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Henry Jurney

Film Composition

Period 7

17 December 2019

Us​ Capstone Film Essay

The 2019 horror film ​Us​ written and directed by Jordan Peele that stars Lupita Nyong’o,

Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker tells the

story of an American family who is assaulted by evil clones of themselves. The film follows

Peele’s 2017 breakout film ​Get Out​, which featured many of the same people that collaborated

on ​Us​. ​Us​ received high praise overall for Peele’s artistic direction, the film’s musical score, and

Nyong’o’s performance. In ​Us​, directed by Jordan Peele, the filmmakers use costumes and props

in mise en scene and voice and soundtrack for sound to separate the two competing groups, the

main characters and their Tethered counterparts, to stress the differences between them and

indicate unfairness which ultimately communicates the message that a current major issue in

America is inequality, specifically a discrepancy in power, money, and influence specifically

relating to privilege.

One element of film that Peele manipulates throughout the movie to establish the

message of inequality and privilege is mise en scene. After the Tethered family has broken into

Addy’s vacation house, they are initially presented wearing their costume consisting of a

blood-red jumpsuit, single leather glove, and sandals (00:44:32). This choice by Peele, having

every Tethered character wear the same costume, greatly affects how the Tethered are perceived.

The costumes are an obvious separation of privilege and equality, as, by all wearing the same
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thing, the Tethered are generalized and dehumanized in the same fashion that less fortunate

people are viewed when grouped, instead of being recognized individuality. This is paralleled as

the normal characters wear clothes that reflect a privileged background such as Gabe’s Howard

University shirt (00:29:58), separating the two groups into the wealthy privileged main

characters and the poor homogeneous Tethered. Additionally, the connotation behind the colors

of their clothes is significant. The color red that the Tethered wear is typically negatively

connoted, being associated with blood, violence, anger and other similar characteristics. This, in

contrast with the more blue colors that the main characters commonly wear, further establishes

the Tethered as an adverse group that is strictly detached from the rest of society. This color

difference makes the audience interpret the Tethered as an undesirable group when compared to

the main characters, relating to the distinct separation that exists between different classes of

people in America. Peele makes a clever connection to American society as the colors red and

blue reference the two major political parties in the United States, tying his message about these

two different groups into American society. Similarly to how their clothes represent a lower or

negatively connoting feature, their makeup of dark, concealed, and worn down faces also

separates the two groups by characterizing the Tethered in a way that is stereotypically

considered less privileged or lower class. Thus, the difference between the two groups is shown

through the costume design as the Tethered’s costumes reflect a lower privilege that is identical

among them when compared to the well put together outfits that express wealth that Addy and

her family wear. Another element of mise en scene that is utilized to support the theme of

inequality are props. After the white family is killed by the Tethered, Zora and Jason are pictured

beating and killing several Tethered characters with a golf club and crystal mantelpiece
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(01:11:08). These props are both metaphorical and cultural as they are used in a manner

unorthodox to their design and carry a significance in American culture. Both of these props

have a cultural meaning as they typically represent the upper class which subsequently relates to

American privilege that the upper class benefits from. The props are used as weapons to fight off

the Tethered which firmly establishes the props as tools of separation between the two groups.

As these two props represent the privileged upper class, they are also a barrier to stop the other

lower group from upward advancement. This is a common theme within societies involving the

“haves” and the “have-nots” in which the “haves” look down on the “have-nots” and try to

exclude them from the success they experience at the top. Overall, only through these choices

about costumes and props does Peele create a visual representation of the divide between these

two halves of America.

Along with creating a visual divide to showcase the inequality that lies between the

characters in the film and in real life, Peele uses audible information or sound to illustrate this

same separation. When the Tethered invade Addy’s house, the first lines spoken by Red, a

Tethered character, is heard (00:45:06). The filmmakers use diegetic synchronous sound in the

difference between Addy and Red’s voice, where Addy’s is normal and Red’s is scratchy and

strained. This highlights the difference between the two groups and represents the Tethered as

more primitive with their restrained and guttural form of language. Furthermore, Red’s mangled

voice is a result of neglect, as she has not used it underground for years which relates to how

society might neglect those that need the most help and instead, they are looked down upon. The

silence that characterizes the rest of the Tethered as they lack the ability to speak can be analyzed

as a representation of the oppressive isolation of silence that they have experienced their entire
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lives, a common situation suffered by the less privileged. Another example of sound that portrays

the disconnect between the two groups is the composed score and soundtrack of the film. In the

film it is apparent that the two sides, the good and evil characters, come with their respective

sonic profiles. While Addy’s family listens to “I Got 5 On it” by Luniz, a swaggering hip hop

track that the family can keep time to (00:21:46), a Tethered remixed version of the song

includes only the unnerving and scary parts of the tune, emphasizing the use of silence and

ambient textures to create intense unease in listeners (01:42:06). This demonstrates the

dissonance that Peele is building between these two groups, with the Tethered always getting the

less desirable alternative of the two, putting them below the main characters to once again bring

forth that discrepancy and inequality between them. This choice of music also ties into Peele’s

connection of the message to America, as he specifically chose a hip hop song which is a genre

of music that was created in the United States. It is evident that whenever Red or any Tethered

are present, the score features unnatural droning, dissonant strings, or eerie crickets such as when

Zora is running away from her Tethered (00:54:16). These parallel sounds add to the frightening

element of the Tethered and accentuate their impoverished or oppressed condition. This is in

comparison to when the normal characters are on screen, the film’s non diegetic background

music reflects their status with euphonic tendencies which is used to represent their superior

hierarchical relationship to the Tethered. This stark difference in the treatment of sound for both

groups illustrates how Peele wants the audience to interpret the two groups as fundamentally

different and separated and how when the groups are referenced to real groups of people, it

paints a clear picture of the issue in society.

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In ​Us​, the choices made involving mise en scene and sound collaborate to support the

message of inequality that relates to American society as a whole. Through these choices, the

Tethered are constantly alluded to a lower class or a worse off group than the highly privileged

main characters. The use of a homogeneous costume and less desirable sonic characteristics

portrays the Tethered as different from the main characters who enjoy the high class connoted

props, costumes, and pleasing sound qualities. This difference can then be easily interpreted as

the Tethered being impoverished when compared to the main characters, which demonstrates

this inequality that Peele is trying to present between the two groups in the film. It is the

portrayal of this inequality of power and privilege that Peele relates to a larger scope by making

references to American political parties and the country’s name in the title which truly

establishes the film’s role as a commentary on American society today. This is why ​Us​ is

championed as such a great film, for its clever manipulations of film elements to construct a

clear and meaningful message that directly relates to real-world issues and prompts audience

members to contemplate the critiqued issue, just as any great work of art should.