"I'll Keep You Safe": Exploring the Mother-Child Unit in Jordan Peele's Us

Evan Alex, Lupita Nyong'o and Shahadi Wright Joseph as Jason, Adelaide
and Zora Wilson in Us. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Us (2019).

Jordan Peele's second film, Us, begins as a benign home invasion movie, following the Wilson family on holiday as they are stalked and attacked by their doppelgangers (or as the film calls them, the tethered); however, it quickly becomes much more. Though Us tackles many themes with dexterity and nuance, the familial unit is front and centre, bringing particular attention to the relationships between family members and challenging our expectations of what a family should be in a horror film. When not neglected from the narrative entirely, horror film families are fragmented, abusive and sources of trauma; conflict tends to arise from within the family unit as a result of external forces (such as in The Shining, Pet Sematary or Poltergeist), destroying the family from the inside out. In Us, however, the Wilson family stays united until the end, and even their vicious doubles have a cohesion and coordination between each other, as they all respond to commands from Red (the tethered version of the Wilson mother, Adelaide).

Us defies horror traditions with its familial relationships, especially that which is between Adelaide and her son, Jason. The mother-child relationship in horror is, by now, rather trite. We see again and again mothers creating a monster through abuse and repression; think Norman Bates and his oppressive mother in Psycho (of course fraught with Oedipal undertones), religious fanatic Margaret White and the abuse her daughter suffers in Carrie, or more recently, a mother's descent into madness and possession that breaks her family down, as seen in the chilling Hereditary. Us bucks this trend of the mother as monstrous, not through its content (because Adelaide truly is something monstrous, as we discover in the third act), but through its presentation of mother-child relationships.
Some of Adelaide's most terrifying moments are when she brutally stabs a doppelganger with their own signature golden scissors, grunting animalistically, and when she finally chokes and kills Red in the climax. These actions are seen only by her son Jason, who appears shocked and scared but does not reject his mother. This represents the strength of their bond and the truth of the familial relationship, which is that sometimes we behave violently and wrongly and the only people who see it without judging us are those bound to us by blood. Jason witnesses his mother committing horrifying acts and still maintains a relationship with her, recalling the earlier sentiment expressed by his father Gabe when he jokingly says "don't judge me, don't judge me!" for behaving in a classic embarrassing dad fashion. Jason agrees not to judge Adelaide and she promises not to judge him either; additionally, Adelaide is the only member of the family who can tell Jason to take off his mask (pictured above), symbolically connecting with her son on a deeper level than anyone else- beneath the mask and beneath what he shows to the world. One of the last shots of the film is Adelaide and Jason exchanging a glance, Adelaide smiling, and Jason holding her gaze before pulling down his mask, hiding himself from Adelaide and the rest of the family. Regardless, Adelaide has seen her son without his mask, and he has seen her in her most honest moments that reflect her true nature, without casting judgement.
As I mentioned, the tethered family also have a bond (however perfunctory), but the primary relationship is between Red and the tethered version of Jason, named Pluto. They exchange the most physical contact, with Red always keeping Pluto close, and shots often find their way to the tethered mother and her son. The tethered father is dispatched early on in the conflict, and the tethered daughter (the doppelganger of Adelaide's daughter Zora) does not get as much screen time as Pluto, making him and Red the focal point of the tethered family. We learn that Red was forced to perform her own cesarean section during the birth of Pluto, giving a brutal physicality to his existence and his relationship with Red, but also bringing them closer as a result of this violence.

Evan Alex as Pluto. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Ultimately, Us shows us a family that is strong despite the violence and terror they face together, with a mother-son unit comparable to that presented in Jennifer Kent's The Babadook; a mother and child bonded inextricably by what they face together, within a narrative that presents a positive outcome for family life when disturbed by trauma. Every family faces its own trials, and Us seems to say that instead of these trials creating a monster within the family (looking at you, Psycho), we can weather them, together. It's a strangely positive message for a horror film with a decidedly unhappy ending, but one that makes sense. Sometimes our families see the most monstrous parts of us, and all we can hope for is that they don't turn away.

Written by Millie Felton, published on 28th March 2019.