Tensions ran a bit high at a screening of a much-anticipated film last week.
More than 400 people showed up to the 330-seat Marquee cinema at Union South on the UW campus last Tuesday to watch a preview of the horror film Get Out hosted by the Wisconsin Union Directorate (WUD) film committee. The film, written and directed by Jordan Peele of the Comedy Central show “Key and Peele”, chronicles a young Black man meeting his white girlfriend’s family for the first time and discovering something is off about their very wealthy neighborhood.
Though the preview was set to begin at 7 pm, the line began to form before 6 pm and largely consisted of white people, which gave other attendees pause.
So much so that before the film began one young woman decided to exercise her “First Amendment right” and express her disdain.
“This is disgusting, you’re going to come here and see a Black men getting killed by someone who looks like you, but you don’t want to do anything about it in the real world,” declared the young woman, whose name I was unable to get. “If you’re going to stay here, you better do something about what you’re about to see.”
This announcement was met by affirmation and agreement from some and silence and discomfort from others.
Which may have set the perfect tone for a film, which according to film star Bradley Whitford, is “not a horror movie about overt racism, but it’s a very interesting way of looking at unconscious, white liberal racism,” a phrase that has been used to describe Madison for quite some time.
Still, some thought having a largely white crowd did more good than harm, like Charnell Long, a graduate student at UW-Madison.
“I think the movie is designed to evoke a reaction from white moviegoers and highlight microaggressions that white people exhibit towards Black people,” said Long.
During the film the audience were collective in their animated expressions of horror during scenes of suspense and broke out in loud cheers whenever the Black protagonist triumphed over his white counterparts.
“I think the movie was well received by the crowd based on the positive reactions and clapping,” said Long.
That’s the reactions that director Peele anticipated. “You’re supposed to yell at the screen, ‘Get out, don’t do it!’ It’s got cheers, it’s got laughs, it’s got scares, but hopefully you’ll watch it, and then within the next couple days go, ‘Oh, snap,’” Peele said at a premiere, according to Variety.com.
Long’s husband, Harvey Long, also a graduate student, shared her sentiment regarding white viewers.
“For once, white students were forced to watch a Black character outsmart a ‘traditional’ white American family, which rarely happens, cinematically speaking,” he said. Long says one white student responded to the film saying “I hope that never happens,” to which Long said he wanted to reply it was too late.
Harvey Long believes the film committee “could have done more to inform the overwhelmingly white audience by including a panel of some sort to address and unpack some of the themes in the movie.”
“While a panel was not planned for this film, the Committee is always open to ways to facilitate dialogue around a film’s content,” said Wisconsin Union’s Communication Director, Shauna Breneman.
The WUD committee chose the film because it “received positive reviews at Sundance and offered staff, faculty, students and members the opportunity to see a film prior to its release in theaters,” Breneman said.
Get Out currently has a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and opens in theaters February 24.
This story has been updated to include comments from the Wisconsin Union.
