Jordan Peele’s Us, The Twilight Zone, and the Doppelganger (4/26/19)

As much as I enjoyed watching Us, the first thing I said after the film ended was, “well what am I supposed to do with that!”. Beautiful cinematography and endlessly creative concept aside, I must say that I was (and still am), a bit confused as to what Us was trying to tell me, particularly with the plot twist at the very end of the film. I saw the film with my family, and in reference to the twist, my father described the movie as a episode of The Twilight Zone, which I found slightly ironic, given that Peele is heading its upcoming reimagining.

However, a comparison to The Twilight Zone seems especially fitting. At least in my experience, The Twilight Zone tends to target human fears that are more internal than external, contrary to the majority of horror. Mainstream horror as a genre tends to play on fears of outside forces, such as serial killers, monsters, supernatural entities, violence, pain, etc. However, in shows like The Twilight Zone, the horror is often much more psychological, twisting the viewers expectations, commenting on human nature and behavior, as well as playing largely on our fear of reality defying reason. As a kid, The Twilight Zone used to freak me out like nothing else could, that eerie theme song triggering a kind of Pavlovian unease in my 10 year-old self.

To return to Us, the most obvious interpretation of it is, of course, our fear of ourselves. Fear of the ‘shadow self’, the ‘dark side’. A fairly common trope, the double or doppelganger is a innate creepy concept. Historically in literature, doppelgangers often represent the ‘evil twin’ of the character they double, and are often used symbolically harbingers of bad luck. Directly translating from German as “double walker”, in a number of Scandinavian mythologies, they serve as physical manifestations of fate. In Norse mythology the double performs a person’s actions in advance, referred to as a ‘firstcomer’, or is alternatively a personification of death. Applying this historical significance of the doppelganger to Us provides some interesting insight.

The connection between the tethered humans on earth and in the compound closely reflects this concept of the ‘firstcomer’. Adelaide’s double explains how the tethered were created as a way to control the people up above, perhaps by performing their actions before they do, removing their free will. However, the experiment failed, leaving the shadows to carry out the actions of their earthly double, often in twisted and obscene ways. Therefore, the doubles in Us can be interpreted in a number of ways. We can see the shadow as a representation of the dark side taking over, as a commentary on our lack of true free will, or simply as a harbinger of some inevitable doom to befall the human race.