Under your skin

What's in a human chain?  I was surprised to see Jordan Peele use Hands Across America as a leitmotif in Us.  The year was 1986 and politicians and celebrities hoped to get 6.5 million persons to stretch hands across America for 15 minutes to call attention to the plight of the homeless in the country.  The noble effort fell way short of expectations and was largely forgotten until Peele resurrected it in his movie.

Why Jordan Peele chose to use Hands Across America is anyone's guess, and just about everyone has chimed in on the meaning of this metaphor.  Peele himself has been pretty quiet in this regard, as he doesn't want to spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it yet.  I think mostly he wanted something that would catch our attention and he did so admirably.  He had everyone scrambling to Wikipedia and other sources to find out more about this largely commercial event, sponsored by the very same people that gave us We Are The World.

But, Peele seems to be alluding to so much more.  The reference to the thousand of miles of abandoned tunnels and mine shafts across the country appears to convey an "underground railroad" where all these "tethered" persons are forced to live out their soulless experience until Adelaide comes along.  Maybe it is as simple as Andrea Johnson suggests, but Peele is not one for simple explanations, so I think there is much more to it than meets the eye.

I remember the game red rover very well, a creepy schoolyard game where kids formed opposing human chains and called someone from the other side to try to break the chain.  Usually, you called the weakest person in your opposition to increase the length of your chain, but you had to be careful where you placed these persons, as obviously the other side was going to run toward these weak links.  It was a game that could go on the duration of recess, as it was almost impossible to form an unbreakable human chain. This was clearly the image Peele sets up when we first encounter the Wilson family dopplegangers dressed in red jumpsuits.

He's using familiar images to shock our sensibilities.  It's not enough to use a hall of mirrors, a familiar trope in horror movies, he is evoking failed human experiments and placing them front and center for us to confront.  This is what makes the initial confrontation between the Wilsons so compelling.  After that it becomes too much like a comic zombie movie, until the grown-up Adelaide is finally forced to confront herself in a very chilling underground encounter.  We can thank Lupita Nyong'o for giving the movie levity it otherwise lacked with her unnerving performance.

There's also the matter of 11:11, which crops up repeatedly in the movie.  The main reference is to Jeremiah 11:11 in which Lord vows to bring evil on the world and will not hearken to the peoples' cries.  This is pretty much the theme to all horror movies, but particularly apropos to this one.  Peele is also questioning our faith, as there is no one to appeal to in this chilling movie, as poor Kitty Tyler finds out.  White people suffer the worst in Jordan Peele's movies.  While the Wilsons survive their initial encounter (I thought for sure Gabe Wilson would go down), the Tylers are easy pickings for their red dopplegangers.

Peele brings this evil largely on white folks as a form of retribution for all the ills they have heaped on black folks over the centuries.  We also see this in the friendly feud between the Wilsons and Tylers.  The Wilsons are successful, but not as successful as the Tylers, who have a bigger vacation house, a bigger boat, and a back-up generator when the power goes out, allowing Josh Tyler to still be immersed in his music when their dopplegangers break into the house.

This must really piss off white supremacists!  Imagine if Jordan Peele next made a Christmas movie with a Black Jesus or Black Santa.  That would definitely make Fox pundits like Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren take notice.  Tomi is already up in arms over Black Ariel.  I don't think Peele is making movies to piss off white folks, but rather movies in which the black guy or the black family wins for a change.  You have to admit black folks have not fared well in Hollywood movies over the years.

This leads to an interesting digression.  There has long been a medical bias toward white folks, as John Oliver pointed out in a recent segment of Last Week Tonight.  Blacks were thought to better endure pain thanks to thicker skin, greater muscle mass, quicker coagulating blood and other nonsense that was actually written in medical books at one time.  As a result, they generally get less medical attention than whites.  Many of us continue to believe there are inherent differences between races.  Peele turned this concept on its ear in Get Out, which might be regarded as a cautionary tale about interracial romance as he delves into these myths about white or black mental and physical superiority.

Focusing too much on Hands Across America misses the point of the movie, which is what most critics have done.  As Andrea Johnson noted, this is the last indelible image little Adelaide recalls before becoming a prisoner of the underworld, and one she uses to unite the clones against the clone who stole her life.  However, I don't think Adelaide really cared how the battle turned out, as long as she came out on top.  Being the only one with a soul and it seems a brain in the underground corridors, she used as simple an image as possible to tether the "tethered" in her grand ambition.  As such, it becomes a Greek tragedy in its own dark way.

This is what made Us so compelling.  It lingers with me, even if I thought the scenes a bit too contrived.  Jordan Peele definitely knows how to get under your skin.