Get Out and A Quiet Place: The New Social Thrillers (PART 1)

Jordan Peele has called his recent Oscar winner, Get Out (2017), a “social thriller,” but what does he mean by that? Let’s see…

 

In a recent CNN interview, Peele states that as a child he told a scary story around a campfire (an iconic storytelling image!), and seeing his classmates’ spellbound reaction, he realized that: “Wow! What was my fear, it’s kind of become my power, and wielding that artistry felt good.”

 

In writing the screenplay that became the film Get Out, Peele wielded the power of storytelling he had discovered as a child to explore 21st-century race relations in the United States. And as he wrote, not far from his mind was the legacy of George Romero‘s first film, about which he says in the same CNN interview: “50 years ago we had ‘Night of the Living Dead’ which was about race and that should have opened up the conversation for more films in that “social thriller” genre.” As part of this genre, Peele also mentions Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Stepford Wives (1975).

 

Peel ends the CNN interview saying: “There is a need for stories that allow an audience to commune, to come together in a theater, not just at home, but a theater, to experience something together, and for stories that promote that empathy and deal with these sort of untold truths but also provide an escape and a fun time. That’s what I’m committed to doing.”

 

Don’t forget to check out the recent re-release of Night of the Living Dead on The Criterion Collection and see all of Jordan Peel’s CNN interview at: ‘Get Out’ director: My fear has become my power.