jordan peele
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Jordan Peele Says Tiger Woods Is ‘in the Sunken Place’
My question is: Has Tiger Woods ever not been in the sunken place? This is the man who was so non-black-identified that he made up his own race (including giving Caucasian and American Indian equal footing to black and Asian with an African-American father and a mother from Thailand). Then he turned out to be…
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Was Get Out More Funny or Scary?
That Get Out will compete as a comedy during awards season is not a surprise. Although packed with thrills and scares, it ultimately exists as social satire—which, while not always funny, is a form of comedy. Also, this comedy distinction makes it more likely to win within its categories. For myriad annoying-as-the-fuck reasons, comedies, when…
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Is Get Out the Blackest Movie Ever?
Before you clutch your pearls—wait. Do black people own pearls? Aside from AKAs, I don’t think so, so I will revise the previous sentence. Before you clutch your Jesus piece, allow me to elaborate. There are definitely movies with more black characters or blacker themes (Friday, Do the Right Thing, Fruitvale Station, etc.), but Jordan…
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Jordan Peele is No. 1 on The Root 100, Our Annual List of the Most Influential African Americans
When we launched The Root 100 in 2009, it was the perfect time to celebrate black excellence. The arrival of the country’s first black president was an occasion to champion the achievements of today’s African-Americans heroes—achievements that could exist only in our ancestors’ wildest dreams. But this year, in a political and cultural climate that…
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Assigning Value to Black Stories: Minority Art and the Racist Mountain
Comedian, writer and filmmaker Jordan Peele recently offered the hope that the success of his low-budget but high-profit film, Get Out, would convince Hollywood producers that “black voices … tell good stories like anyone else.” It is, frankly, startling that after two centuries of the African-American presence in theater, film, television and music, black artists…
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Get Out Becomes Biggest Domestic Hit Ever From a Black Director
With only a $5 million budget, Jordan Peele’s blockbuster hit Get Out is now the highest-grossing domestic hit ever by a black filmmaker. So far the movie has made a whopping $162.8 million in North America, beating F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton. Scott Mendelson at Forbes broke down the top-earning movies by black filmmakers;…
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What Exactly Does Dave Chappelle Want From Key & Peele?
Approximately midway through one of his new Netflix comedy specials (the one he taped last year in L.A. — I’ve yet to see the one taped in Austin), Dave Chappelle made a shocking allusion to his age. I forgot exactly what he said and how he said it, but I remember being reminded of exactly…
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Get Out Proves That ‘Nice Racism’ and White Liberalism Are Never to Be Trusted
Editor’s note: This article contains major spoilers about the plot of Get Out. Last year was a difficult time for many black people in America. We saw now-President Donald Trump making his way to executive power through sheer racist, sexist vitriol. We witnessed the continued state of institutional violence against black bodies, such as those…
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What Becky Gotta Do To Get Murked? White Womanhood In Jordan Peele’s Get Out
(This piece contains major spoilers. Beware.) Jordan Peele’s transcendent Get Out is the latest entry in black folks’ long-standing fascination with horror; beginning with our folklore (Zora Neale Hurston’s Every Tongue Got to Confess), early literature (Charles Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales) and film (Oscar Micheaux’s A Son of Satan) as well as…
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Lakeith Stanfield Calls Armond White a ‘Bitch’ for Ruining Get Out’s Perfect Rotten Tomato Score
If Armond White’s grandmother made a movie, he’d probably give it a negative review if everyone else liked it. It’s fine to have a different opinion about a movie, but it seems as though White has made a career out of being a contrarian. And as the young people would say, he’s the definition of…