Get Out // Buddy Comedy

Group Members : Tianna Mcnair and Kobe Nabried      

Our group decided to convert was Get Out into a buddy comedy. The change in genre challenges the ability to include humor through thought-provoking racial issues. We sought out three directors: Phil Lord and Chris Miller known for 21 & 22 Jump Street and Tim Story known for the film Ride Along. Before commencing the project we analyzed the tropes used in buddy comedies through the lenses of the two films mentioned above. A commonality is that comedies like these usually include a “bromance.” The “close nonsexual relationship between two men” is strengthened throughout the movie. Therefore the trailer we created only selects scenes from that film that include Chris and Rod. Rod is the only person that Chris calls in the film denoting that Rod is viewed as the friend that he tells everything to. Although they were already friends before Chris decides to meet Rose’s parents, their bond intensifies as Chris starts to uncover the truth about the Armitage family.

Another trope seen in buddy comedies is the desire to seek adventure. In Get Out Rose insisted on Chris meeting her family even though they weren’t dating for a long period of time. The introduction to the trailer shows the audience that the characters are headed to meet Rose’s parents. With Rod’s dialogue in the background the racial tension begins to build itself, even when it is used in a joking form. The use of seeking an adventure is demonstrated clearly in both the Jump Street movie series and Ride Along, where a task is assigned and although it is very serious, the process of completion is fun. In Phil Lord’s How I Met Your Mother, the television series is based on recounting to his children about how he and their mother met. This sets up a flow in the direction that the show should go. Similarly, in Get Out we known that race will be an issue within the movie and we know that Chris needs to get out of the situation, creating a flow in the movie. This gets the audience to now see how the accumulation of troubling events can cause Chris to “get out.”

The musical elements included in the trailer are used to introduce punch lines or stick to one perspective. When Chris initially hangs up the phone on Rod, the scratching of discs occurs. It goes from you hearing the conversation between Chris and Rod, to a solo scene of Rod. This demonstrates that Chris hung up the phone because of the scene ending on Rod and him not hearing a response on the other side. The next example is shown when Rod approaches the police about the suspicious events occurring in the Armitage household. The music hits a complete stop before the cops begin to laugh at the unimaginable claims that were made.