Svarta kroppar och vita blickar : En komparativ studie av samhällskritiken i filmerna Get Out och Play

Sammanfattning: There is an ongoing debate in the media about whether or not caucasian filmmakers should be telling stories about racism and the black experience. This study aims to further the discussion by examining and comparing social criticism in the two feature-length films Play and Get Out, made by caucasian filmmaker Ruben Östlund and African American filmmaker Jordan Peele respectively. Using a multimodal critical discourse analysis grounded in Stuart Hall and Richard Dyer’s theories on representation and stereotyping, the study investigates what discourses regarding race and stereotypes are present in the films. The study shows that both films raise social criticism by references to the historical and contemporary racial discourse and depicting how the white characters act upon their racial prejudice. However, while Östlund attempts to have his audience reflect on their own behaviour and prejudices, the racist implications made by the white characters in Play, along with the black characters stereotypical manners, are often left unconfrontented and therefore reconstructs the racial order. Peele, however, manages to deconstruct the racial order through usage of more creative interdiscursive elements which highlight the importance of a shared black experience, exposing the privileged and racially charged actions of the white characters in Get Out and the vulnerable position of its black characters.