Author: MILES HIRSHMAN

GET OUT of here racism

On By MILES HIRSHMANIn Comedy/Satire, Empathy, Memory/Past/History2 Comments

Get Out, a movie directed by Jordan Peele, is a satirical experience that intends to display the problems with racism in America. The movie’s main character, Chris Washington, is in a couple with a white lady named Rose Armitage. The movie begins on a very nice note, seeing Chris and Rose planning a trip to go meet Rose’s parents, with Chris portraying the first poke at racial problems in America. He asks Rose if her parents know that he is black, and she tells him that they won’t care, Chris is hesitant of this, but still decides to meet her parents. The movie continues and Chris and Rose finally arrive at her house, and her parents seem extremely excited to see him. Everything seems good on the surface, but it doesn’t take long for Chris to start realizing some of the oddities that occur. Some of these oddities include black “helpers”, who share a resemblance to slaves, to which the family sees no problem with. These “helpers” seem to act very odd when Chris interacts with them, and one even tells Chris to “Get Out” when a picture is taken. A very angry brother who seems to be mad at Chris for no reason, and a hypnotic mother who toys with Chris’ mind. As time goes on, Chris gets more and more fearful of the situation, and so does his friend Rod. Rod brings up the common archetype in movies that the black people always die first, and really begins to worry for his friend. 

This is where the spoiler has to come in, because there is no way to talk about the movie as a whole without a spoiler of what happens. Of course, Chris is right about his fears about everything being too good to be true. The Armitage’s have an annual get together, full of white people, and they all seem very nice to Chris. There is a repetition of Chris getting informed that his physique is nice, and not just his, but physiques of all different types of black athletes. This of course makes Chris uncomfortable, but the caucasian people at the get together see no problem with it. Chris ends up wanting to leave, but Rose tries to convince him otherwise, as this happens, Chris’s friend realizes that one of the helpers is actually a man who was kidnapped a couple of months ago. At this point, Chris tries to leave himself, but unfortunately doesn’t make it out of the house. It turns out that there was something up the whole time, ) what a surprise) and Rose’s family lures black people to their house to make use of the “nice physique. They do this by surgically removing the brain of the african american, and putting the brain of the white person into the black person’s body. The movie ends with Chris killing the family members, escaping the house, and having a final standoff with Rose. In the final moments, with Chris bloodied and on top of Rose, a police car shows up, and Rose tells Chris that she wins, but Rod walks out of the car and brings Chris to safety.

 There are many satirical moments in this book that poke fun at the common problems black people face today. Another form of humor used is hyperbole, which as a whole is displayed when Chris goes to meet his white girlfriend’s family. Normally, there is a fear of being in an interracial relationship, and not having your parents know. This is usually met with disagreement, but nothing of this extent. Another form of satire in this movie is when Rose’s family insists Chris meets all of their neighbors, and they all make the comment that “Black is in fashion again”. Of course they are talking about the clothing, or are they? Another form of satire is on display at the end, when the police car pulls up with Chris on top of Rose. All viewers were immediately filled with sadness as soon as this happened, knowing the situation that will unfold, despite all of Chris’s efforts to make it out alive. Only for Rod to step out of the car and save Chris. 


These scenes are all different ways in which Jordan Peele tries to display the different problems with racism in America in this age. I think that some of the underlying themes of this are 

  1. There is a want for the assets that black people possess, although this movie displays it in an overexaggerated way, this is still true nonetheless. An example of this in real life is the recent exposure that black culture has been getting, and the term “culture vulture” that has been coined to white people.
  2. Another form of satire is one that I touched upon earlier, which is when the police rolled up at the end. Rose tells Chris that he is screwed, and that the police will believe her, only for it to be Rod. Although it was Rod, if it wasn’t Rose would probably be right, and in this situation, no matter what Chris says, he will be the one in trouble for what happens. This occurs in today’s society, the black person is often the first one suspected when it comes to crime, and the one who will be incarcerated.
  3. The problem with interracial relationships today. This was an exaggeration, but in the beginning you see Chris and how tense he is that her parents still don’t know that he is black.

This clip shows Chris’s friend, it is a funny clip, but it does a good job showing the fear that a black man has when it comes to problems like this.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=get+out+moments&&view=detail&mid=C171D46CFC6EFB79A873C171D46CFC6EFB79A873&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dget%2520out%2520moments%26qs%3Dn%26form%3DQBVR%26sp%3D-1%26pq%3Dget%2520out%2520moment%26sc%3D5-14%26sk%3D%26cvid%3D51325E43BB694A51AC8203A7297632E3

These are only a few reasons that display why Get Out was not only funny, scary, and interesting, but also extremely moving, and capable of showing the many problems with America today

Beloved and Perspective

On By MILES HIRSHMANIn Music PoetryLeave a comment

Beloved was an amazing book, but one of the most important factors that makes it so good was the perspective that the book gave. The book gave a view that is not often written from, and it gives this book so much power. First off, the whole book is based off a true story of a slave mother killing her child. When you first hear that, it sounds twisted, which it is, but upon further analysis of it, you see what really is twisted. This mother killed her child because she didn’t want it to live through slavery. The thought of that is chilling. A mother’s love for her baby is universally seen as one of the greatest, deepest loves, and slavery caused this woman not to abandon her baby, but to kill it. That’s an interesting and scary story, but getting the whole thing from the point of view of the person who did it, that is what is so powerful. Although it is a fictional story, Morrison does an amazing job of opening the readers eyes to the true atrocities that occurred

To see everything from an enslaved person’s perspective made the book what it is. To see their lives, and hear their pain, it really makes a reader want to understand. For me, reading about the bit was very hard. I feel like as I’ve grown, I have seen slavery get progressively worse and worse. What I mean is that when I was younger, it seemed sugarcoated. I think the biggest reason it seemed that way is because of the perspective of the author. Rarely anything we read is from the perspective of a slave, and seeing their fears, hopes, and actions, makes it realer.

One last thing I want to touch on is how perspective changes in the scene where you see that Sethe has killed her baby. The perspective changes to that of the schoolteacher, and his hunting group. When he sees Sethe, with a dead baby, all we get from his POV is that this lady killed her baby. There is no reasoning as to why, or how she felt when it happened. This is just one example of why perspective is so important. We get to see through the eyes of the persecuted, and it tells us a completely different, and real story.

Grinding Meat

On By MILES HIRSHMANIn Music Poetry, Poetry1 Comment

By Miles Hirshman

MF Doom is a lyrical genius. A master of hidden meanings, he makes amazing sounding music that screams with meaning through every line. Listening to him is almost like a game, trying to point out every time that a possible double meaning has been said. His use of literary devices, rhythm, and double meanings makes his raps seem extremely poetic. That being said, let the games begin.

First off, MF Doom makes use of many literary devices to make his music, and Meat Grinder is no exception.

Hackthoo’ing songs lit, in the booth, with the best host

Doing bong hits, on the roof, in the West Coast

First off, Doom makes use of an onomatopoeia with the first word. At first, I didn’t understand what this word meant, but after looking up the lyrics it dawned on me that that word is another word for spitting. When a person spits, the sound they make often sounds like that, if you pronounce hacktooth, you can see exactly what he’s trying to say, it sounds the same as someone who is about to spit. Spitting is often used as a another term for good rapping, so in this line, Doom is saying that he’s spitting raps, in the booth( which is the studio), with the best host. The best host in this case is Doom’s producer, Madlib, who, in my opinion, is one of “the best hosts”.

Another line that I like is

Still back in the game like Jack LaLanne

Think you know the name, don’t rack your brain

Like the first line, I didn’t really understand what this line meant because of the mention of Jack Lalanne. After looking him up, it makes sense, and it’s a creative way of bragging. A common theme for older rappers is to claim how long they’ve been rapping for, and how long they have been successful.

Doom is no exception, except he does so in a way that most don’t. Jack Lalanne was a fitness instructor. The special thing about him though was that he continued to release fitness videos while he was old, which was different then most people. Jack Lalanne stayed “in the game” for a long time, in fact, he died at 96, and he was instructor until around 87. When it comes to bragging, MF Doom does it differently.

Vignettes, Questions, Themes, and Life

On By MILES HIRSHMANIn Exit West, Migration3 Comments

To begin with, I think the use of the vignettes throughout the book were really neat. I didn’t really value, or understand, them until I finished the book and reflected on what I read. The first vignette, about the lady in Australia, actually threw me off. I thought that we were going to learn about the lady at the end of the book, or that scene would be resolved and I would have an understanding as to what happened. I came to realize that there would be more of these scenes, and they would never be resolved, leaving me with questions. Like I said earlier, I didn’t really like this aspect of the book, but I now feel like I have an understanding as to why Hamid did this. Obviously the vignettes are scenes of people going through doors and entering a new life, but there is an underlying theme of all of them, that relates to a theme of the book.

First off, I think that the reason that the vignettes are left unfinished and unresolved is because that is what life is like for every person in them. I always had this feeling of confusion, wondering what’s going to happen, how does this get resolved. I think Hamid was trying to put the reader in the mind of the immigrant. There is no guarantee of what will happen next, and there’s no way to know how everything will end up. On top of that, the fact that in all the different vignettes there were different short term outcomes, like the man leaving England for Africa, which made him happy. Or the family who made it out of their city, only to be taken aback by an unknown group of people likely the books form of ICE, or something along those lines. That shows that the outcome can have many different forms. This theme of not knowing, a cliffhanger, is throughout the whole book. To show this, the final words of the book are ” They rose and embraced and parted and did not know, then, if that evening would ever come” 231. The ending of the book leaves another cliffhanger to the reader. I think this novel shows the overall mystery in life, and how nothing can be promised, that there is no guarantee as to how things will end up. To finish though, I think Hamid did an amazing job with this novel, because it shows the mystery of the displacement of people, and life itself.

“Black Box” and the Questionable Empowerment of Women

On By MILES HIRSHMANIn Short Stories1 Comment

On the surface, Black Box seems like a short story that does a good job of empowering women through the decisions they make, specifically being a spy and helping the government gain information on high profile criminals. However, through the use certain words such as “Beauty”, and the involvement of our narrator’s husband, there seems to be slight ambiguity in what our author was trying to convey.

To begin with, it seems that the use of the word “Beauty” is used to describe all young women. That is only one word, and it can be taken that calling someone a beauty reduces a girl to one aspect. That is degrading to females because it takes all other aspects out of them. They are only seen as beauties and nothing else. On top of that, it is said that “Posing as a beauty means not reading what you like to read on a rocky shore in the South of France.” This quote is one of many that shows that beauties are supposed to not do what they want, and solely have to listen to what their Designated Mate wants. If this is the case, then why does the author refer to all young women as beauties, and not just the spies. I feel like this means that our author is actually in a way being degrading.

When you look at how the narrator talks about her husband, it also seems that she is taking part in this program not because she wanted to, but more because her husband wanted her to. This is taking away from her decision, and is implying that she can’t make her own decision. the quote “You will reflect on the fact that America is your husband’s chosen country and he loves it.” This quote makes it seem that she is partaking in this because of her husband’s allegiance to his country. These quotes, plus many more throughout the story, prove the ambiguity the author makes when trying to empower women.