Race in the Prison House of Langauge: Frantz Fannon, Ian F. Haney Lopez and Jordan Peele's Get Out

Abstract

This essay is an analysis of Jordan Peele’s 2017 film, Get Out, through the lenses of theorists Frantz Fanon and Ian F. Haney Lopez. The movie explores the concept of 'race' as an ideological construct that is in essence arbitrary, but, when accepted as ‘natural’ or ‘a given,’ becomes a justification for inequality, domination, and brutal violence. The movie presents a variety of scenes in which the main character, who is Black, struggles to ‘get out’ from the type-casting and labeling imposed upon him by a White community that aims for domination.