Previous Next

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Sunken Place  

When Missy hypnotizes Chris, she forces him into a dark, empty void by telling him he must “sink into the floor.” When he’s in the Sunken Place, he remains aware of what’s going on around him but cannot move or speak; he watches the real world through a small window like a TV screen, unable to act. The Sunken Place—whether it’s real or a product of Chris’s imagination— reinforces one of Get Out’s most chilling ideas: that losing your autonomy and being forever forced to witness your own subjugation might be a fate worse than death.  

The Sunken Place is a symbol for the way that systemic racism has the power to silence people and rob them of their agency. When he’s in the Sunken Place, Chris can see what’s happening around him, but he has no control over the situation, akin to the experience of someone who must endure discrimination, oppression, and racist violence. Georgina, Walter, and Andre experience this same fate: their true identities are lost in the Sunken Place and buried beneath the consciousness of white people who have stolen their bodies. They struggle to break through and occasionally succeed, but the power imbalance is always too great, and their captors force them back into submission. Get Out director Jordan Peele revealed that in the scene where Chris blocks out Missy’s hypnosis by stuffing cotton into his ears, the cotton is a reference to the historical forced labor of enslaved Black people; by using cotton to protect himself against hypnosis and the Sunken Place, Chris transforms a symbol of oppression into a weapon of resistance.  

Chris’s Camera  

Chris’s camera, especially the flash, represents truth and resistance in Get Out. Throughout the movie, Chris uses his camera (sometimes unknowingly) to reveal hidden truths and disrupt the illusion of control that the Armitages try to maintain.  

When he meets Logan King at the Armitages’ garden party, Chris has a feeling that he's seen him before, and he tries to surreptitiously take a photo of him. Unbeknownst to Chris, Logan is actually a man named Andre Hayworth, who the Armitages have abducted and subjected to the Coagula procedure, allowing a white man named Logan King to take control of his body and mind and leaving Andre’s consciousness trapped in the Sunken Place. The glaring flash of Chris’s camera temporarily disrupts the Coagula conditioning and allows Andre to resume control of his body for a few seconds, during which he screams at Chris to “get out,” trying to warn him of the danger he’s in. Chris’s camera flash becomes an instrument through which the truth is revealed and the Armitages’ sinister schemes are exposed, and later, Chris uses it in a moment of desperate need during his attempt to escape. 

Guessing that the flash was what “woke” Andre up, he turns the camera flash on Walter. It allows Walter to briefly break free from his Coagula hypnosis and fight back against his captors; Rose hands him a shotgun, not realizing that his consciousness is now in control of his body, and he turns the gun on her and then himself, ending his own suffering and allowing Chris to escape. Chris uses his keen photographer’s perspective to reveal things that hide below the surface, and his camera is more than a tool for documentation. By weaponizing his camera, he forces the truth into view, challenging the Armitages’ otherwise absolute control.  

The Teacup and Spoon 

Missy Armitage’s teacup and spoon represent the ways that powerful systems can oppress people without using physical violence. Although it seems innocuous at the beginning of the film, the way she stirs her tea in a steady pattern is an important part of how she hypnotizes Chris and sends him into the Sunken Place. The soft, repetitive sound draws him into a trance, and when he hears the noise again, he’s forced back into the void. Instead of relying on physical restraints, Missy’s hypnosis influences through suggestion, which has the added effect of making the victim’s compliance seem voluntary. 

The teacup appears again when Chris attempts to escape. Missy reaches for it because she knows that another tap of the spoon will paralyze him. She has utter confidence in her ability to exert control because she has no reason to doubt it will work. When Chris knocks the cup away and destroys it, he removes her ability to influence him and destroys the symbol of her power. The teacup represents the quiet, deliberate nature of the Armitages’ control. Missy does not need aggression to overpower her victims—she uses something as ordinary and harmless as a teacup and a spoon. This reflects the movie’s larger idea that systemic oppression often hides behind the most innocuous of gestures and comments. Chris’s destruction of the teacup signals his refusal to accept Missy’s influence and allows him to regain his freedom. 

Previous section Motifs Next section Setting

Take a Study Break