Jordan Peele on Get Out as a comedy: “What are you laughing at?”

The director was possibly not consulted about the genre category of his film.

November 15, 2017
Jordan Peele on Get Out as a comedy: “What are you laughing at?” Jordan Peele at a screening of Keanu at SXSW. March 12, 2016.   Mike Windle / Getty Images for SXSW

There were mixed reactions all around when news broke that Get Out might be submitted to the Golden Globes as a comedy. Though the reason was supposedly that the studio featured that there might be a better chance at winning as a comedy, for some, the decision just didn't sit right. Now Jordan Peele, the director of the record breaking flick, has spoken out about it.

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“What the movie is about is not funny,” he said at a lunch event in New York according to Indiewire. “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.”

“I think the issue here is that the movie subverts the idea of all genres,” Peele continued. “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. Anyone who feels like the other. Any conversation that limits what it can be is putting it in a box.”

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Jordan Peele on Get Out as a comedy: “What are you laughing at?”