Synopsis Beauty and the Beast: Get out hidden messages

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Get out hidden messages

se isn't actually sticking up for Chris when she argues with the cop about showing ID. She's avoiding a paper trail.

Had the cop run both their licenses, there would be a record that Chris and Rose were together before his eventual disappearance.

2. After Rose and Chris hit the deer, Chris goes to see if it's OK. Two things are happening here: 1) It's the first introduction to the hit-and-run theme. 2) Chris shows empathy; Rose does not.

It lets on that Rose might not be as good of heart as we gleaned from the first few scenes.

3. Dean has a lot to say about how little he cares for deer and bucks. "Black buck" was a racist slur in post-Reconstruction America for black men who refused to bow to white authority.

And fittingly, he is killed with the symbol of his own racism when Chris impales Dean with the antler of a mounted buck.

4. Georgina spills the iced tea because Missy accidentally clinks a spoon against a glass, sending her into a brief hypnosis.

5. There are omega (Ω) symbols outside the Armitage's home. Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, which may represent "the end" for Chris.

6. On the tour, Dean remarks, "We hired Georgina and Walter to help care for my parents. When they died, I couldn't bear to let them go." There's a pronoun antecedent slip here, and it's on purpose. He couldn't bear to let "them" — as in his parents, not Georgina and Walter — go.

So — yada yada yada — he gave his parents new life by putting their brains in younger bodies. Totally normal stuff.

7. Walter, who we know is really Dean's father, is probably running because he never got over his loss to Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

8. Georgina was probably fixing her bangs in the reflection of the window so her lobotomy scars wouldn't be visible.

9. It's the same reason we never see Walter without a hat.

Ditto this dude, Logan.

10. "The sunken place" can be seen as a metaphor for the paralysis people of color feel in racial America.

You can read more about that here.

11. Everyone at the party is wearing some form of red...

...but Chris is wearing blue.

Maybe it's a simple "us vs. them" motif or maybe it speaks to a caricature of American political parties.

12. Chris and Rose's shirts form a sad-looking American flag.

13. And Rose is also giving off some vague Freddy Krueger vibes.

14. Chris's cell phone camera gives him his first insight into the mystery of Logan's strange behavior. Cell phone footage has been instrumental in shedding light on police brutality cases in America in recent years.

And during the finale, when Chris sees police lights on the dark road, he immediately puts his hands up, despite being the one in danger. You can read more about that here.

15. The "bingo game" has some pretty overt shared imagery with slave auctions.

16. As do these leather binds.

17. When Chris rips the stuffing out of the leather chair, he's literally being forced to "pick cotton."

18. The image of Rose eating Froot Loops and milk separately can be seen as a metaphor for never mixing nonwhite and white things.

Also that entire scene where she's shopping around for new victims while Chris is about to undergo his lobotomy could serve as criticism for white women's passive indifference to racism in America.

19. Jeremy foreshadows his own death when he talks about jujitsu over dinner. Chris stays "moves ahead" when they're grappling and finally overpowers him.

Same with Dean when he talks about the "cleansing power" of fire.

20. While Chris is forced to watch the TV, the video keeps repeating "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," which was a slogan for the United Negro College Fund.

21. The knight's helmet we see in the white car has some overlapping language with the "White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan."

...who are known for being the most violent chapter of the KKK.

22. And finally, Dean is played by Bradley Whitford, who also played Eric in Billy Madison.

This is hilarious to me for some reason.

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