*Spoiler-Free*
I didn't come here to act tough. With that said, I'm a huge scaredy-cat and was mortified when the Us trailer dropped in December. Because I knew damn well I was gonna see the movie in spite of my hatred of horror and thrillers. I can't take it. I'm a chick who lives in my own head and obsesses over the slightest details. Add a haunting, urban legend, or gore to the mix and I'm as good as dead.
But then Jordan Peele emerged triumphant.
He triumphed with Get Out, and for the first time, I found myself sitting in a theater willingly watching a thriller (it might as well have been horror, because what else would you call a movie where white people are literally out to get you). And, as y'all know, it was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I went back two more times to analyze and re-analyze the plot, characters, allegorical themes, and everything else that made this movie phenomenal and the first of its kind. I have a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, so analysis and assessment of a body of creative work is what I do best; it's kind of my thing.
Fast forward to Thursday night of opening weekend, where I found myself watching yet another Jordan Peele film, this time horror-official, and somehow slipping into this movie as it plays out on screen. I wasn't just watching and indulging and ingesting, but fusing with and becoming part of this movie. Peele has a very specific knack for creating art that slowly burrows itself into our subconscious over the course of two hours—using horror and emotion to distract us from what's really going on behind the scenes in our own heads—and does so in a way that turns a piece of cinema into a giant mirror from which we cannot look away. He essentially uses film to show us, society, who we really are when we strip away our many layers and take off our rose-colored lenses. We are shown the most ugly parts of ourselves, forced to see the parts of US that we can't stand to acknowledge. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is beyond terrifying.
So what did I do the very next day after having watched one of the most chilling movies I've ever seen? I paid my therapist a visit. SN: get you a good therapist, y'all. I'm telling you, it makes all the difference.
Sure, I'd already planned to see her that Friday anyway, just like I do every week, but this week was different. This week, I couldn't wait to tell her how inspired and provoked and seen and shook I was after seeing Us not even 24 hours prior. I told her about the plot—a Black family goes on a trip to their summer home just to be bum-rushed by a family of demon-like doppelgängers. I ranted about the underlying themes of this movie and the many theories and predictions movie-goers had shared online. I even shared my frustrations as an MFA-grad for knowing Peele's strategy—knowing the power he wields as a writer/director and that his ability to build an uncanny world filled with nothing but our worst selves forces us to view this world through his lens only (almost like a form of mind control)—and STILL falling for it. Because that's just how good Jordan Peele is at wha he does.
I've gotta hand it to her. She knew nothing about this movie, yet sat there nodding and listening as I ranted about it for at least 20 minutes. But she stopped me when I began to talk about fear of self, duality, and what really made this movie so terrifying for me. I've warred with idea of duality for quite some time. I've written about it in both poetry and shorter works of fiction, as well as the concept at large during grad school. So, this definitely affected how I interacted with this film. It wasn't the jump-scares that did me in. It wasn't even the music, though it definitely added to the fear factor. It was what this movie said about me. It was knowing that there's a version of myself that lives deep inside of my subconscious who would love nothing more than to be freed from her shackles, but is still in bondage because I put her there; because facing her would break me.
This "other me" isn't my opposite, but my equal. Different, yes, but equal. She possesses all of the traits I hate to see take root in myself—she's quick to anger, revenge-driven, insecure, over-bearing, despises her own reflection, and many other things that I find undesirable. But like I said, we are equals, so she and I share other traits, too. She's strong and quick, and though she's insecure, I feel at times she is more sure of herself than I am. I'm referring to this other version of myself in the third person because she might as well be someone else all together. But, like Red and Adelaide, she's not; she's me. I've just repressed this part of myself for so long that I barely recognize her. She's still me, and she still wants out.
After uncovering this, my therapist then did something that I didn't see coming: she asked about the other other me. Not the one I'm repulsed by, but the one I strive to be. "What is she like? Tell me."
I'd spiraled so deep down this rabbit hole of Us (no pun intended), and had analyzed this repressed, anti-version of myself so much, that I didn't realize she might not be the only version of myself that I'd been repressing. There's another version of me, one who is also strong and quick and sure of herself, but is also lively and compassionate and glows from the inside out. She's radiant and resilient and a well of life. She's this and so much more, and is as much a part of me as this negative version I've been confronting long before that first night I saw Us. I think of this other me—this part of myself who is equally as repressed as the former—and dwell on why she's repressed to begin with. And after much thinking, I've concluded that it's because I, too, am fearful of her. Not in the way I'm fearful of my more negative self, but rather, I'm fearful of what it looks like to finally become the woman I've always wanted to be. The trials, triumphs, and fulfillment of becoming this fully-actualized woman scare me because she represents a life that is leaving. I know I can only become her with struggle, growth, and time. And by the time I've finally set her free and stepped into her entirely, I will be complete, and so will my time on this Earth; to me, she represents mortality and this pressure to become as close to perfect as possible before I'm laid to rest.
Regardless of how I feel about both versions separately, repressed or not, they're both a part of me. They serve their own purposes, and for better or worse, they make me who I am. Acknowledging both of them helps quiet my anxieties about this idea of who I "really" am. Yes, there are many things I bind within myself out of fear or dissatisfaction. And (not but), at the same time, there are many things I allow to float to the surface of my subconscious for me to assess and express. Neither of these versions represent me more than the other, and believing so does a disservice to myself. I'm not either/or, I'm both. I just am. As I continue to reflect on Us, me, and all this means, I can't help but to be reminded of Marianne Williamson's wise words: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us."
Us. It's always been about us; the duality within me and who this has molded me to be.
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