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| Awards season wouldn’t be complete without the requisite number of controversies, and it got an early one last week when Universal announced it would submit the thriller “Get Out” for a Golden Globe in the comedy category. The film’s writer-director, Jordan Peele, immediately communicated his disappointment, tweeting, “‘Get Out’ is a documentary.” Although he later moderated his reaction, he maintained that to categorize his directorial debut as a comedy is to fatally misunderstand the seriousness of the movie, in which a young African American man is existentially threatened by a Stepford-like liberal white family in the suburbs. “The reason for the visceral response to this movie being called a comedy is that we are still living in a time in which African American cries for justice aren’t being taken seriously,” Peele explained in a statement. “It’s important to acknowledge that though there are funny moments, the systemic racism that the movie is about is very real. More than anything, it shows me that film can be a force for change. At the end of the day, call ‘Get Out’ horror, comedy, drama, action or documentary, I don’t care. Whatever you call it, just know it’s our truth.” —The Washington Post, November 23, 2017 |
You start to believe this is your fate
Harassment and abuse
Murder and beatings, lynching—we are skinned
To be worn like the fur of animals
Stripped of everything that makes us human
We reek of slave labor, blood, sweat
They kill us so they can be us
They want to absorb our resilience
They pave our roads to the grave with imprisonment
If these walls could talk
They wouldn’t because
They are traumatized by how much violence
Black bodies have seen
You start to believe this is your fate
When you are persecuted and used the day you are born
And God’s ear has gone deaf to our silent screaming
A. Miller is studying teacher education in the Midwest. Miller's work has been featured in Aois 21 publishing, and makingqueerhistory.com.