Pop Culture dictionary
Sunken Place
or the sunken place
What does the聽Sunken Place mean?
In the film聽Get Out, the Sunken Place聽is a trance-like, otherworld state black victims of hypnosis are trapped in when their bodies are taken over by white hosts. It聽has inspired memes and become a symbol of the unwitting oppression of black people.
Where does Sunken Place come from?
WATCH: How This Horror Movie Term Became A Real Life Metaphor
In Jordan Peele’s 2017 horror-satire聽Get Out, Missy (Catherine Keener) is a hypnotist who puts black men and women into trances, leaving their minds stuck in what she calls the Sunken Place as white people’s minds get transplanted into their bodies.聽She also uses the Sunken Place to control the black people she and her family lure to their house and keep them from escaping before the transplant occurs.
The Sunken Place was one of the most lauded elements of the acclaimed Get Out,聽recognized as a metaphor for the feelings of helplessness and subjugation that black people experience in society built on systemic, institutional racism. It also represents the control that white people can assert over black people through psychological, economic, and cultural oppression.
Following the film, the Sunken Place became a meme that features photos or written examples of black people showing coerced deference to white people along with a quote from the movie: “Now you’re in the sunken place.” Jordan Peele produced many notable examples himself:
“Now you’re in the Sunken Place”
鈥� Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele)
In late 2017,聽Kanye West became the subject of mocking聽memes after his associations with the Kardashian family led many to joke he had been taken to the Sunken Place.
Kanye West is officially in a sunken place.
鈥� 馃枻馃懜馃徑鉁婐煆� (@ThugNasty_Erica)
In April 2018, West replied to the Sunken Place jokes with a picture of his high-end home. Soon after, his critics only further ribbed him for being in the Sunken Place after he issued pro-Donald Trump statements and a gross revisionism of slavery.
*Gets inspired
*Starts writing 鈥楪et Out 2鈥�鈥� Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele)
Examples of Sunken Place
Who uses Sunken Place?
The Sunken Place is one of the most recognizable aspects of聽Get Out‘s legacy.
In black media and online communities, it has become a way to聽characterize black oppression, in all its many and often insidious forms, in American society.
i am tired of writing essays about Black death, Black bodies, Black loss. those are the stories THEY both want and need. 鈥淵es…bring me your slaughtered and affected negro from the slums, who has risen from the sunken place and fallen ash of their ghost-ridden chains…鈥�
tired.
鈥� Joel (Jo-el) Leon. (@JoelakaMaG)
Sunken Place memes are used to imply a black person who appears complicit with racist people or institutions.
i.ytimg.com
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of Sunken Place like most terms we define on 亚洲网紅露点, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of Sunken Place that will help our users expand their word mastery.