If you want to hear about the true meaning of Us and what everything represents then
stick around to the end of this video.
Jordan Peele’s Us deals with a subterranean society of doppelgangers who rises up to take
their place in the sunlight.
The concept of literal underground societies has been creepy and fascinating to me ever
since I found out that these so called “mole people” actually exist.
Yeah, this is a real thing -- and Peele’s pairing of that with another creepy concept:
doppelgangers, is bound to leave moviegoers looking something like this.
The movie opens with a text card, telling of the 1000s of miles of tunnels, unused subway
systems, service tunnels and mine shafts, with no known purpose.
The first image we see is the main character, Addie, watching TV as a young girl in 1986.
She’s watching the channel 11 news, one of the many references to the number 11 seen
throughout the move.
We’ll come back to the meaning of 11 later on.
First, there are some easter eggs.
On the side of the TV there are some VHS tapes, and they may be there to honor some of the
films that helped inspire Us.
One of them is C.H.U.D, a 1984 movie about these subterranean monsters who abduct people.
The relevance of that one should be pretty obvious.
“And unlikely to bring anyone down there, so they’re coming up.
C.H.U.D!”
There’s also a tape of The Goonies, a 1985 kids film in which a group of children must
search for a pirates treasure in an underground cavern -- just as the mother in Us must venture
underground to find her abducted son.
The last tape I could make out was The Right Stuff, which is a non-fiction movie about
the development of the space program, I’m guessing it’s loosely related because venturing
underground is similar to space travel in that you are setting out into an unknown frontier.
The news on the TV goes to commercial ...and she watches an ad for Hands Across America.
The few seconds that this commercial is on-screen are the key to understanding this entire film.
I understood everything a little bit better when I went home and looked up what Hands
Across America actually was and what it stood for.
Hands across America was a charity event that took place in 1986.
Participants would donate $10 to reserve their spot as Americans lined up and joined hands
for 15 minutes, theoretically creating a chain from coast to coast across the mainland United
States.
The goal of the event was to raise money and awareness to help combat hunger and homelessness.
When Addie goes to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with her parents as a little girl, she’s
wearing a Hands Across America shirt -- and it becomes one of her last solid memories
of the real world when she’s abducted by the shadow people.
At the carnival, her Dad wins her a Thriller T-shirt, which she puts on over it.
As they explore the boardwalk, Addie sees various carnival activities that are significant.
Her father wants to ride the roller coaster, which he calls the Little Dipper.
(In real life it’s called the Giant Dipper).
"Do the walk, the beach boardwalk.
You can do the roller coaster you can do the swim.
Come on everybody you can walk right in."
This is either a reference to the idea that Addie is going to be “dipping” or descending
into this underground world -- or another way of looking at it is that the Big Dipper
and Little Dipper are constellations and while those above the surface can see and observe
the stars, the tunnel dwelling doppelgangers cannot.
There are even a couple of lines throughout the movie about the joy of being able to gaze
at the stars.
They also walk by and notice some people playing a whack-a-mole arcade game, a visual representation
of the people on the surface knocking those who live underground back down, forcing them
to stay there.
Before wandering off the boardwalk, Addie sees a sign that says Jeremiah 11:11, and
this has multiple meanings.
11:11 represents two sets of doubles.
It’s also symmetrical, and it's the only time on a digital clock that appears the exact
same in front of a mirror.
This is assuming that there are slashes through the zeroes, as there should be.
In culture 11:11 is often considered a lucky or magic number, and I’ll be talking more
about the references to magic throughout this video.
But this sign specifically references Jeremiah 11:11, a biblical verse that reads: Therefore,
thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am bringing disaster upon them that they cannot escape.
Though they cry to me, I will not listen to them.”
And this could be seen as a religious prediction of the bloodshed that will be brought on by
the uprising of the doppelgangers.
The last thing we see before Addie leaves the boardwalk is her Dad playing Rock, Paper
Scissors to settle a disagreement with her Mom.
Rock, Paper and Scissors each come back later in the movie.
The main weapon used by the shadow people is scissors -- but the son, Jason, uses a
large rock to defeat one of them when they flee to their friend’s house across the
lake.
Then at the end of the movie, the fake version of Addie uses a sharp fire poker to defeat
the original Addie who is wearing the red jumpsuit, and holding the paper cutouts of
the people linking hands, so this is kind of a scissors beats paper moment.
So when Addie walks off the boardwalk, she goes from the bright lights of the carnival
to the dark beach -- and there’s also a moment at at the end of the movie when they
are battling in the underground and they move from the lit up part of the hallway into a
stretch where the lights are off.
The maze that Addie goes into on the beach is called Shaman’s Vision Quest.
The tagline is “find yourself”, and Addie literally does find another version of herself
in that maze.
I also found it interesting that it starts raining as soon as she goes in, because only
surface dwellers can experience rain.
But if you’re a mole person and you’re watching this, don’t feel bad, because at
least you guys don’t have buy sunscreen.
So she wanders through the mirror maze, and mirrors are another huge motif in this movie.
The doppelgangers are mirror images of the humans on the surface, and there are plenty
of examples of reflections as symbols for the copies.
She goes through one part in the forest where she sees these distorted mirrors, and that
may be tied to the fact that the son of the underground family is distorted by the burn
marks on his face.
There are three things that happen before she runs into the doppelganger version of
herself.
One: the lights go out; and two: all she can see is the green exit signs reflected hundreds
of times in each mirror.
Although there appear to be many exits, in reality, she has no way out.
And three: she hears the doppelganger version of herself whistling.
Remember those three things, because they’ll be important later.
And when that shadow girl does turn around and see the original Addie, the scene cuts
away before we see her being abducted, and the other girl switching shirts with her and
going onto the surface.
Now, I know I’m not supposed to have an opinion, but in my opinion this would have
been more convincing if we had seen her start running, and then it jumpcut to her doppelganger
getting back to the parents on the boardwalk so we think, oh OK she made it back alright,
and then in the reveal at the end of the movie, it shows the shadow Addie running after and
dragging her back in before joining the parents at the boardwalk.
It would have made it a little bit less obvious I think.
But instead it cuts to the shot of the rabbits in cages, so let’s talk about the meaning
of rabbits.
Rabbits are often seen as a symbol of reproduction because they are known to reproduce very quickly.
The people underground are reproductions of the originals on the surface.
With scissors sometimes being seen as the image associated with a vasectomy, the surgery
that prevents you from producing offspring.
But there’s also another idea that’s commonly associated with rabbits: and that’s magic.
The most classic magician’s trick involves pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Well it just so happens that when the shadow Addie grows up and has children, her son,
Jason, is interested in magic tricks.
He has a lot of peculiar things about him.
At the start of the movie, he wears a Jaws shirt.
Perhaps this is because Jaws is a fellow beach-set horror movie, but it could also have to do
with his fascination with monsters.
He wears what I think is like a werewolf mask think throughout the entire film.
Addie also has a daughter, Zora, who’s wearing a shirt with a rabbit on it and seems to only
be interested in texting; and a husband, Gabe, who participates in cringe-worthy dabs and
has a love for boats that's not shared by any other family members.
After meeting the family, we cut back to the aftermath of Addie’s childhood boardwalk
incident and discover that the doppelganger version of her wouldn’t speak after being
found by her parents -- who of course have no idea it’s not the real her, and think
it’s some kind of PTSD.
She sees them meet with the doctor through a mirror.
I think the reason that she doesn’t speak is because when the doppels come up from underground
it takes them some time to adjust to breathing our fresh oxygen.
She’s unable to speak properly until her lungs have adapted to the fresh air.
That’s why when the original Addie comes back up to try to take over the surface, she
sounds like this:
"Be careful."
There’s further proof later on, when the family flees to the other house and Gabe’s
friend’s wife is seen screaming and laughing in the mirror, but no sound comes out.
So as the family settles into the beach house, there are a few pieces to note around the
house.
There’s a shot of a spider crawling on the table under a toy spider, an early clue that
the real Addie is crawling beneath, and it’s the fake one that is on top -- on the surface.
This imagery also connects with the song that the doppelgangers whistle when they arrive
at the house: the itsy-bitsy spider.
She expresses that she doesn’t want to go to the Santa Cruz Beach, not because she was
traumatized there as a child, but because she knows that she’ll be in close proximity
to the tunnel network and she’s afraid something could happen.
Her walls are covered with artwork of Alvin Ailey, a known dance choreographer, and at
the end of the movie, it’s revealed that it was her dance recital when she realized
she was in control and she could be on the surface.
It’s as the doctor told Addie’s parents, the best they can do for her is allow her
to draw, write and dance.
Jason enjoys playing inside the cabinet / closet.
The door automatically locks when closed, so he props it up with a little toy ambulance
thing.
It’s literally his lifeline, and also Gabe and Zora are saved at the end of the movie
when the come across a real ambulance and get supplies.
Inside the closet I spotted games like Guess Who?, Magic and Candyland.
Guess Who? is literally a game where two identical sets of people are lined up on opposite sides,
not that different than the way this world is setup.
Magic is obviously a part of Jason’s passion for magic tricks, and Candy Land...
I guess there’s a version where the characters are all rabbits…?
But I didn’t have that one as a kid.
I had this one.
The mom finds a rabbit doll in a drawer and we see she’s affected by it, but it isn’t
entirely clear why -- it’s because it reminds her of when she was trapped underground until
she made the switch.
So they all get in the car and go to the beach.
Zora mentions something about how she thinks the government is putting fluoride in the
water so that the government can control us, a flight allusion to the fact that they could
all be controlled by those living underground.
As they’re about to arrive, a dead body is wheeled onto another ambulance, and this
guy is holding another Jeremiah 11:11 sign.
This signals the beginning of everything that happened that day at the boardwalk repeating
itself leading up to the arrival of the “tethered” family.
Their long shadows as they walk onto the beach signify that the shadow people are drawing
near.
The Shaman’s Vision Quest is now Merlin’s Forest (another magic reference).
Gabe’s friend Josh bickers with his wife, just as Addie’s parents did on the boardwalk
all those years ago.
By the way, they have twin daughters, another example of mirrorism.
They even have a moment where they say the same thing at the same and then both jinx
and double jinks each other.
Just like 11:11, this is an example of a pair of doubles.
The scene with them later at the house pays homage to Grady twins from the Shining.
I’m pretty sure the Shining has come like 3 videos in a row now -- and it actually comes
up again later in this video.
Jason wanders off to go to the bathroom and sees the guy T-posing, or at least that’s
what it looks like, and I think this is the first guy to come up from underground and
start the new Hands Across America chain.
His Mom freaks out when he’s gone, because she knows about the subterranean society and
she’s afraid that Jason could be abducted.
When they get home that evening, Gabe is watching the Giants game and if you listen to the audio
in the background, you’ll hear the score is tied 11-11.
Not long after, when they tell the son to go to bed, the clock reads 11:11 PM.
There’s also a LEGO ferris wheel in the boy’s room to reference to rides at the
Beach Boardwalk, and picture of Merlin on his bedroom wall.
He’s also wearing a tuxedo shirt which makes him look like a magician in uniform.
His mother gets worried when she realizes he’s drawn a picture of the T-posing man
from the beach, because she possibly realizes what this is.
In the bedroom, she stares into her reflection in the window as she expresses her concerns
to Gabe.
She tells him it feels like a black cloud is hanging over her and she feels a storm
coming, very similar to how it started raining when Addie entered the mirror maze all those
years ago.
Then the three things that happened back then happen again: the power goes out, all exits
are compromised and whistling can be heard from the doppelgangers.
When we first see them, they are holding hands like the Hands Across America commercial.
The shadow people take over the house and explain that they basically don’t have good
lives down below and they want their time in the sun, they want to be untethered from
the bodies of the original family.
Each character goes off and battles the shadow version of themselves.
The struggle between the two mothers is symbolic, because Addie forces her doppelganger into
the glass table and we see it crack, representing the barrier between the two versions of that
character being broken.
Each character is able to fight off the other version of them and together, they flee for
Josh’s family’s house for help, but by the time they get there, they’ve already
been taken over by doppelgangers.
One of Josh’s last actions is telling the virtual assistant to put on “Good Vibrations”
by The Beach Boys.
The lyrics describe Addie’s fascination with the world on the surface.
“I love the colorful clothes she wears And the way the sunlight plays upon her hair.
I hear the sound of a gentle word, On the wind that lifts her perfume through
the air.”
The next verse describes shadow Addie sensing the underground uprising.
“Close my eyes, She’s somehow closer now.”
The other song that plays has lyrics that are little more on the nose.
“F the police straight from the underground.”
This literally describes what happens, where the cops are unable to help them because so
many people are attacked from underground.
After defeating the copies of the neighbors, we get that second The Shining reference I
promised.
Jason just gets done saying something about there being too many twins when they turn
on the news and discover these people are supposedly coming out of the sewers.
The time is displayed on the bottom left corner of the news overlay, it’s now 2:37 -- a
reference to Room 237 in The Shining.
The family drives away in the neighbor’s new car and they eventually encounter Jason’s
doppelganger with the mask again.
He’s luring them into a gasolene trap.
This part is a little bit confusing, but I think what’s happening is that the two kids,
Jason and Zora have the power to control the red suit doppelgangers, because they are both
half shadow people themselves.
So it would appear that Jason uses this power to walk backwards and drive his creepy doppelganger
back into the flames.
He saves his family by doing so, but it also leads to him being kidnapped.
We also get a look at a huge group of doppelgangers linking hands along the coast, and the T-posing
guy from before has 11:11 written on his forehead, which predicts more trouble.
So Jason’s mother goes down into the forest maze to try to rescue him.
Then the two versions of Addie face off underground, I’m going to put everything together and
talk about what this movie actually means, and what it’s trying to say.
So don’t go anywhere.
Or someone will drag you underground.
And you will never come back.
So during the final showdown, Addie explains her three decade plan, how after she was abducted
by the mole people, she basically put together her own Hands Across America campaign.
She explains that whoever created them was able to duplicate their bodies, but not their
souls, which I believe is why they are violent to the surface dwellers, cause only one of
them can inhabit that soul.
Everything they have down below is just a crappy simulation of real real life, but in
spite of that, they are human too, they are made up of flesh and blood just like those
on the surface and they deserve and equal experience and should not be overlooked.
That leads into what I think Us is trying to say as a movie.
The people on the surface represent everyday people leading normal lives in developed countries.
Sometimes, they don’t fully appreciate what they have.
In the scene where the shadow family breaks into the house, Addie describes the differences
between the lives of those on the surface and those underground.
The surface people get warm meals, while the subterranean society has to eat cold raw rabbit.
The kids on the surface get nice toys, but the toys underground are cold and spiky.
She also describes the differences between the two seemingly parallel families.
She tells the story of the girl who had a shadow, how they were connected; tethered
together.
The girl married a prince.
Although the family sees Gabe is sometimes jealous of his friend’s car, house and boat
constantly one upping him, a family such as the doppel family would be happy with what
he has.
She also describes how the girl in the story gave birth to a son.
Jason is sometimes criticised for being a bit strange and wearing a monster mask, but
the shadow girl gave birth to an actual monster who acts like a real beast and needs to wear
a mask to cover up his scars.
The idea is to be happy with what you have and not lose sight of the fact that there
are less fortunate people among you…
maybe even living below you.
Just as Hands Across America was organized all those years ago -- the people living underground
revive it in a much bigger way to bring attention to the cold, sad lives that those born underground
are subjected to by staging their own movement.
The final shot of the movie is a huge sweeping overhead shot showing the massive amount of
people in red jumpsuits forming a Hands Across America chain, the shot is very reminiscent
of the 1986 commercial that was shown to us at the very beginning of the movie.
Of course, if you have another interpretation of this movie, or any other things I might
have missed in this video, be sure to let me know in the comments, and check out the
playlist on the left to see all the things you might have missed in the trailers for
the upcoming horror movie Pet Sematary.
Remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring that deathbell for
notifications and I’ll see you in the next one.
Assuming we both survive.