In case there was any confusion about what year Us begins, the audience is given about three minutes’ worth of footage from a Hands Across America commercial that establishes we’re in 1986, the year that Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) suffers the trauma of getting lost near the boardwalk in Santa Cruz on her birthday (adding to the creep factor to indicate the era is her donning of a Michael Jackson “Thriller” t-shirt after her dad wins it for her). Also established by writer/director/producer Jordan Peele at the outset of the film is the fact that the world–and the U.S. in particular–is filled with thousands of abandoned underground subways and other perfectly viable subterranean living space. Well, viable if you’re deemed by the government as an “other,” little better than worth the rabbits you end up feeding on for sustenance in the underground. And if your sole purpose as a tether is to theoretically control your doppelganger above–but it turns out to work the other way around–then you start to wonder more than ever what the point of your existence is, especially when, unlike the one you’re tethered to, there is no opportunity for you down here in the dark.
From the moment Adelaide’s “other,” Red, answers the question, “Who are you people?” with “We’re Americans,” it’s crystal clear that Peele is pointing out the ease with which we forget most people’s misery in our blithe enjoyment of turning off the news and enjoying better numbing agents instead. But one roll of the dice and “they” could be “us,” and if the shoe were on the other foot if the poor rose up to pay back the rich all the debt of “aid” given, it would surely be a manifestation of Jeremiah 11:11 (the bible verse referred to throughout Us): “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.” For those with privilege certainly have not hearkened to the unprivileged, though, in their minds, that’s precisely what they’ve done with such “noble” endeavors exemplified by 80s celebrity-centric charities like Hands Across America. A “feat” which, by the way, did not succeed at creating a “human chain” of linked hands along the radius of the nation. The geographical breaks in the chain (many simply because of topographical limitations as opposed to intended political slights) caused protests among Americans who felt excluded and neglected (Hawaiians even coming up with the slogan, “Hawaiians are Americans, too!,” while then non-hipster havens Portland and Seattle also complained of being deemed too “on the fringe” to be included) wrought the greatest truth of all about the United States: the population that counts is the one that the media and/or government declare to count.
Red, the leader of the underground she trains for years to rise up and “untether” themselves (this very graphically including the analog use of scissors) from their doppelgangers, has had her fill of being kept in the dark, citing that it’s now her people’s “time up there.” The implications of this statement are very indicative of the fact that there is a finite amount of resources, whether natural or otherwise, to go around. This becomes more apparent as we come to terms with, at the most basic level of human existence, climate change’s effect on subsequent generations while the ones of the past pillaged the land without consideration of conserving some for the future inhabitants of this earth. To this point, the very reason marginalized communities exist (apart from subjugating assholes in power) is because the world can essentially only offer two philosophies of political and economic practice: communism (failed) or capitalism (failed but we’re still pretending it works because it occasionally lets us buy trinkets that distract us for a short period until we can buy another trinket). In the latter, most people are still living the communist’s utilitarian life and getting very little return for their toils, yet, Americans reckon, at least we can keep our dreams of ascension alive via the Kardashian-Jenners. Sad, as the president (who did not participate in Hands Across America) would sarcastically “zing.” And, of course, Us is a portrait of the cartoonish vision Trump has for America. In which making it “great again” (which presupposes it ever was) includes leaving most non-white, non-rich denizens out of the equation. And that’s quite lopsided math considering the minority is, number-wise, rich white men.
When Red gets the opportunity to execute Hands Across America as it was meant to be, it plays out to perfection, with the bodies of the Tethered spread out through every imaginable landscape in their prison garb and single glove. With regard to that costume decision, designer Kym Barrett’s many nods to Michael Jackson as a means to iterate Peele’s intent of showcasing duality and “an extreme example of how you are seen and how you really are inside,” are manifested in this fucked up interpretation of his sartorial iconography. It happened to be pure coincidence that Leaving Neverland came out soon after, before Barrett or Peele would be aware of just how salient their costume choices for the Tethered would be, as well as that “Thriller” t-shirt evincing Peele’s sentiment, “Michael Jackson is probably the patron saint of duality. The movie starts in the 80s—the duality with which I experienced him in that time was both as the guy that presented this outward positivity, but also the ‘Thriller’ video which scared me to death.” Jackson himself being a then rare representation of a successful (then still) black male seemed to be something the nation ultimately wanted to punish him for (though, in all fairness, he was a pedophile so that desire to punish turned out to be not for nothing), James Baldwin saying it best with the lines, “He will not swiftly be forgiven for having turned so many tables, for he damn sure grabbed the brass ring, and the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo has nothing on Michael. All that noise is about America, as the dishonest custodian of black life and wealth; the blacks, especially males, in America; and the burning, buried American guilt…” The buried privileged white American guilt that comes up like a zombie out of the grave in the form of “benefits” like Hands Across America, filled with “good intentions” though they may be. But, as usual, it is actions and everyday behavior that speaks louder than words and one-off initiatives. The actions that underscore the notion that when the marginalized are told they are worth nothing, have nothing to offer, they sink even further into the depths and recesses never to be heard from or thought about again. And they believe it, this tape that they’re played about being useless, Red questioning at one point if she even has a soul, or if it “remains one” to the person she’s stuck to, the person she covets: Adelaide, a.k.a. someone given all the chances she never was. But what if Red and all those like her could get the same chances? Who is to say they wouldn’t succeed or even surpass the ones who were simply born into good fortune?
This is a duality that the privileged and underprivileged unwittingly live with each day, somewhere within themselves realizing that most of their good or bad fortune was a mere product of the roulette wheel called Circumstance. In this sense, Us has certain Match Point qualities in terms of theme–you know, not to make this benchmark in black cinema about an accused of sexual abuse, old white man. But it has to be said that Woody Allen’s manifesto in Match Point plays into what Us speaks on in its undercutting examinations of those who count and those who are erased: as Chris (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) says, “People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It’s scary to think so much is out of one’s control.” In short, had your patriarchal forebear ejaculated just a moment later, everything could have been different. Or better yet, to refer to another line from Match Point, “Sophocles said that to never have been born may be the greatest boon of all.” Because when you’re born in the mire, you’re likely going to die in it as well.
Peele, of course, would like to leave those who are born in said mire with some sense of hope (even though they likely won’t have access to this movie, particularly if they’re a Mole Person) in the symbolism of that re-created shot of Hands Across America done right. As it was supposed to be. Not as it was actually executed by the lazy, overindulged organizers who barely raised a profit for the marginalized they sought to help after the costs of production and operations were factored in. The expense of showboating how much they “cared,” as it were.
On the note of showboating, there are also the Wilsons’ fellow vacationing friends–or frenemies–to consider: Kitty (Elisabeth Moss) and Josh Tyler (Tim Heidecker), and their twin daughters (once more accenting the theme of doubles), Becca and Lindsey (Cali and Noelle Sheldon). Gabe (Winston Duke) ostensibly envies everything that Josh has: his house, his car, his boat. Though he himself has risen through the ranks to live the so-called American dream, it isn’t enough. He could only be potentially sated with the knowledge that he has more than someone he latently believes himself to be better than. That Elisabeth Moss has previously starred in an almost equally as sinister movie about doppelgangers and being surreptitiously replaced by them–2014’s The One I Love–speaks volumes about her portrayal of Kitty, the woman who “has it all” (including plastic surgery at her disposal) yet feels nothing except rage and contempt. To this end, Peele’s statement on “the other” posits that we’re all fundamentally the same in our constant dissatisfaction with whatever hand we’ve been dealt. As Jackson would say, “Why? Why? Darling that is human nature.”
Whatever one’s primary takeaway is from Peele’s latest opus about “other,” there can be no denying he appears to be in patent favor of a marginalized uprising. For despite living in a time when pronouns are intended to be eradicated, the tellingness of pop culture phenomena like Her, You and, now, Us seem to highlight an increasing need for factions to protect themselves from one another, to compete for the limited resources available to succeed. Will the strongest survive? Or merely the luckiest (i.e. wealthiest)?
