Although there is one upside to the Golden Globes classifying Jordan Peele’s hit “social thriller” Get Out as a comedy—namely, that it’s more likely to win big awards in that less competitive category—there are also several compelling reasons to oppose the decision. Chief among them is the argument that, in a world where people are setting up “Come Meet A Black Person” events, the film is way too real, and its insights way too important, to be tossed into the same bucket as Daddy’s Home 2. (Not that Daddy’s Home 2 has a serious chance of winning a Golden Globe, but you get the point.)
Peele made this point in a far more concise fashion than we ever could on Twitter yesterday morning, shortly after the news broke:
Peele elaborated on his position at a lunch event for the movie in New York yesteray, where said that the film was submitted to the HFPA by Universal without his input. If he had been consulted, he would have opposed the decision; although he says the movie is difficult to categorize—“the problem is, it’s not a movie that can really be put into a genre box,”he says—he doesn’t think the film’s racial themes are funny at all.
“I’ve had many black people come up to me and say, ‘man, this is the movie we’ve been talking about for a while and you did it,’” he says. “That’s a very powerful thing. For that to be put in a smaller box than it deserves is where the controversy comes from.” He adds, “Call it what you want, but the movie is an expression of my truth, my experience, the experiences of a lot of black people, and minorities ... The major point to identify here is that we don’t want our truth trivialized. The label of comedy is often a trivial thing. The real question is, what are you laughing at? Are you laughing at the horror, the suffering? Are you disregarding what’s real about this project? That’s why I said, yeah — it’s a documentary.”