Mise-en-scène, or its English interpretation of “Setting the stage,” is an essential element of film theory. It combines features such as lighting, composition, art direction, costuming, makeup, and texture. Mise-en-scène is almost everything that happens in front of a camera in a particular scene (NFI Team). This essay will discuss and analyze the significance of mise-en-scène in Jordan Peele’s film Get Out.

Get Out, a 2017 film written and directed by Jordan Peele, uses a modern-day setting to tell the story of racism and slavery in America. Peele discusses in an interview, “This was a movie that reflects real fears of mine and real issues that, you know, I’ve dealt with before” (The Take Team). Through its symbols, scenery, and costume design, Get Out provides a wide array of mise-en-scène.

The movie opens with a Black man walking through a white neighborhood at night when a car pulls up next to him. The audience does not see anyone in the car. However, its radio is blaring “Run Rabbit Run,” a haunting song about a farmer hunting after a rabbit to make rabbit pie. When he turns back to the car, the driver’s door is open, and the music is now louder than it had been. The Black man is then kidnapped by an unknown man. The use of the haunting song is the movie’s first example of mise-en-scène as the rabbit represents Black people’s life of survival, while white people are simply having fun hunting and eating the prey. With the slamming of the car’s trunk, the haunting of the prologue begins playing. A terrifying and intense violin strum occurs over and over until an abrupt change to the film’s protagonist in New York City.

The film’s protagonist, Chris Washington, a Black photographer from Brooklyn, New York, goes with his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage, for a weekend at her childhood home in Upstate New York. Before the audience meets Chris and Rose, they are shown an array of raw black-and-white prints displaying New York throughout his apartment. These images set the scene not only for Chris’ tremendous photography skills but also for the diversity of people where he lives. Get Out does an excellent job of telling the narrative through Chris’ profession of observing people.

The haunting tone begins on Chris and Rose’s drive to the Armitage’s home when a deer runs into their car and is killed on impact. This deer is a direct symbol of Chris and his gentle innocence. It is an omen of Chris’ future sacrifice in the movie. The use of mise-en-scène is in the eyes of Chris and the deer. Although the audience can see the torn-up body of the deer, its eye is the focal point of the shot. The deer’s large, dark eye lacks any life, while the following image shows Chris’ glossy, dark pupils but teary white sclera. There is no need for dialogue, as the fear, pain, and stress can all be felt as the audience stares into Chris’s eyes.

Upon arriving at the Armitage’s home, the audience sees a large estate that matches that of a plantation, with its beautiful green grasses and long brick steps up to its white-pillared porch. This setting element makes it straightforward to viewers that, although set in modern-day America, the past is still evident in the present. To add to the uneasiness, Rose’s parents, Dean and Missy, have invited a large group of white friends and neighbors. Other than Chris, it seems the only Black people around are the Armitage’s house servants, Walter and Georgina. 

Walter and Georgina are the representation of the past continuing to exist in the present, similar to the home, but in human form. Outside of the obvious parallel of slavery and being house servants, Walter and Georgina are also incredibly submissive and quiet. When describing them to his best friend back in New York, Chris says it is as if Walter and Georgina “missed the movement.” In their submissiveness, there is no fighting of oppression but rather complete complacency.

Like many meet-the-parent scenarios, Dean and Missy excel at asking Chris embarrassing get-to-know-you questions. In a constant attempt to show they are not racists, Rose and Dean both mention that Dean “Would have voted for Obama a third term if (he) could.” Chris amounts the Armitage’s awkward comments of belittlement or acknowledgments of Chris being an outsider as them just being nervous around their daughter’s Black boyfriend. However, these microaggressions are not innocent and, instead, a vital element of the film’s ability to give its audience a clear feeling of dread and discomfort as they are forced to hear the comments. 

Throughout the film, the audience is shown how racism still exists in the modern-day, and it is not uncommon. The racist remarks may not have been overt, but that does not make them innocent either. The Armitages’ comments were used to break down Chris and make him feel irrational about his discomfort. Ultimately, Chris brushes everyone off as Rose continues to comfort him and apologizes for her family. 

Chris struggles to sleep the first night and sits with Missy in the front room. They begin talking about Chris’ childhood as Missy stirs her tea in a dainty teacup, hypnotizing Chris. This teacup is an excellent prop choice by Peele. To many viewers, it may seem like any old teacup, but when looked at through a historical lens, its importance and divisiveness becomes more apparent. Tea was utilized in a famous political protest called “The Boston Tea Party” in 1773. It was a way for Americans to display their denial of taxation and tyranny from Great Britain (History.com Editors). It was a powerful act of political defiance that led to the Revolutionary War. Missy’s tiny teacup is not the dainty, loving gesture it appears to be, but an aggressive act from Missy to gain control and power over Chris.

The imagery of Chris falling into his hypnosis is referred to as “the sunken place.” The importance of symbolism here is the lack of consent Chris gave to being hypnotized. He falls into a dark black room with fear and lack of will; Missy is in control. The Take explains the sunken place best as a “Visceral state of dimmed consciousness, but also evocative of pushing back against forward progress” (The Take Team). Once again, mise-en-scène is shown through Chris’ eyes as he closes them. This act shows he has moved his awareness from the moment and separated himself from the reality of what is happening to him. The idea of Black people having limited or no access to information is displayed through the small act of closing his eyes. It is a reference to the segregation of Black schools historically in America.

In another scene displaying a solid use of mise-en-scène, Chris looks around the party through his DSLR camera and spots a Black guest. While introducing himself to this man named Logan, it is clear something is off. His stare is far-off and almost glassy as if he were a doll and not human. Logan’s character is created to show the pressure of higher-class Black society to assimilate into white culture.

Chris thinks he recognizes Logan from somewhere, possibly a missing person, and decides to take a picture to send to his best friend in New York. Unfortunately, the flash goes off as he captures the photo. The film’s audio cuts out, Logan’s nose begins bleeding, and his facial expression immediately changes from content to extreme concern and fear. When the audio cuts back in, Logan begins to frantically scream, “Get out!” directly at Chris. The film’s climax explains the reasoning behind this intense scene as it becomes clear Logan is actually Andre from the movie’s opening scene.

At the film’s climax, Chris learns the party he is attending is actually a gathering of the Order of the Coagula, a cult of wealthy white people who can enslave Black people in their own bodies while white people utilize the body however they please. To enhance viewers’ unease, Chris also discovers that the Armitage family heads the cult. This dark theme of slavery forces viewers to confront the legacy of slavery through various microaggressions and a modern-day adaptation of slavery itself.

As Chris and Rose go for a walk, the scene cuts to Dean holding up more and more fingers as the camera slowly pans out to show a large, framed image of Chris behind him. The only audio is a bizarre mix of piano and violin. The friends all sit across from him in a wedding-like fashion, and Dean raises another finger each time a bingo card is held up. It becomes evident to the audience that Chris is being auctioned, similar to slave auctions in the 1800s. The combination of a plantation-like setting, innocent bingo card props, and the drop out of sound is an excellent execution of mise-en-scène.

Jim Hudson, a Blind white man, ends up winning the auction. His goal is to take Chris’s eyes to appropriate Chris’s sight, as his profession is in art dealing. Chris’s eyes are used constantly throughout the film. Jim is more than happy to benefit from his white privilege and use Chris.

The omen of the deer returns when Chris wakes up after being tied down by Rose’s family. There is a deer head on the wall. Once again, the deer is Chris, who will soon become a dead trophy made by the Armitage family. While Jim explains what will happen to Chris’ body, Chris is seen picking at the chair in which he is restrained. In his picking, he begins to pull out cotton. The cotton is a straightforward reference to the South utilizing slave labor to pick cotton; however, this symbol is then used as empowerment for Chris and, therefore, an empowering moment in America’s Black history. Chris uses the cotton to plug his ears and avoid succumbing to the noise of the teacup that would hypnotize him. The cotton, once meant to symbolize slavery, is now used to escape and run free. To conclude the deer symbolism, Chris stabs Dean with the deer antler while he is escaping. Chris has escaped death; therefore, the deer is an omen of Dean’s death.

An essential element of mise-en-scène in Get Out was the use of color in their costumes. Throughout the film, many characters are seen wearing brown. It is meant to represent the warmth of nature and being grounded. The color is used to reinforce the narrative and thematic patterns of microaggressions and hidden racism. The Armitages wear brown to show they are grounded (i.e., not racist). While audiences believe Missy is a sweet mother, a small detail in her costume suggests otherwise. In her brown and inviting tone of an outfit, she also wears a small red ring. Her racism was as subtle as her ring. Missy is not the only one wearing red; viewers see it on nearly everyone at the party, including Dean’s handkerchief. Everyone wears red except for Chris, who wears blue and completely sticks out in comparison. The costume color pallet for everyone else at the party included white, black, and red. The black and white is an obvious nod toward the Black and white racial tensions that are consistent throughout the film. The red is a motif for being a part of a secret society. The mise-en-scène of costumes and color utilized in Get Out drives the theme of slavery. 

As viewers learn toward the film’s end, the party guests are willing to use their status and wealth to get whatever they desire. In one scene, Chris walks up the stairs, and the party completely stops as all the guests stop and stare up at the staircase where Chris just stood. They stare because the entire event was never a party but an auction. Nobody is there to mingle and hang out but to bid on a prize.

When the audience first met Rose in New York City, she wore a denim dress – an immediate depiction of an All-American girl. She seems approachable, liberal, and effortless. Get Out’s costume designer, Nadine Haders, did not miss any opportunity to meaningfully dress the characters from scene to scene. Nadine explains, “(Rose) had to be incredibly approachable and couldn’t be thought of as strange like the other characters immediately come off” (Bobb). Chris and Rose are deliberately made to look like an All-American couple later at the party as they wear a red, white, and blue color scheme. Rose’s sweetness abruptly changes, and her striped sweater better comes into play.

Rose is wearing a red and gray striped sweater at the party, resembling A Nightmare on Elm Street’s infamous antagonist, Freddy Krueger. For most, this is not an apparent reference as the audience believes she is a sweet, All-American girl in her otherwise everyday clothing.

Get Out drives its use of mise-en-scène home through its use of lighting. There are four major aspects of lighting, and Get Out utilizes them all. Most of the movie features hard lighting. However, every creepy or destructive moment for Chris features soft lighting, especially utilizing nighttime and a large yard or forest. This is an example of the quality of lighting. When using direction, in the flashback scenes, lighting is used to dramatize the TV to demonstrate how Chris was glued to the TV. The audience sees the bright TV screen with Chris’ dark silhouette sitting in front of it. Then, the audience sees the light source in one of the most potent scenes, when Dean is beginning the surgery. The lighting of the operation room reflects that of a movie set, and the source is shown on screen. And finally, color is utilized at the end when the lighting comes from Chris’s friend’s police car as flickering red and blue lights.Get Out was a tremendous success and became the most profitable film of 2017 (Hess). Many, if not all, of its viewers understood the main message behind the comedic-horror film. The film was released only a few years after Black Lives Matter was founded. “According to the Black Lives Matter website, they were “founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer”” (Howard Law Faculty). The conversations of white privilege and police brutality, particularly against Black men, were happening at tables around the country. Jordan Peele knew all of this when creating Get Out. Its powerful message is not what made this film great, however. It was through its use of mise-en-scène. The symbolism of the deer, the plantation-like setting, and Nadine’s phenomenal costume design choices created a marvelous film that will be analyzed and loved for generations.

Works Cited

Bobb, Brooke. “How the Color-Coded Costumes Advanced the Plot in Jordan Peele’s Horror Hit Get Out.” Vogue, Vogue, 23 Mar. 2017, https://www.vogue.com/article/jordan-peele-get-out-movie-fashion-costume-designer-nadine-haders-interview.

Bordwell, David, et al. “Chapter 4 Mise-En-Scéne.” Film Art: An Introduction, McGraw-Hill Education, New York, NY, 2020.

Hess, Abigail Johnson. “Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’ Was the Most Profitable Movie of 2017 .” CNBC, CNBC, 23 Mar. 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/22/how-much-us-would-have-to-make-to-match-get-outs-success.html.

History.com Editors. “Boston Tea Party.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 27 Oct. 2009, https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-tea-party.

Howard Law Faculty. “A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: The Black Lives Matter Movement.” HUSL Library at Howard University School of Law, 6 Jan. 2023, https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM.

NFI Team. “Mise-En-Scène – Everything You Need to Know.” NFI, Nashville Film Institute, 15 June 2022, https://www.nfi.edu/mise-en-scene/.

Peele, Jordan, et al. Get Out. Universal Pictures, 2017.

Romano, Aja. “How Get out Deconstructs Racism for White People.” Vox, Vox, 7 Mar. 2017, https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/7/14759756/get-out-benevolent-racism-white-feminism.

The Take Team. “Get Out Explained: Symbols, Satire & Social Horror: Watch: The Take.” Get Out Explained: Symbols, Satire & Social Horror | Watch | The Take, The Take, 15 Apr. 2020, https://the-take.com/watch/get-out-explained-symbols-satire-social-horror.