The costume designer for Jordan Peele’s
(Major spoiler alert: Do not read on if you haven’t seen Jordan Peele’s “Us.”)
Jordan Peele’s “Us” is chock full of references to Michael Jackson, starting when Lupita Nyongo’s younger self wins a “Thriller” t-shirt at the Santa Cruz boardwalk in the 1980s.
But Peele and his costume designer Kym Barrett threw several more nods to the late King of Pop, who is back in the news given the documentary “Leaving Neverland,” in which two men accuse Jackson of sexual abuse (accusations that his estate has disputed).
The doppelgängers in the film, or The Tethered, wear red jumpsuits and one single glove — just as Jackson wore a red jumpsuit during his famed 1983 music video “Thriller,” and Jackson’s single white glove covered in silver sequins made its TV debut during his performance of “Billy Jean” at Motown’s 25th anniversary in 1983. The single glove would become a signature style throughout the rest of his career.
“There are a lot of references running throughout the movie and there’s a lot of nodding and homages to different directors and different horror movies,” Barrett told TheWrap. “The leader of The Tethered has had access to that T-shirt and she knows who Michael Jackson is. She’s seen imagery and she’s seen like the Hands Across America T-shirt, there’s a lot of imagery which she’s seen.
“When it’s time to have the exodus from the tunnel to the top world, that’s an 8-year-old’s jumbled-up impression of the world and it’s regurgitated out into the choice of the red jumpsuit,” she added. “She sees Hands Across America, the cut-out people reinforced by a guy who looks a bit scary and has a red jacket and glove on — it’s memories from a child that is later turned to the red jumpsuit and the glove.
