On Sunday, March 4th, Jordan Peele became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. His ground-breaking and thought-provoking smash hit film, "Get Out," was also nominated in four other categories. While Guillermo del Toro walked out with both Best Picture and as Best Director for his film, "The Shape of Water", Peele was arguably the biggest victory of the night.
While African American writers have won Oscars in the past for adapted screenplays, by receiving a nomination for the specific category he would ultimately win, Peele joins the esteemed company of only three other film writers: Suzanne de Passe ("Lady Sings the Blues," 1972), Spike Lee ("Do the Right Thing," 1989) John Singleton ("Boyz n the Hood," 1991) (Gonzalez). He's also the first black director to receive nominations in the writing, directing, and best-picture categories for only his very first film.
Probably most famous for his acting and writing on the comedy sketch-series, Key and Peele, with his business partner and friend, Keegan-Michael Key, Peele took his career in the entertainment industry in a different direction than his fan base was probably used to with this directorial debut on "Get Out."
The film grossed, "176 million domestically" and 250 million globally, earned him widespread critical acclaim, won him over 50 individual awards, and sparked even more debate and attention to the already controversial presence of racism in America today (IMDb). The film falls under the horror and thriller genre, but its poignancy lies much deeper than that in the complex and harsh realities of the symbolism interwoven throughout the movie.
In "Get Out", Daniel Kaluuya (who was also nominated for best actor at the Oscars this year) plays Chris Washington, a young African American who travels with his white girlfriend, Rose, played by Allison Williams, to meet her parents at their house for a weekend.
The getaway takes an unexpected and horrific turn as Chris discovers that Rose's family and their white (mostly elderly) friends secretly auction away young black Americans so they can perform a medical procedure called 'coagula' on them and use them for whatever they want.
Arguably one of the film's most important metaphors, the "sunken place", where Rose's mother hypnotizes the black men, 'sinking' them into the floor and leaving them paralyzed and unable to do anything but watch helplessly from within their self-conscious. It represents a complicated and layered phenomenon of "white control over the black body" and also the systematic mass incarceration of persons of color (particularly men) (Morris).
Peele described his decision to include this concept in his film when he realized, "there were real black people who were being abducted and put into dark holes, and the worst part of it is we don’t think about them. I hadn’t been thinking about them. We put them to the back of our minds. That was kind of a trigger point for me, this idea of the back of one’s mind," (Morris).
Peele, who turned 39 in February, is mixed; his father is black and his mother is white. He recently eloped with white comedian Chelsea Peretti (most famous for her role as Gina Linetti on Brooklyn Nine-Nine), but he claims "Get Out".
"was written before I met Chelsea. This is why you marry a comedian: because she gets it,” he said, “I knew that something would ring true about the narrative of the white family and the white woman and the trap that can be for a black man.
The movie isn't necessarily supposed to act as a critique of interracial relationships, but instead focuses on the overall discomfort of the black and white dynamic that our country has institutionalized today. Wesley Morris, of the New York Times, in an interview with the up and coming director, postulated that " 'Get Out' is a hit because Jordan Peele is not alone. It’s a hit because, not so secretly, it’s about a profound fear of being black and isolated," (Morris).
The Academy has taken some much-needed criticism over the past few years for the disproportional representation of white actors and directors as compared to non-white. The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite began when in both 2015 and 2016, there were no colored nominees in any acting category. No African American has ever one 'Best Director' (although 5 have been nominated, including Peele).
Although Denzel Washington became the most nominated African American Actor in the history of the Oscars, a black man has not won the best lead actor since Forest Whitaker in 2006 for his role as Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland". No black actress has won best lead actress since 2001 when Halle Berry won it for playing Leticia Musgrove in "Monster's Ball" (List of Black Academy Award Winners).
This year was a little better, with more women being nominated than the previous year in almost every category, but guess what, Jordan Peele was one of the only two black nominees to walk away with a trophy.
Peele's win, despite losing his two other categories, is more than just a catalyst for his future career. It signifies a small, yet imperative, stepping stone on the path to change.
His nominations and win are momentous in the theatre industry, yes, but on a broader scale, in a political climate where racial tensions are high and the cries for social justice ring out loudly, they affect an entire nation.
The win will draw even more attention to a movie that more of America needs to watch, one that deals with explicit issues that most people fear, avoid, or deny altogether.
It forces the audience to place themselves in Chris's position and face the reality of systematic racism on the big-screen as he experiences within the diegesis of the movie. Peele executed the difficult task of approaching a controversial conversation through the medium of film flawlessly and as an African-American in America, got the recognition he deserved.