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Year 11 T students studied a film and then wrote a feature article investigating a major theme it explores. This article is responding to Jordan Peele's 'Get Out'.
The Great Performance - Labubus, Quarter Zips, And Feminist Literature
Matcha, Quarter Zips, Labubus and a claim that one “reads Feminist Literature”, an infamous rise of performative masculinity that happens to blur the line between genuine respect and a curated social image. This raises the question, When is admiration for a minority group genuine, and when is it performative or obsessive?
Rogers 2025
In Get Out, Dean Armitage embodies this profound question, in the moment Chris enters his performative homely abode. "By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could. Best president in my lifetime. Hands down.” Dean's comment suggests that progressiveness is performative rather than genuine. He uses this language as a social performance, creating an unsettling sense of artificial kindness. Fascinatingly, mirroring the way some men advertise their “feminist views”, almost like a male bird displaying its courtship dance.
Are you ‘Color-blind’?
Interestingly, this idea of respectability based on someone's gender is actually a disavowal of systemic inequalities. In Get Out, this is cleverly reflected in the Armitages' excessive admiration of Chris’s race. Dean's insistence that he would vote for Obama for a third term implies that because of his ‘influential black presidency’, would completely erase racism and the effects. Consequently, this implication reduces social inequality to a symbolic idea rather than reality, marginalising how deeply entrenched these social inequalities truly are. Furthermore, this reveals that if you aestheticise social progress, you’re actually concealing rather than resolving inequalities. As mentioned in The Medium, “According to Bonilla-Silva, being color-blind is a form of racism itself; where color-blind racism is a way for whites to remove themselves from the reality of racial inequality.”, suggesting that the marginalisation and reduction of social inequalities further pushes these issues underground, allowing individuals to ‘ignore’ them. This is evident in the real world, where performative masculinity makes women's struggles a symbol, rather than an issue requiring meaningful change.
Patowary
Tual 2018
A Big Boxing Match
Aside from the absurdity of the praise and obsession to be “one with the oddballs" breeds a weirdly competitive environment between men. In Get Out, Chris is quite literally getting auctioned off, reducing an individual to a symbolic representation of status and desire. Its a competition. A competition to see who obtains the next! In a ‘performative male’ way, however, they are constantly searching for the next proof of their masculinity. Rather than pursuing genuine respect for women, some men compete to display the most ‘socially desirable’ beliefs, treating feminism as another badge of honor to be showcased. In this case, progressive values become less about conviction and more about public approval.
As stated by Kian Bakhtiari,“Self-curation begins on the frontstage: with how one wants to be seen—in real time—in the endless pursuit of validation and escape from judgment.” highlighting how identity is increasingly shaped by social acceptance and recognition. This leaves individuals trapped inside an endless cycle of performance, rather than authenticity.
Ying and Yang
While forms of performative behaviour can appear exaggerated culturally, they are also embedded in subtle, everyday ways. Soft masculinity is often influenced by an ‘approachable’ aesthetic and idealised moral guidance. However, its hidden counterpart operates as an overtly dominant persona, rejecting all types of vulnerability.
Take Josh for example, he presents a carefully constructed profile, listing "feminist literature, outdoorsy adventures, and tote bags!” This packaged identity serves as a form of strategic self-presentation, similarly expressed as a job interview; a ‘suit and tie’ valencing the true person within. Even if not entirely inauthentic, it prioritises how he is perceived over who he actually is, transforming his own personal values into a display.
Lacheze, 2026
In contrast to a curated, aesthetically pleasing masculinity, hypermasculinity presents itself as the rejection of performance, but is still equally dependent on visibility and approval. This form of masculinity is often expressed through rigid ‘traditional’ gender views, with their embedded ‘assertion of dominance’ mentality, reinforcing outdated ideas of control and power. Phrases like, “Women belong in the kitchen!”, which circulate in online and public spaces, demonstrate how deeply embedded gender roles are, functioning as a way of self identification, rather than sincere belief. Even references to emotional suppression, such as the irony embedded in songs like “Boys Don't Cry”, reflects how vulnerability is rejected as a part of an idealised ‘masculine identity’, rather than a natural human emotion.
Shayari, 2024
A similar distinction is evident with the representation of racism in Get Out, where Jordan Peele presents the two modes of racial prejudice that ultimately reflect the same system. As mentioned before, the Armitage family and guests embody a performative liberalism, masking their racism with excessive praise, admiration and claims of racial progressiveness. While the Armitages and the guests openly participate in the auctioning of Chris, figures such as Jim Hudson, a blind art dealer, complicate this dynamic by claiming that he values Chris only on his artistic abilities rather than his race. However, his rejection of racial judgement still leads to the same outcome, as Chris is still reduced to a ‘blank body’ for Hudson's desires. Peele therefore reveals that even when racial neutralisation is apparent, it can still be masked to hide the one thing that fuels all kinds of racism, control and power. In this way, Peele exposes how racism is not defined by expression, but from the underlying system of dominance and hierarchy, “I realized how big and insurmountable seeming systemic racism is. It involves so many different perpetrators, it involves us, the victims, and it comes in so many different forms” (Jordan Peele, Get Out), further implying that systemic racism is an embodiment of all multitudes rather than a specific group.
Lastly, this issue of racism and toxic forms of masculinity returning in different, more subtle ways, stems from systemic prejudice. Social media influences this, but it anonymously hides underneath public spaces, shifting the societal subconscious to think “Why would I have controversial ideas in public, when I can embody them in private?”.
We see this rapid development of social media influencing young boys and girls, instead of figures that are in their everyday surroundings. Further trapping them inside an endless pursuit for validation, constantly trying to reduce the judgement from others. So, what fulfils this void for approval? For many, its performance. But, even you, If no one was watching, would you still uphold the same beliefs?
Bibliography:
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Anthony, A. (2017, March 4). Jordan Peele on making a hit comedy-horror movie out of America’s racial tensions. The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/04/jordan-peele-interview-get-out-its-about-purging-our-fears-horror-film-daniel-kaluuya
Australia, G. O. (2017, April 22). The subtle ways “Get Out” comments on racism. Mashable. https://mashable.com/ad/article/subtle-ways-get-out-comments-on-race
Coen-Sanchez, K. (2025). “Polite racism” is the subtle form of racial exclusion — here’s how to move beyond it. “Polite Racism” Is the Subtle Form of Racial Exclusion — Here’s How to Move beyond It. https://doi.org/10.64628/aam.sdhpca9wh
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Miller, S. (2019, March 26). A Sociological, Visual, and Cultural Analysis of Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.” Medium. https://medium.com/@sierrakay2012/a-sociological-visual-and-cultural-analysis-of-jordan-peeles-get-out-7e723f37a010
Nguyen, A. W., Taylor, H. O., Keith, V. M., Qin, W., & Mitchell, U. A. (2022). Discrimination and social isolation among African Americans: The moderating role of skin tone. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000569
Patowary, K. (2016, October 10). Watch The Superb Bird-of-Paradise’s Courtship Dance. Www.amusingplanet.com. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/11/watch-superb-bird-of-paradises.html
Peele, J. (2017). Get Out Quotes by Jordan Peele. Www.goodreads.com. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/74329099-get-out-the-complete-annotated-screenplay
Rogers, A. T. (2025, October 22). THE “PERFORMATIVE MALE CONTEST” IS PROOF THAT FEMINISM HAS BECOME THE NEW PICKUP LINE. Her Campus. https://www.hercampus.com/school/ucla/the-performative-male-contest-is-proof-that-feminism-has-become-the-new-pickup-line/?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=organic&epik=dj0yJnU9Vzg3YjVNaVZtb2tIWWU3eWlYWnJJaUdBTVp3RkZoZ0YmcD0wJm49VVA1eXBwTkJWb084WmlGdE1EZ3RvdyZ0PUFBQUFBR29yOEhJ
Sunderland, J. (2025). The rise of the “performative male:” How young men are experimenting with masculinity online. https://doi.org/10.64628/aam.9fa777dhh
The Take. (2017). Get Out Explained: Symbols, Satire & Social Horror [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNKSgdT1FQ
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TheCureVEVO. (2010). The Cure - Boys Don’t Cry [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GkVhgIeGJQ
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