Your most burning questions answered

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS follow for Jordan Peele’s Us. 

So you’ve just seen Jordan Peele’s Us. 

And now you’re left with a whole lot of questions and emotions to process.

It’s not just you. Us covers a whole lot of ground in two hours, and it’s made with such obvious care that it’s hard to resist the compulsion to pick over every detail, and analyze every story beat. It’s a film that seems made to start conversations over drinks afterward, or to drive you down a rabbit hole of fan theories. 

We know, because we’ve been down that tunnel ourselves and come out the other side. While we can’t promise we’ve come back with all the answers, we do have more than enough to get your own journey started. Here, our answers to (some) of your most burning questions about Us. 

Why is this movie called Us?

Well, because it’s about us, and how we are our own worst enemies. Don’t take our word for it; that’s Peele’s own interpretation of his movie. 

Plus, “us” = “U.S.,” as in America. Deep! 

What does Hands Across America have to do with Us?

For those too young to remember, yes, Hands Across America was a real thing. The 1986 charity event had six million people linking hands across the continental U.S. for 15 minutes, in a stunt intended to benefit charities fighting hunger and homelessness.

In Us, the Tethered – who can be interpreted as stand-ins for exactly the kind of oppressed and marginalized people that Hands Across America was intended to help – decide to stage their own version of the event, and it’s actually somewhat successful: The final shot shows a long line of red-jumpsuited figures winding through the mountains.

But seen a certain way, it plays as a cruel joke. After all, the real Hands Across America ultimately accomplished very little, raising just $16 million for the cause before fading into a 1980s punchline. 

Is that “Thriller” t-shirt significant?

Yes. Per Peele: 

“Michael Jackson is probably the patron saint of duality. The movie starts in the ’80s — the duality with which I experienced him [Jackson] in that time was both as the guy that presented this outward positivity, but also the ‘Thriller’ video which scared me to death.”

Though the shirt is only seen in the 1986 scenes of Us, Jason’s werewolf mask serves as a visual reference to the music video in the present-day scenes. 

Us was shot before Leaving Neverland sparked new conversation about the allegations against Jackson. But, Peele adds, “The irony and relevance is not lost on me now that the discussion has evolved to one of true horror.”

What is Jeremiah 11:11 about?

That boardwalk rando is clearly a big fan of the Bible verse, which reads:

“Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.”

It’s part of a longer passage in which God tells Jeremiah he will punish his people for forgetting the covenant their forefathers made with God, and for “return[ing] to the sins of their forefathers.” 

It dovetails with one of the major themes of Us, which is that we’ve brought this judgment upon ourselves by forgetting our own ugly history. And, hey, it looks pretty creepy, too, in an entire movie that’s about doubles and coincidences.

What’s with the rabbits?

Rabbits are a recurring motif throughout Us, and they’re strongly associated with the Tethered – they’re kept in underground cages by the Tethered and seem to be the only thing the Tethered get to eat. 

Peele personally finds rabbits “scary” and “insane,” despite having had a pet rabbit as a child, so that’s certainly part of it. But beyond that, rabbits are associated with several things that seem germane to the themes of Us. 

Adelaide goes down an almost literal rabbit hole when she enters the tunnels to find her son, but a metaphorical one as well when she learns more about the Tethered. Then there’s the idea of rabbits as lab animals, not unlike the way the Tethered are treated. Or the superstition that their feet are lucky, leading lots of humans to carry around rabbit’s feet without considering what might have happened to the rest of the rabbit.

Also worth pointing out is that rabbits are portrayed in many cultures, including the U.S., as tricksters who defy rules and conventions, surviving and overcoming negative situations through their wits. The Tethered can probably relate.

What about the spiders?

Spiders creep in and out of Us. Adelaide and Red whistle “Itsy Bitsy Spider” in the hall of mirrors, and the nursery rhyme resurfaces in their battle as adults. In between, we see a spider scuttle across a table before the Tethered show up. 

Ultimately, we discover that the lyrics relate to the plot itself: Red is the itsy bitsy spider who climbs up the water spout (i.e., the escalator to the surface world), gets washed down, and then goes back up again to live in the sun by posing as Adelaide. 

You can also think of the real Adelaide, after she’s condemned to the tunnels, as the spider who keeps trying and failing to make her way out – until she gets her own day in the sun, with the Tethered’s Hands Across America stunt. 

How about that song?

Us turns Luniz’s “I Got 5 On It” into a haunting horror theme. Peele says he chose it in part because he was struck by the beat’s “inherent cryptic energy, almost reminiscent of the Nightmare on Elm Street soundtrack.” 

But, as outlined by Esquire, there’s a deeper (albeit probably unintentional) layer to consider. That chorus is sung by Michael Marshall, who says he feels erased from its history and has earned very little in royalties from it. Now his tune is soundtracking a movie that’s all about erasure? Spooky.

Is Us about race?

Yes and no. Peele has repeatedly emphasized that Us is not about race in the way that Get Out is about race, and indeed, the story does not map neatly to a racial allegory like Get Out did. 

On the other hand, the Wilsons’ blackness is a statement in itself, in a genre that (like so many others) tends to center white people as the default. Here, Peele lets a happy middle-class black family play that role for once. And he doesn’t let them off the hook when the horrors start.

Who or what are the Tethered, exactly?

Short answer: As Red says, “We’re Americans.”

Longer answer: According to Red, the Tethered are exact duplicates of their surface-world counterparts, with each pair sharing a single soul. They were created generations ago by the U.S. government in an effort to control the people aboveground, but were subsequently abandoned in those tunnels when it became clear the experiment wasn’t producing the desired results.

Then how did they get those jumpsuits and scissors? And those rabbits? Wait, what do the rabbits eat? 

To be honest with you, we’re not entirely sure the practical logistics of the Tethered make a lot of sense – but we are pretty sure we don’t care either way. You, too, will be happier if you see Us as following sort of a dream logic, as opposed to trying to figure out where they sourced all that crimson-red fabric.

Fine. What do the Tethered represent, then?

There doesn’t seem to be any one definitive answer to that question, and Peele himself has encouraged viewers to draw their own conclusions. But there are a few popular theories floating around. 

As mentioned above, they can be seen as representing our tendency to forget our own history of oppression. Or our own individual hidden drives and impulses. Maybe you see them as representing the notion that your environment shapes who you become and the choices you make. You can read the story as one about impostor syndrome, or about the power and limitations of art, or about the repression of trauma. 

Really, it’s up to you – there’s a reason that first poster resembled a Rorschach test. 

Is Lupita Nyong’o going to win a dang Oscar for that performance?

Who knows! She freaking should, though.

With additional assistance by Jess Joho.