The distributor behind Get Out, Jordan Peele's standout social horror movie, has decided to have the film compete in the Best Motion Picture — Musical Or Comedy category at the 2018 Golden Globes, a source told BuzzFeed News.
Film studios have a long history of stretching the constraints of what classifies as a comedy in order to get their film nominated for the Globes category.
But since the announcement about Get Out, many people online have been angry and/or confused as to why a film marketed as a horror movie and tackling serious subjects like racism, would ever be considered for the comedy category.
Miscategorizing Get Out as a comedy is a sorry attempt to deflate its impact as both a formative horror genre film… https://t.co/qQfeUQrX2C
White privilege is watching "Get Out" and thinking it was funny. https://t.co/jZfbfEUDen
Must've missed the singing & dancing... https://t.co/UedpGpsJMP
Black filmmakers: let's make a cinematic hyperbolic representation of the real ways black bodies are hypersexualize… https://t.co/9jKALOn8rH
However, some feel that given the film's satirical nature, "best comedy" is the right category for the film to achieve award success.
White people are REALLY insistent today that calling GET OUT a comedy somehow trivializes it. It makes me realizes… https://t.co/QBiMoD1MHW
Biggest laugh is who all is mad but didn’t read the story to know it’s about Get Out being *submitted* as a comedy, not *classified* as one.
Get Out IS FUNNY! I guarantee that all y'all who are doing your big Angry Internet Performance right now LAUGHED H… https://t.co/MXma8SoNyz
My 💥 take: Get Out is a comedy. It's a social satire that makes its points through clever observation and dryly am… https://t.co/FtyrPjShVM
Director Jordan Peele and the Get Out cast have weighed in with their own feelings about the film's classification. Peele joked on Twitter that his film is actually a documentary because it tackles real-world social issues.
‘Get Out’ is a documentary.
Elaborating on his tweet to Indiewire, Peele said that to his knowledge he had no say in which Globes category Get Out was submitted for. “The problem is, it’s not a movie that can really be put into a genre box,” said Peele. “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.”
And Get Out Executive Producer Jason Blum tweeted his support of Peele with a link to an article praising the film as "a deadpan social satire mixed with suspense."
Go @JordanPeele https://t.co/nYFoFfDYTk
While Lil Rel Howery, who played TSA agent Rod Williams, said he thought the classification was "weird."
But if I can be honest this is weird to me... Their is nothing funny about racism... Was it that unrealistic lol https://t.co/5xSXBmatfP
But I will say this Jordan Peele wrote a masterpiece that has horror, drama, suspense and comedy in it... And it al… https://t.co/eZ5XbtmUT7
Lakeith Stanfield, who played the doomed Andrew Logan King, also denies Get Out is a comedy.
A representative for Universal Pictures tell BuzzFeed News they have no comment on the debate. BuzzFeed News has also reached out to Jordan Peele, Lil Rel Howery, and Blumhouse Productions for further comment.