Recently a friend commented that he agreed with the conservative Youtube pundit Ben Shapiro that the film Get Out was racist. I had not heard Shapiro’s arguments and did not voice my disagreement. Now I have listened to Shapiro’s comments and I find them way off the mark and the error springs from mistaking a personal interpretation as authorial intent. Before I get into Shapiro’s comments I want to use a couple of well know films to illustrate what I mean by personal interpretation versus authorial intent.

1986’s Robocop is an amazing film, in many ways an early modern superhero movie, albeit one that gory, violent, and earned its R rating from the MPAA. In a scene where the audience is getting exposition about the character Robocop it is explained that he eats a rudimentary past to support his remaining biological systems. Johnson, one of the executive behind the project that turned a dead cop into a company owned cyborg, dips his finger into the paste, tastes it and pronounces it ‘baby food.’ His boss Jones, advises Johnson to ‘knock himself out.’ When I watched this scene in the theater I though it was clear symbolism that these men manipulating with lives were in fact children playing with th9ings that they did not understand. Later in the film when Robocop is recalibrating his targeting system and uses jars of baby food that his partner Ann Lewis had brought as target again I assumed the symbolism was clear, he would destroy the company that did this to him. Years later with the DVD I learned that the director had meant nothing of the sort. Paul Verhoeven revealed no underlying symbolism to the first scene and in the second the jars of baby food symbolized the children Lewis and Robocop could never have. Since there are no romantic elements in their relationship that intent took me by surprise.

My second example come from 1994’s The Lion King. A wonderful movie of old school cell animation The Lion King is about a lion cub, Simba that must overthrow his Uncle Scar who had usurped the throne. When Scar is assembling his plan and his minions, a pack of hyenas, to plot the murder of the King and his son, he sings a delightful song Be Prepared. In this fantasy world, unlike real life ecology where lions often steal hyena kills, hyenas are scavengers living off the scraps left over by the lions. Scar gets their loyalty by promising that they, the hyenas, will never go hungry again. When he overthrows the ‘natural order’ and makes himself king, he brings in the hyenas and the entire system collapses, plunging the kingdom into ruin and starvation for all until Simba defeats Scar and restores the balance, the circle of life.

Instantly it flashed to me that on interpretation, and this time not one I thought for a moment the producers intended, was that by bringing in the non-producers, the takers, Scar had overtaxed the makers and destroyed the economy. In effect this entire film could be taken as a subtle attack on liberalism and social safety nets. Hardly the sort of political message I would have expected and perhaps the reason the rumors are that the live action version will omit the song Be Prepared.

With those examples in place let’s return Get Out and Shapiro’s interpretation.

In Shapiro’s view the movie is about ‘black people who associate with white people eventually are drawn into white lifestyles and they become stereotypical white people.’

I have no doubt that this is Shapiro’s actual interpretation of the movie’s themes, but that is not the same as authorial intent. Just as with my take on the baby food in Robocop, Shapiro’s take is his own and not own that has been voiced by the film’s writer/director. Shapiro offers no support for this view that Get Out is ‘supremely racist’ than his own interpretation of the movie. An interpretation not supported by any textual analysis of the script or film. In the words of Oz from Buffy the Vampire Slayer ‘a radical reinterpretation of the text.’ I have heard, read, and seen many interviews with Jordan Peele’s, Get Out’s creator and nothing the man has said lends any credence to Shapiro’s view. Just as Verhoeven’s intent is starkly different than my take, Peele’s intended message and theme is very much at odds with Shapiro’s views. I find it interesting that in those four minutes where Shapiro talk about the movie he emphasizes how funny the film is without ever touching on the fact that Get Out is a horror film. Yes, there is humor but the driving tone is one of dread, danger, and doom. It is fascinating that aspect of the movie seemingly has slipped Shapiro’s notice.

At meetings of my writers’ group I often comment that no honest critique can be wrong and for Mr. Shapiro I guess the movie is racist, but this speaks less about Jordan Peele’s and his script than it does about the lens though which Shapiro viewed the material.

So The Shape of Water at this year’s Oscars took not only Best Picture but Best Director as well. I saw the film, enjoyed it, but frankly I think Get Out was a stronger film and should have taken statue over The Shape of Water. (But what do I know I still think that L.A. Confidential was robbed when Titanic won that year.)

What has spurred this particular post is watch some of the reaction to The Shape of Water’s win and the similar reaction that has caused me to remember.

Over at the American Conservative, columnist Rod Dreher titles his piece about the movie Triumph of the Freaks. Dreher is one of those conservative who sees the downfall of Western Civilization and a coming dark age due to the recognition of such ‘unnatural’ and or sinful aspects of humanity such as transgender, homosexuality, and other non-traditional sexual mores. In the column Dreher admits that he has not seen the film and based his entire reaction on what he has heard and reading the Wikipedia synopsis. I always find it astounding that people, usually paid content creators, are so willing to elaborate opinions and dissect pieces that they have not personally seen. For Shape it is clear that the romantic story between Elisa, a mute cleaning woman in a secret government facility, and that facility’s latest ‘acquisition’ and amphibian humanoid. (We can’t call him a gill-man without incurring the wrath of Universal.) For Dreher this relationship is pure and simple bestiality. That the Amphibian is a thinking, feeling creature, capable of language and emotion is meaningless, it is not human and therefore the relationship is unnatural and sinful. Apparently even in such a fictional setting only humans are ‘people.’ However if you have seen the movie — and you need to stop reading if you fear spoilers — then you know that his basic facts are wrong. Either the Wikipedia synopsis omits crucial plot twists, albeit one I foresaw quite early in the film but that’s a danger of plotting your own stories, you can see the magician palming the card, or he failed to understand how revelation destroyed his entire argument.

It reminds of another conservative columnist, Michelle Malkin, and her reaction to the film Death of a President.

Released in 2006 Death of a President deals with the fallout produced by a fictional assassination of George W. Bush. The film used actual news footage as part of the flashback to the assassination in an attempt to create a sense of reality. At the time of its release there was quite a stir in the conservative media about the subject matter with perhaps the most strident voice belonging to Michelle Malkin. She referred to the movie as ‘assassination chic’ and felt that the movie revealed the desires for Bush’s murder by people on ‘the left.’ (Side note; I am always suspicious whenever motivation is describe for a third party without any supporting evidence or citation.)

As with Dreher and The Shape of Water it seems clear to me that Ms. Malkin never actually watched the film she criticized. In the movie’s narrative the assassination has taken place years earlier and the country now labors under the heavy authoritarian hand of President Dick Cheney. There is mass round-up of ethnic minorities and other police-state tactics, hardly the sort of dream world envisioned by ‘the left.’ The film itself is rather pedantic, predicable, and ultimately boring. I know this because, unlike Malkin, I actually watched it on DVD. It hardly revels in the murder of a conservative president, but acknowledging that would destroy her entire thesis about ‘the left.’

I believe that it is vitally important that people actually watch the media that they critique. You cannot rely upon synopsis, second hand accounts, or skimming to arrive at a fair judgment. It is also equally important to set aside personal bias and pre-conceived notions, otherwise all you will end up with if a big fat case of conformational bias.