Independent Student Newspaper of UW Oshkosh Campuses

The Advance-Titan

Independent Student Newspaper of UW Oshkosh Campuses

The Advance-Titan

Independent Student Newspaper of UW Oshkosh Campuses

The Advance-Titan

‘Get Out’ showing at Reeve generates student discussion

Reeve Union Board put on several free showings for students over the weekend of the critically acclaimed 2017 movie “Get Out” in the Reeve theatre.

“Get Out” is a horror/mystery film about the male lead, Chris, visiting his girlfriend’s family over the weekend where things seem a little strange.

This movie, although fictional, has real social issues placed within the scenes that students noticed and commented on throughout the film.

UWO freshman Isaac Quinones noticed the main significance of Chris being African American with everyone else being Caucasian.

“Well, the guy was black and all the antagonists were white,” Quinones said. “It really maximized, I guess, the extreme that it could be taken to, in a kind of fantasized way, but still taking into account some of the behaviors in the movie.”

Quinones said that having it as horror film helped increase the seriousness of the situation and grab viewers’ attention in a way other genres wouldn’t have.

“This takes a different perspective on it and puts it in a different way that’s interesting and definitely more engaging,” Quinones said.

Quinones said he thought it was a good idea to play this movie on a college campus because of how students could relate to the main characters.

“Both characters are around our ages, so the fact that it’s put in kind of a peer group makes it a little bit more relatable than, say, if they were like 40 years old,” Quinones said.

UWO sophomore Mia Wilson said that the movie’s lines and actions addressed the issue in a way that both sides of the situation could understand.

“I think they did it in like a humorous way but also in a serious way in order to touch on the topic to appeal to both sides,” Wilson said.

Wilson said the movie’s horror genre helped increase the importance of issues that were brought up throughout the movie.

“They have people take it more seriously and see that it’s a real issue that goes on,” Wilson said. “And it’s reality and not all scary movies are something super fantasized in order to be a story.”

Wilson said that she thinks playing “Get Out” on campus was a good idea because it’s something everyone, but most importantly college students, should see.

UWO junior John-Brooks Nicholson said he didn’t see the issues played out in the movie, unlike the other students.

“Well, to be honest, I didn’t really see it as socially critical,” Nicholson said. “I just saw it as what I think it was meant to be: a movie, just a scary movie.”

Nicholson said although he didn’t see social issues, he noticed the film was based on legends.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” Nicholson said. “But what I can say is that I can see that it was based on a lot of urban legends — let’s put it that way.”

Nicholson said that the transplanting of brains, which was demonstrated in the movie, is one of the legends that he has heard.

“The whole kidnapping African Americans and transplanting all that,” Nicholson said. “I’ve heard of stories like that, not that I didn’t believe them, but it’s rarely talked about, and I think the movie handled it actually entertainingly.”

Nicholson said he believes playing it on campus was good idea because movies are something that all of us can enjoy and understand, which can be used to address social issues.

“I think it’s a good start,” Nicholson said. “You know, show it in a way that’s familiar to a lot of college students and in a form of media that we can understand, and movies are one of them. We have social media, we have internet, we have all of that, but it’s good to look at it old school, which is movies.”

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Lauren Freund, Opinion Editor

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