No, you 'Get Out!' Horror film on racism is gravely comedic

Universal Pictures

Imagine being a young black man whisked away to a hyper rich, affluent country suburb where your girlfriend's well-off white family resides. Her parents fully embrace you and boast about their admiration of America's first black president, Barack Obama, as if they're conforming to the politically correct social register of appeasing any black guest that walks through their door with  such an obvious plea that they are accepting of a black man courting their white daughter. Unfortunately, the Stepford persona of the family and their house staff, friends and other family members wears off in a situation that is so grim and fantastical you could never believe it was true if it weren't being told on the silver screen.

That is "Get Out" in a nutshell.

It is the incredibly relevant and popular story for the directorial debut of comic Jordan Peele who also penned the extremely creepy and  funny film that tackles the current social climate of racism. It was recently announced that "Get Out" was classified into the comedy/musical genre field for the 75th Golden Globe Awards in 2018 and drew criticism for deeming a satirically serious - an oxymoron? - film about race relations as being anything but dramatic. Some viewed it as white privilege laughing at racism. Given that the persons who award the Golden Globes are foreign journalists, I doubt many are of the Aryan brethren.


The truth is that for as serious as the story and its social message is, the film lightens up the story with situations and characters that had audiences laughing out laugh. They weren't laughing about racism, they were laughing about the absurdity of the actions of the white characters and how they dealt with black people. The classification of the film as a comedy by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which doles out the Golden Globes, is absolutely correct because the core message of the film is not what deems its genre identity. They aren't saying racism is funny, they're saying that "Get Out" was just as funny to them as it was audiences around the country. Racism, while being poked fun at it, just happened to be the overarching theme that drove the film.

When I went to a late morning, weekday showing of the film back in March I was with a wonderfully diversified crowd that participated in the film as much as an audience during a midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." There were plenty of "get outta there's!" and other messages of relief to the main black character, played with incredible verve by Daniel Kaluuya, as their were moments of extreme laughter in reaction to the bounty of supporting characters. I had as much fun watching the film as I did witnessing the audience who seemed to know more about horror movie tropes than any typical white girl in a slasher film. We correctly laughed just as much as we gasped at the horrors. If I had to guess, the audience enjoyed watching "Get Out" unfold as they were mortified by the extreme actions the white characters took to overcome the black populace.

"Get Out" is so amazingly bizarre that it almost belongs in a field of its own. There are elements of horror (slasher and British goth) and comedy that you can't really define it into a genre.

Peele has a noted history of comedy, he is part of the Emmy-winning comedy duo of "Key & Peele", so he knew exactly the film he wanted to make, and he absolutely succeeded in creating a culturally significant piece that laughs at the "logical" reasoning of racism while delicately inquiring why it still exists. I reject his reasoning that "Get Out" is a documentary because Peele doesn't delve into the historic reasoning of the social manner. His story was fiction, after all, surrounded by a reality.

To be mad at the HFPA for classifying "Get Out" as a comedy for awards purposes only is so silly seeing that the film was a monumental success without any accolades to throw at it. The box office receipts proved that it resonated with audiences regardless of what an award-governing body delcared its genre. From a campaign perspective, participating in comedy fields yields better odds of winning than being in its dramatic counterpart — if a particular group hands out awards by comedy and drama fields. The HFPA may have loved the film so much to want to award it that it was placed in the comedy/musical field for just that reason, and/or, but more correctly, because the movie was really that funny. I find that the movie was so funny and served as a razor sharp look into modern American cultural that it couldn't be anything but hilariously jarring. Racism isn't a laughing matter, but to take the approach that Peele did makes you laugh at how stupid that, still, socially relevant ideology is.