Following the widespread success of Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out, Peele further elevated his status as one of the great modern filmmakers of the 21st century with his sophomore film Us. The overall narrative framework of Us showcases the brilliance of Jordan Peele and exemplifies his understanding of the horror genre with his original modification of previous home-invasion horror films, such as Funny Games and The Strangers. However, just as Get Out was layered with a socio-political analysis of race and allowed white audiences to cognitively experience an alteration of W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of “double consciousness” , thereby instructing white spectators to reflect on the different forms racism in America, Us prevails as a horror film due to its ability to arouse various political issues in America, experiment with film-theorists perceived conventions of “horror,” and provides an elaborate analysis of what it means to ostracized in your home country.
On the surface, Us shares a similar story arc of horror films pertaining to home-invasions, where the protagonist family, the Wilsons, encounter their terrifying doppelgangers amidst a seemingly harmless family vacation to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. As mentioned, the doppelgangers are introduced near the end of the 1st act as the “Tethered”: a species of humans genetically cloned apart of secret government operation to control the masses, who were later abandoned in the United States transnational underground tunnel system. Like any successful horror movie, the “Tethered” are symbolic of the anxieties that circumvent American society, representing a distinct image of the “racialized other” and mass incarceration.
According to Mikhail Lyubanksy in his article “Are the Fangs Real? Vampires as Racial Metaphor in the Anita Blake and Twilight Novel” Lyubanksy argues that the image of vampires in early film parallels the racially induced animosity imbedded in Western Civilization at the dawn of the 20th century. Furthermore, Lyubanksy’s argument is supported by the immersion of vampires into popular culture apart of “invasion literature,” a literary movement between 1871 and 1914, where more than 400 books exploited a cultural anxiety of hypothetical “foreign invaders.” To date, the most famous literature in vampiric lore is Bran Stoker’s Dracula, an 1897 novel apart of the “invasion literature” movement that told the story of Count Dracula, an undead human who migrates from Transylvania to England in pursuit to spread the curse of the undead and taint the blood of innocent victims. In turn, Dracula inspired a revolution of vampire-inspired fiction novels, while also enticing a fervor of historical debate and critical literary examination, for the symbol of Count Dracula has since been examined in relation to the characters connection to racial anxieties.
In turn, the historic relevance of the vampiric image, Lyubanksy argues, mirrored the unease of the British Empire, a global power that feared miscegenation between races (Dracula tainting the blood of English woman), the dismantling of British Colonies scattered across the world (the foreign Dracula defying English rule and uprooting English dominance), and resented Eastern European and Jewish immigrants (Dracula being birthed in the Eastern “Transylvania” and later, Nosferatu, depicted apart of the German Expressionism film movement with a stereotypical large nose attributed to the Jewish people, thereby mirroring the rise of Anti-Semitism in Germany.)
Several decades later, the vampiric “other” arose in the United States amidst the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s with Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend, a story depicting Robert Neville as a lone-survivor in a dystopian future, where an unidentified plague ran amok and turned humanity into vampires. The story of Neville, who is characterized as man of English-German descent (aka a W.A.S.P.), captured the anxiety of white American’s who feared the United States African American communities’ pursuit of integration, equality, and justice during the Civil Rights Movement. Throughout the novel, the author Robert Matheson subtly hints at the vampires in the story as a metaphor for race in America, such as the character Robert Neville’s analysis of the vampire’s appearance as “something black and of the night.”
However, Matheson, through Neville, also views the vampires as unable to live where they choose, unable to safely associate with society, and, ultimately, being victims of general prejudice due to fear, thereby serving as an allegory of African Americans in the United States, where Jim Crow laws, voting suppression, and unequal rights thwarted a majority of the African American population. In turn, Brian Onishi, in his article “Vampires, Technology, and Racism: The Vampiric Image in Twilight and Let Me In,” claims that, although historically the image of the vampire represented the monstrous “other,” the vampiric image has since “mirrored the progression of racial discourse,” supported by Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film remake of Dracula, that drastically alters the depiction of Dracula as a blood-sucking, foreign invader set to destroy Western Civilization to a humanized and misunderstood racialized “other,” who shows the capability of expressing affection. Therefore, in accordance with Onishi’s analysis, the vampiric “other” has abandoned its image as a propaganda of disdain for foreign bodies, rather now incorporating the vampiric “other” as an abstract interpretation of society that reflects on its audience their own racial anxieties. Now, with the historical and philosophical understanding of vampires in contemporary media in mind, it begs the question: What does this have to do with Jordan Peele’s Us?
In the scene the Wilson family is first confronted by the “Tethered”, a distraught and perplexed Gabe- the family patriarch- asks “who are you people?” Without hesitation, Red, the “Tethered” doppelganger of the mother Adelaide, responds in a sinister tone “we are American’s”, thereby presenting a complex inspection of who, or what, the “Tethered” are meant to represent. Widespread debate ensued following the release of Us over the exact meaning behind the “Tethered” doppelgangers, for audience members watching the film were aware of Peele’s prior film, Get Out, as a source of socio-political commentary surrounding the bitter racial climate in American society. Multiple interpretations have been derived of the “Tethered,” yet, after watching the film on four separate occasions, it struck me that the “Tethered” and the red jump-suits they had fashioned symbolize the growing prison population in the era of Mass Incarceration in America.
Dating back to the Nixon administrations declaration of a “War on Drugs” in the 1970’s and the 1980’s crack-cocaine epidemic of the Reagan administration, the United States prison population has steadily increased over the course of five decades, disproportionately damaging African American communities, and stirred debate over the morality of the prison labor system, which, supported by a loophole in the 13th amendment that abolished slavery and indentured servitude “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Today, 2.2 million Americans are convicted within the U.S. penal system, ultimately separated from the world, guised as a threat to society, and symbolizing a period of de facto racism, where dog-whistle politics replace outright racial rhetoric to evoke fear of the racialized “other.”
On the surface, the most obvious connection with Us and Mass Incarceration are the red garments the “Tethered” wear, symbolizing the jumpsuits associated with American prisons. However, the metaphor of Mass Incarceration in Us is further illustrated through the government’s abuse, neglect, and exploitation of the “Tethered.” In the film, the “Tethered” are completely separated from their surrounding world, forced to live in the constraints of the underground tunnel system, and entirely forgotten by the government that helped create them, an example that Lawrence Ware argues in his article “In ‘Us,’ the Tethered Lives That Prisoners Would Recognize” that is eerily similar to prison, where “those behind bars are restricted in where they can go” and “how much sun and air they can enjoy” Likewise, the scenes of Us depicting the “Tethered” living within the tunnel system represent the psychological deterioration of U.S. prisoners who endure the horrific nature of solitary confinement, where the prisoner is further isolated from reality and forced to endure prolonged mental corrosion. Although it could be argued that the “Tethered” were not separated to the same degree of solitary confinement, the “Tethered” were unable to speak and only able to communicate through grunting noises, thereby demonstrating the lack of human connection that persists within the constraints of solitary confinement.
Furthermore, the origin of the “Tethered” is discovered when Adelaide confronts Red in the tunnel classroom, where Red explains that the “Tethered” were designed a part of a secret government project to control the surface population yet were later abandoned once the operation proved to have failed. The government design of the “Tethered” is quite fascinating, for it arises multiple interpretations. For starters, if we understand the “Tethered” as a symbol for the U.S. prison population, it could be further elaborated through the U.S. government's War on Drugs and the Mass Incarceration that ensued, where the “design” of the “Tethered” to control the surface population mirrors the “design” of the War on Drugs policies that resulted in the dipropionate arrest or “control” of African American men and non-violent drug users. Furthermore, the intent to control the surface population through the “Tethered” resembles the U.S. prison labor force, a system of bureaucratic slavery that exploits Mass Incarceration and the 13th amendment. Whereas the “Tethered” are enslaved to the will of the government, so too are those incarcerated serving life sentences who are forced into unjust labor practices. Lastly, the “Tethered” and the War on Drugs are both products of a government design that is coaxed in conspiracy and brainwash techniques.
In the 1950’s, the C.I.A. conducted a clandestine scientific study, titled “Operation MKUltra,” where government agents lured unexpecting men, with the help of hired prostitutes, to various warehouses, drugging them with LSD, and researched the possibility of drug-induced brainwash of American residents suspected to have ties with communism. Likewise, rumors have since surfaced that Ronald Reagan supported the C.I.A. in an underground mission to purchase crack-cocaine from the Nicaraguan Contra rebellion to financially support their operation to overthrow the Communist Sandinista regime, later dispersing the drugs throughout inner-city neighborhoods, thereby accelerating the crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980’s. In turn, government conspiracies, such as the C.I.A. brainwash endeavor “Operation MKUltra”, is symbiotic to the design of the “Tethered” to “brainwash” the surface population, whereas the U.S.-Contra alliance, that introduced drugs into the American public and later resulted in the Mass Incarceration of millions of Americans, is represented through the figurative “incarceration” of the surface population in Us through a procedure the government helped create.
However, the idea of the racialized “other” is capitulated with the revelation of Adelaide, who is revealed at the end of the film as being born within the tunnel system, kidnapping the real Adelaide, and assuming her counterparts identity, free to live above the surface with the rest of society. Adelaide’s identity provides a paradox: throughout the film, the “Tethered” are the personification of evil, whereas Adelaide and her family are the personification of good. Herein lies the genius of Jordan Peele’s utilization of the racialized “other:” neither the surface population nor the “Tethered” are inherently good or evil, rather Adelaide’s assimilation into the surface population represents how societies unwillingness to forgive non-violent drug offenders has decimated any semblance of redemption. In America, a minor non-violent drug conviction could result in a simple prohibitory period, yet the prohibition of American’s, predominately African American men, results in a systematic cycle of racial oppression, where one minor infraction, such as a parking ticket, could result in an extended prohibition or a possible prison sentence. Furthermore, upon release, those who are charged with a felony drug possession are denied opportunities of housing, employment, and voting, further alienating non-violent drug users from society and morphing their image as an outcast, or the “other.”
However, Peele, through the reveal of Adelaide’s background, supports the Brian Onishi’s examination of the vampire film adaption to racial discourse, where Adelaide, regardless of being a “Tethered,” is indisputably a loving mother, a faithful wife, and an active member of society, a scenario of life denied by the “Tethered” until they orchestrate their own uprising. Therefore, Peele, utilizing the “Tethered” as the racialized “other” and as a symbol of mass incarceration, forces the audience to reflect on societies preconceived notions of good and evil, offering a visual experience that rejects the label of “drug offender” as an “other,” rather, concluding they are one of “us.” In the end, Adelaide serves as a symbol to relinquish fear of the “other,” for, given an opportunity of redemption, they can serve to the betterment of American society.
Overall, the “Tethered” represent the film theory of the “other”, defined as the image of vampires in film as representing the “underlying horror of the racial ‘other’ and possible infiltration of that other into a given social context.” In accordance to Brian Onishi and his article “Vampires, Technology, and Racism: The Vampiric Image in Twilight and Let Me In”, the image of the vampiric “other” in vampire films captures the audience's fear of vampires, yet evokes a fear of the racial “other” that “was a fear not only of cultural influence and participation but of radical replacement.” Although Onishi strictly discusses the “other” as a representation of fear towards the racial “other”, the same theory applies to the “Tethered” in Us, through the abstract allegory of mass incarceration. In viewing the “Tethered” as the “Other”, audiences are forced to reflect on the society they inhabit, where prison populations disenfranchise non-violent drug offenders, communities across the nation combat drug addiction, and young African American men lose their lives to sworn protectors, who abuse their power and harass inner-city youth.
Later, in the third act of Us, it is revealed the “Tethered” and the humans living above the underground tunnel system are not entirely different, rather they are genetic copies of their above-ground counter parts, who are designated to an existence without the luxuries of human freedom we take for granted, such as sunlight, a nutritious meal, and the agency to travel outside of our residence. Once again, in learning of the “Tethered” as human entity’s, similar to those who preside above the underground tunnel system, the “Tethered” come to further represent the “other”, as the ignored population of America who are incarcerated in rapid rates. Furthermore, the image of the “other,” according to Onishi, benefits an audience by acquiring knowledge through visual perception, thereby allowing seemingly unaware audiences “the ability to categorize people via their image.” In doing so, the image of the “Tethered” in Us and the image of vampires in films such as Dracula and Nosferatu, as well as novels, such as I Am Legend, can serve as a point of analysis that “opens up the possibility of reflecting on the cultural/historical discourse in which we find ourselves.”
In conclusion, the “Tethered” in Us serve a similar purpose to the racial image of the “Other” in vampires in film, for the “Tethered” require the audience to reflect and interpret the symbolism of the “Tethered”, through analyzing modern political discourse, consciously observing the “Tethered” as the forgotten citizens of America, and acquiring knowledge as to how society perceives the mass incarceration of Americans.
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