Jordan Peele is BAAAAAAAACCCCKKKKK.........with Us.
When Adelaide Wilson and her husband Gabe take their kids out on a trip to the beach, things take a turn, when clones of themselves start to appear at their summer home. Confronted by their body doubles, Adelaide and her family must deal with Us.
Throughout the years, political standings have never made such a splash than in 2019. With the “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, the Trump era is the most cultish campaign know to man, in the form of the colour red. With the 80’s slogan “Hands across America” for the campaign that was to shed light on poverty in 1986. Two things very different from each other in ideals but both supposedly about unity through symbolism and both the political underpinnings of Us.
Us is about duality of oneself recognizing itself in its other. We all have a feral side of ourselves, we all have a civilized side of ourselves, but can these sides coexist, and if not, why?
Us explores the birth of a terrorist. The absorbing of a troll. The emerges of campaign/cult rise and white supremacy rise. In an age of shirt logos and slogans and sentences, in order to gain momentum these days you need others to buy into what you’re selling. Narcissism leads to tranny under the gaze of false leadership, companionship and connection. On top of that, the rich ignore the poor and live to be shut off and sophisticated while leaving their less fortunate counterparts to stew and fester, and to fall to violent options of survival.
Us is very much about the immigrant experience and an assimilation to American society and culture, seeking for a sense of belonging. While touching on the journey through the Underground Rail Road and re-assimilation to Canada. These moments having duality with modern America’s fast food consumption, climate abuse and political and moral crisis.With that leads to the metaphor of black duality. Black people of colour and especially black women of colour, having to use dance and music to succeed but as well a more aggressive side to themselves to be heard and make it to some station of means in life, but in the end at a certain point, having to kill that more tough side of themselves to coexist in supposed civilized society, but really coexist in a white society.
Us is about reminding humanity that we’re nothing more than a virus that is over populating and systematically destroying the world. All the while reminding us that there is beauty in our existence, that we can be worth while, but that mediocrity is a threat to our minds and we can easily lose focus to what is happening around us. Both sides of ourselves are fighting for the top spot but we all want the same thing. In the end the answer, the solution is Us.
It’s apparent that once again Jordan Peele wrote a story with deep thought ahead of it. With influences of some of the best zombie and body snatching horror flicks of our time, but like Get Out displays the black experience within it and how everyone is against it, but Us now exposes, how everyone is ultimately connected to it. 10/10.
- Maurice Jones
