‘Get Out’ inspired college course becomes available online
In 2017 many students got to take the course “The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival, and Black Horror Aesthetic,” at UCLA. The course was on black horror inspired by Jordan Peele’s hit film Get Out. Now, students will be able attend a web seminar on the subject offered by Professor Tananarive Due and her husband, author Steven Barnes.
They decided to offer the Get Out seminar when they got such an overwhelmingly positive response to the original course. “The highest number I’ve ever had in [my] Afrofuturism [class] was about 30. And that was a lot of students,” said Due. “I had 60 in my first quarter for Sunken Place, and I have 60 again. They’ve given us a bigger room, in fact.”
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Due said that the media coverage led to many wanting to take the Get Out seminar, so many that they couldn’t let all of those wanting to sign up attend. It should be noted that the response was so great even before Peele himself stopped by the class for an appearance.
“So now, it’s crazy and so many people have said, ‘Oh, I wish I could take that class,’” she went on. “And we teach classes through webinar, and have for years, and it’s just suddenly like, ‘Well, wait a minute — why don’t we just offer this class online?’”
The students weren’t aware the Peele was going to show up until he entered the classroom.
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“The way I kept them distracted before sneaking Jordan into the room was showing the clip where Rose says, ‘You know I can’t give you these keys, babe,’” said Due. “That scene where you realize he has no allies in the house? They had had an extensive discussion about that—and the messaging in the film around the complicity of white women—in the previous class. So, I knew if I put that clip on, we could have an earthquake and they wouldn’t notice.”
Barnes, who was also there that day, gave some more details, saying, “There were two doors. And we snuck him in through the back door, we had a seat reserved for him, but he’s wearing the hoodie and a baseball cap and he’s kind of hunched down.”
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“After I brought the lights up, I said, ‘Okay—what did you think the director was trying to say about the coveting of black bodies?’” Due went on. “And he raises his hand in the back, and he’s like, ‘I have a question.’ And he stood up, walked to the front of the room, and the class, in waves, just went crazy.”
“One student ran out of the classroom, sobbing,” Barnes said. Due added, “I was like, ‘Where is she going?’ And she was just going to the hall to walk it off and get herself re-centered so she could come back. And what was fantastic about it, was that I really got the sense that it wasn’t just ‘Jordan Peele from Key & Peele’ kind of love he was getting. It was ‘this is the creator of this masterwork we have been studying.’ I mean, they totally got that.”
What do you think of the Get Out seminar? Will you be attending? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
