Jordan Peele is not happy Get Out is being nominated as a comedy

November 16th 2017, 2:27pm

So, if you haven't heard, Jordan Peele's horror film GET OUT has been nominated for Best Comedy at the Golden Globes. This has sparked some controversy, as the film – while having some funny moments – was not really a comedy, it was a horror-thriller, through-and-through. And it seems writer/director Peele agrees, posting this tweet soon after the nomination:

‘Get Out’ is a documentary.

— Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) November 15, 2017

Peele later clarified his statement at a lunch event for the movie in New York yesterday:

What the movie is about is not funny. 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.’ That’s a very powerful thing. For that to be put in a smaller box than it deserves is where the controversy comes from…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.

He also states that he would've opposed the classification if he had been consulted (hint: he was not). And I agree with Peele. Even if unintentional (it was more likely chosen because it has a better chance of winning as a comedy than as a drama), it can be seen as trivializing the very horror that the film is showcasing as a lark. Also, why not just have a horror category already?