Jordan Peele showed up to surprise a class of students studying Get Out

Authored by avclub.com and submitted by BunyipPouch
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Horror was a refuge for black filmmakers in the ’70s, which saw the release of a number of memorable titles, whether it be the campy Blacula or the artful and resonant Ganja & Hess. And while the subsequent decades have seen a few solid horror flicks from black directors—Tales From The Hood the best among them—it was the release of Jordan Peele’s Get Out that again showed the potential of how racial struggles can be so effectively depicted through the genre’s conventions.

Peele’s movie also inspired a UCLA professor, author Tananarive Due, to create a new course, Sunken Place: Racism, Survival, and Black Horror Aesthetic, that would dissect black horror specifically. “[I]t never dawned on me that I could have a black horror course before Get Out,” she recently told Gizmodo, saying the course will examine how “fear of black otherness and black power were there from the start.”

It sounds like an awesome course, and Due kicked things off with aplomb by hosting a very special guest for the first class. Jordan Peele himself dropped by, initially posing as a student before revealing himself and addressing the class.

And it’s not as if Peele’s got time to spare these days. He’s currently developing a TV series about Nazi hunters in the ’70s, collaborating with Spike Lee on a KKK crime thriller, and producing an adaptation of Lovecraft Country for HBO.

cromathor on October 13rd, 2017 at 18:17 UTC »

Yeesh these comments...

I liked Get Out because it takes the subject of casual racism and cleverly twists the explanation away from just "something that white people do" into "something psychopaths do for an agenda." I think it's funny that people think that it's anti-white when the characters against the protagogist all had personal issues that had nothing to do with being white or black.

Also the scariest moment in the whole film was after everything and the sirens went off. It kind of makes you experience the fear that actually does exist in the black community today.

I agree that a little bit of it was heavy handed, but it all gets explained and wraps itself up without loose ends. Solid writing with an engaging story.

McNuty on October 13rd, 2017 at 16:39 UTC »

Wish I was high on potenuse

SutterCane on October 13rd, 2017 at 16:38 UTC »

Did he show up wearing a big hat and not knowing who Jordan Peele was?