“I CALL IT ‘THE UNTETHERING’”: INVESTIGANDO A REPRESENTAÇÃO DE PERSONAGENS NEGROS NO FILME NÓS (US) DE JORDAN PEELE

Abstract

Us is an American film, written and directed by the filmmaker Jordan Peele, which metaphorically portrays and criticizes the current social condition of black people in the United States through the story of the Wilson family, an African American family that lives its worst terrors when being chased by violent doppelgangers. One of the social criticisms portrayed is the way black people are treated within American society. The overall goal of this study is to investigate and discuss the representation of the black person using the Transitivity System of Halliday and Matthiessen's (2004) Systemic-Functional Grammar. Two key moments from the plot of the film were chosen: the first when Red, the leading character of the group that terrorizes the protagonists, reveals the difference in social treatment received by her as opposed to the treatment received by surface human beings, and the second when Red describes who she considers to be to blame for the difference in treatment and reveals how she intends to solve the social problem. The research is organized around four axes identified as: description of the social problems, self-awareness, identification of the agent causing the problems, and attempted solution. The analysis revealed that black people are treated and represented as inferior in roles of Bearer of negative attributes and Meta in material processes that represent domination, but also in roles of Experiencer and Actor when it comes to becoming self-aware and trying to act to solve their problems. It is hoped that this study can contribute as an educational tool in promoting reflections on representations of the social condition of black people.