncanny, p.18
9
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 9

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animated action with a threatening approach that was ‘unfamiliar’ to Chris as this would

seem odd in real life creating the uncanniness in the film with the unsettling nature of these

characters, it is almost as if he is possessed. This is further exemplified when Georgina

attempted to justify her unplugging Chris’s phone off charge as she transitions to a mental

breakdown, unable to function through scarily animated actions through her tone, facial

expressions, and unsettling music playing in the background as if she is having flashbacks of

her repressed self that is supposed to stay hidden but cannot control.

Another example of this is when Chris takes a photograph of Logan, where the flash

photography phone sends Logan into a manic trance and leads to a severe nosebleed. His

movement and stiffness give the impression of a reanimated figure whose repression is

returning. The blood representing the suffering African Americans have experienced by

white people in the past and casual racism experienced every day continually that is

internally repressed. The other person inside, his old organic self, and outburst of internal

conflict is released revealing his split identity. It can also be linked to the idea of the double

as he claims that he feels like himself again. The concept of the familiar and the unfamiliar in

company with the return of the repressed is a factor of the uncanny executed through

reanimating the animate. Due to the procedure Logan has undergone what he experienced

was familiar to him, it overstimulated him making it feel unfamiliar, hence the uncanny. The

way in which is currently is dressed and behaves is familiar to him and yet unfamiliar due to

the manipulation of his brain that has taken place.

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Logans confrontation of his other self links to ‘the double’ as the uncanny. The

‘double’ according to Freud is an area of development which the ‘creation dating back to a

very clearly mental stage’.10 When a child makes several projections gets overcome when

their ego is developed. We see this as Chris recognises Logan as Andre despite looking like

the same person, but he is not anymore. Logan symbolises the double in a literal sense as

even though he may be the same person physically, his behaviour is a complete contrast.

The uncanny is represented through the deceased being doubled as they now exist in

another body due to the uncanniness caused by the older white generation inhabiting

young African American bodies for their physique. The ‘double’ appears when a person

experiences the ‘narcissism of the child’ in their later life after maturing causing for their

primitive self to return, therefore causing the uncanny, which is Logans old unrepressed self.

When one undergoes something familiar, there is no reason to feel fear, but Logan does due

to the narcissism of the self. He becomes aware of his conscience which is what Logans

other self represents. The part of the ego that he does not accept is shown hence the

uncanny is produced.

The ‘doubling’ of Chris is seen in the opening scene of the movie where we see him

shaving in front a bathroom mirror. Freud credits Otto Rank who ‘has gone into the

connections the “double” has with reflections in mirrors’.11 According to Freudian terms we

can see this as the enacting of an uncanny doubling and a splitting of a subject into his white

self (his relationship with Rose) and his black self which seem to be in a dilemma. The white

shaving form raises the predicament of whether Chris is in preparation to execute whiteness

10
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 10
11
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 9

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in anticipation of visiting Rose’s family. The conflict of self and the other via the medium of

the mirror shows a potential threat to the survival of the self, connecting to the uncanniness

of the wider racial dynamics of contemporary American society. He cuts himself hinting at

psychological violence that accompanies a performance of whiteness.

The literal definition of castration is ‘the removing of the testicles’. 12 Castration

anxiety is a psychoanalytic concept created by Freud ‘to describe a boy’s fear of loss of or

damage to the genital organ as punishment for incestuous wishes toward the mother and

murderous fantasies toward the rival father’.13 It’s reoccurring in his work however in this

case it is not the literal loss of the phallus but a symbolic loss of power that comes from the

lack. Castration anxiety is dependent on someone with a phallus and if one does not have

this, then the worry of losing it and the power that comes with it is large. Freud’s sandman

narrative revolves around the idea of the loss of the eyes hence you lose the power you

have with the ability to see. In Get Out, the art critic wants to extract Chris’ eyes to replace

his own failing eyes. The metaphorical tearing out of Chris’ eyes is to be associated with

someone else’s identity, a white male, shows that the artist wants to regain phallic power

from a young and powerful body, which they make several references to throughout the

film. This is not limited to the artist himself but the white people in the film for example

Rose’s dad, a neurosurgeon, who we find out to conduct the brain transplant operation of

black people. This shows that the Caucasian characters in the film lack both mental and
12
Castration, n., 1a, in oed online, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022) https://www-oed-
com.ezproxy3.lib.le.ac.uk/view/Entry/28618?redirectedFrom=castration#eid [accessed 3rd May 2022]
13
Taylor G., Castration Anxiety (2016), In: Zeigler-Hill V., Shackelford T. (eds) Encyclopaedia of Personality
and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham., https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-
319-28099-8_1365-1?noAccess=true [accessed 2nd May 2022]

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physical strength which can be linked to castration anxiety to an extent hence taking on

young and physically able young bodies to attain phallic power. The way in which this is

conducted and the symbolism behind it, is the uncanny.

Womb fantasy ‘with regard to psychoanalytic theory, the fallacy of going back into the

womb or living with the womb, generally shown in symbolic style’.14 Freud links the uncanny

familiarity of a place to the repressed memory of the intrauterine existence, is something

that resembles the familiar that can be re-emerged from a repressed memory within the

womb. This leads back to castration anxiety because the memory of the womb transfers

back the missing and the familiar place that we come from. There are various examples of

this uncanny familiarity in Get Out, a major instance of this being Missy, a psychiatrist

specialising in hypnotherapy, who hypnotises Chris to diminish his cigarette addiction.

However, her real intention for the hypnosis was to send him into ‘The Sunken Place’. Chris

gets taken back to this childhood with the threat of being reborn. It brought back the

repressed memory of his mother’s hit and run death in which he stayed at home to watch

television. It is a memory that is repressed from the past and reborn into the present,

bringing all the guilt and emotions back.

As Freud states that the uncanny means ‘something repressed which recurs’. 15 He

states the uncanny ‘is in reality nothing new and foreign, but something familiar and old-

established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression’ 16 which is

14
N., Sam M.S, Womb Fantasy, Psychologydictionary.org, https://psychologydictionary.org/womb-fantasy/
[accessed 1st May 2022]
15
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 13
16
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 13

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portrayed through the symbolism of the deer that appears to get run over by Chris when

travelling. It represents Chris’ supressed guilt of his mother’s death who also died of a hit

and run case, bringing back the repressed guilt of his childhood. We can interpret this with

psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon’s book The Negro and Psychopathology. With his

work, we can symbolise the deer as the repressed past of plantation slavery in its post racial

present. Chris’ experience with the deer triggers an indirect confrontation not limited with

the repressed individual memories surrounding his mother’s death. However, with the

nations collective memory of physical and psychological violence against the African-

American memory repressed by the memory of ‘post racial’ America, looking at the uncanny

through the means of race which both coincide with each other in this film.

In essence, Jordan Peele’s Get Out presents an array of scenes and symbolism

throughout the movie in line with Sigmund Freud’s theory in his work of ‘The Uncanny’. To

repeat, he describes it as ‘something repressed which recurs’17 done with the four mediums

of reanimating the animate through the house and ground keepers of Rose’s parents house,

the doubling of the character Logan, the castration anxiety of the white characters who do

not want to lose their phallic power, and lastly the womb fantasy between repressed

memory of the womb which bring backs the lack and the familiar place that we came from.

There uncanny is also mobilised in a way of commenting on white liberalism in

contemporary America proving that there is a connection with the uncanny and race.

17
Freud, The Uncanny, p. 13

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Bibliography:
Primary sources:
Get Out, (2017), Jordan Peele, Alabama: Universal Pictures
Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny, (London: The Hogarth Press, 1919), pages 1-21

Secondary sources:
Frantz Fanon, Black skin, White masks [new ed], (London: Pluto, 2008), Chapter: The Negro
and Psychopathology
N., Sam M.S, Womb Fantasy, Psychologydictionary.org,
https://psychologydictionary.org/womb-fantasy/ [accessed 1st May 2022]

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OED online, John Simpson and others (eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2012 -) [hereafter OED
Online] <https://www-oed-com.ezproxy4.lib.le.ac.uk/>
Sigmund Freud, The Unconscious (1915), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works
of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914- 1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement,
Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, p. 159-215

Taylor G., Castration Anxiety (2016), In: Zeigler-Hill V., Shackelford T. (eds) Encyclopaedia of
Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham.,
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1365-1?noAccess=true
[accessed 2nd May 2022]

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