MFF Dumb Data: A Spoiler-Filled Analysis of the Rabbits in ‘Us’

Photo from Rolling Stone

Quicknote: There is no correct answer here. I’m just analyzing and hypothesizing my way to statistics and numbers that have no way of being correct. Also, I know this is bonkers.

While watching Us (which I really enjoyed) I couldn’t stop thinking about the logistics of tunnel living. How many people lived in the tunnels? Did they only eat rabbit? How do they wash their clothes? Do they travel from tunnel to tunnel? These questions were totally normal as I’m certain Jordan Peele intended his sophomore feature to raise a lot of questions. However, in his quest to raise questions he introduced tiny facets into a world that turned them into MAJOR operations that involved billions of rabbits, millions of towels and thousands of gallons of laundry detergent.

In an effort to gain some clarity of the under-explained fictional world I focused on only the rabbits and everything that comes with it.

Here are some guesses:

• The creating of the “Tethered” most likely started after World War 2. I’m saying this because they seem to age naturally, and in 1986, Adelaide’s (Lupita Nyong’o) parents are their 30s. Which means they were created in 1956 (at the earliest).
• The “Tethered” were eating rabbits in 1986. So, rabbit consumption has been going on for over 30 years.
• It’s unclear when the military (or the Cult from Get Out) left the operation. I’m going to guess 1985.
• The title card leads us to believe that the underground people are living all over America. Also, news reports claim that attacks are happening all over America.
• Let’s take a guess and say there are 6.5 million “Tethered” living across the United States. I say this because that’s how many people held hands during Hands Across America.
• 6.5 million rabbits are consumed each year (one a day, for each person. They look very healthy so they can’t be starving themselves).
• 221 million rabbits have possibly been eaten since 1985
• Towels would be needed to clean up after they eat. So, everyday thousands (at least) of hand towels would need washing. If 100 industrial washing machines were used in a 24/7 rotation (in each tunnel system) it would mean they would need 136 gallons of laundry detergent and use at least 31,200 gallons of water each day in each location.
• There is no way to calculate the energy cost. Somebody has to know what is going on.
• This is random but I’m guessing the scissors and jumpsuits were holdovers from the government agency that set everything up. Because, figuring out the costs of acquiring and purchasing everything would lead me down a major rabbit-hole.
• The Tethered don’t use forks or knives. Things get very messy (more laundry…)

Quick Thought: Even if there are only 100,000 Tethered in the United States. The cost of feeding, cleaning and breeding the rabbits would be a massive undertaking. Let’s say only 50,000 rabbits were eaten each day. That’s still 18,250,000 meat rabbits a year.

Here is what I know:

• They eat rabbits raw. They do not cook them. You see this during a flashback, they are tearing into the rabbits.
• The average meat rabbit weights 4-5 pounds. For this analysis I’m going with 4 pounds
• Meat rabbits should be fed 6 ounces of manufactured pellets a day
• This operation is very expensive
• The daily waste would be millions of pounds (not getting into specifics)
• The underground lair was very clean. This means the “Tethered” have cleaning supplies and towels.
• They have laundry machines
• They need water and electricity
• They need laundry detergent
• The Tethered eat
• Each rabbit consumes 136 pounds of food per year. So, 877,500,000 pounds of rabbit food is needed for the rabbits. It would cost millions to feed the rabbits.

So many rabbits to feed.

Conclusion: Jordan Peele included the rabbits because he is frightened of them and he wanted to show duality. However, by including them as the sole food source for the Tethered he created a multi-million operation that included wholesale rabbit food purchasing, maintenance of industrial washing machines and millions of pounds of waste. I LOVE IT!