Jordan Peele on Choosing Horror: “Get Out … Is My Greatest Fears in Film”
We’re still rolling our eyes over the news that Jordan Peele’s awesome directorial debut, Get Out, is being submit for consideration to the Golden Globes as a comedy, because it is very clearly not a comedy. In fact, it’s a horror film, a dramatic one at that (albeit with humor in it, for sure), and there’s a reason for that.
At Deadline Hollywood’s annual ‘The Contenders’ event at the DGA Theater, Mike Fleming Jr. interviewed Peele about his decision to step away from full-on comedy and toward the horror genre for his first film as a director. Peele replied that horror is simply his favorite genre (which is apparent in sketches like “Sexy Vampires” and “Make-a-Wish“), and that “I actually started wanting to make a horror thriller, and in asking myself what that would look like, eventually I got to what Get Out is, which is, in many ways, my greatest fears on film.”
He went on to say:
“Honestly, I thought: There’s too many things that you just can’t do in film— the finale where a black man kills a white family in cold blood, and the audience is supposed to be like, ‘Yeah!’ ” Peele joked. “When you watch this movie, I think that’s the power of story. It’s one of the few things that encourages empathy because it allows us to see through others’ eyes.”
I think there are several parts to Get Out being classified as a comedy. I think that Peele’s reputation as a comedic performer is part of it. Pigeonholes are hard to get out of. Then there’s the fact that it’s a genre film, which tend to get taken less seriously. And, of course, there’s the fact that if awards shows acknowledge that this is a drama and not a comedy, they’d have to wrestle with the idea that *gasp* racism is a real-life horror.
Can’t have that, can we? *sigh*
(image: screencap)
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