Its Beautiful Life

‘Get Out’ Sprung From An Effort To Master Fear, Says Director Jordan Peele

The new film, Get Out, defies easy classification. Though it has funny moments, it’s primarily a horror film, with racial anxiety at its center. Writer-director Jordan Peele tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that he thinks of Get Out as a “social thriller.”

The movie tells the story of a young black man named Chris whose white girlfriend, Rose, takes him to meet her parents for the first time — without first telling them he’s black. Rose’s parents go out of their way to show Chris how open minded they are, but there’s something suspicious in the liberal facade they present. The film takes several twists and turns (which we won’t spoil here) as Chris figures out what is going on.

Peele wanted the audience, regardless of race, to see the subtle racism through Chris’ eyes. “It was very important to me to just get the entire audience in touch in some way with the fears inherent [in] being black in this country,” Peele says. “Part of being black in this country, and I presume being any minority, is constantly being told that … we’re seeing racism where there just isn’t racism.”

Previously known for his comedic work on the Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele, Peele says that his current turn as the director of a horror/thriller film comes from a “deeper place in my soul” than his comic work. “This [movie] is just simply my truest passion,” he says. “It comes from this fact that in order to deal with my own fears, I wanted to be able to sort of master them. It’s really just want I want to be doing.”