Pop culture is the voice of this nation. The entertainment industry has found a way to appeal to the vastness of its audience stronger than government, inspirational leaders, and even religion could ever imagine. Hollywood has exploited this technique for billions and billions of dollars, capitalizing on the materialistic impulses of this nation to feel entertained providing opportunities for the problematic public to escape its toils for a couple of hours. In this postmodern world, we have become a society that has an image-based culture. so how do we, as Christians, respond to this knowing the punishment for the idolatrous nature of these images?

I would argue, as the world changes, we as Christians have to change. We have to change the way we look at the world in order to better reach its inhabitants. The broken, tired, sick, and needy sinner isn’t going to come to us the church for salvation, we need to go to them in order to spread the good news of the gospel. Our theology, as Christians need to call us to heaven, but it also must resemble our world. “Movies represent the effort of fallen creatures, who have imperfections of all kinds, moral and otherwise.” What better represents this imperfect world than film? This applies to every film, good or bad, new or old, artsy or a commercial blockbuster. No matter the genre, film is an accurate representation of this world.

Now if you’re like my grandmother you may disagree with this statement because horror movies are, “demonic and a product sent directly from Satan himself.” But, I would argue that is a misconception held by some Christians surrounding the genre of horror. “The expression of fear is a more Christian response than the repression of it.” If you took the time to break down the idea of fear, you would see that it stems from the perturbed nature over our separation with God and the broken world that is the result of that separation. Essentially we fear sin. Now let's use this lens to analyze Jordan Peele’s newest hit film “Us,” the symbolism behind it, and how his message affects us as a nation. 

“Us” is Jordan Peele’s second solo directorial film, following--in my humble opinion--one of the best films of this decade “Get Out.” The stakes are raised along with the expectations. Film-goers are anxious to see if Jordan Peele’s second film establishes him as a cinematic genius or just a mere average director, who got lucky. After seeing this film and mulling over it for a week. I can say with quite certainty that he does not disappoint. I just can’t stop analytically dissecting this film, it’s like a puzzle and every time you connect a piece it creates even more curiosity and awe as you finally start to see the bigger picture come together. In its simplest terms “Us” is about the fear of ourselves and how our actions--or hesitation to act--can be detrimental to us as a nation.

“Us” follows the lives of the Wilsons--an African-American family--as they vacation to their summer home in Santa Cruz, which is where Adelaide--the mother--grew up and may have had past traumatic experiences. The family has a typical vacation experience with the teenage daughter not really wanting to be there, the son getting lost at the beach, and the dad renting an old beat up motorboat much to the rest of the family shagrin leaving them exasperated. But, something still doesn’t feel right to Adelaide, who ends up having a near panic attack right before all hell breaks loose. They are confronted by what appears to be demented versions of themselves--a failed experiment by the government whose purpose was to find a way to somehow control the public--that apparently, wanted to kill and take the place of the real family. After that, it's a struggle for survival as the family fights to stay together and alive.

The film itself is phenomenal. Both Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke give incredible performances. Lupita’s performance, I would argue being Oscar worthy. The kids for being child actors perform amazingly, playing both roles of child and doppelganger convincingly and creepy. But the real strength of this film lies in the writing. Peele is able to write the story and dialogue so well that this fictional family--placed in an absurd position--feels like an actual family. That's one of the best parts of this film when tension is rising high and the paranormal becomes normal. This family demonstrates a real sense of togetherness and intimacy. It feels as if Peele was able to take what he learned from “Get Out” and perfect it in “Us.” This gives us stunning visuals, motifs, and common horror tropes flipped on their head. On its surface level, this film is about family and survival, the scariest part of this horror film isn’t the monster doppelgangers, but rather the idea of protecting my family when not being able to even protect myself.

Based off of that, it sounds like just your typical monster horror movie, but Jordan Peele is able to subtextually convey so much more. There are many theories as to what Peele is trying to say with this movie, but I believe his message is prophetic claiming that the demise of our nation will inevitably be brought about by ourselves not some foreign power. There are three ways this desolation will be brought about poverty, the suppression of important issues plaguing this country, and the materialistic impulses of our capitalistic society. Jeremiah 11:11 is a recurring motif throughout the film. The verse states, “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them (NIV).” providing more evidence to the idea of destruction upon a nation.

As Americans, we can become complacent in our own comforts. We often forget that our privilege comes at the cost of someone else. This is brought up in the film, The doppelgangers represent poverty. They come from the lowest of the low fighting tooth and nail because they have too, they have no choice. To survive they must fight. It's the American dream, pull yourself up from your bootstraps and make a name for yourself, which is exactly what the doppelgangers do by killing everyone and joining hands across the nation.  We are not supposed to look at Adelaide and Red--her doppelganger-as separate characters, but rather as prophets together calling a nation to awareness of its idolatry and in this case American consumption. The big twist at the end, Adelaide remembering how she herself is the doppelganger, not Red symbolizes how complacent we can become in our comforts and how easy it is to forget the impoverished when we ourselves live in wealth. 

While we’re on this idea of complacency, America has become complacent in its own pride and hubris. We as Americans become so enamored by this idea of American exceptionalism. We suppress issues that make us as a country look bad. We don’t bring these issues to light, we keep them underground in the sewers where no one can find out about our horrid mistakes. We are obsessed with our image.  We have an inability to point the finger at ourselves, we blame, blame, blame, never taking accountability for our own actions, and this can turn to our downfall. This film is about the suppression of these issues, the doppelgangers created by the government kept underground suppressed, and how the suppression of these issues can be detrimental, in the case of the film the doppelgangers escaping their suppression and killing all those who were too complacent in their own comforts to make a difference. When we hide our sins, without confessing, acknowledging, or taking accountability we create our own monster and inevitably our own downfall.

~Jed Edgar