Is 'Get Out' a comedy? The Golden Globes think so
Get Out was a lot of things: a tense thriller, a biting social commentary, an incredible directorial debut for Jordan Peele, a breakthrough for lead actor Daniel Kaluuya.
But was it a comedy?
As far as the Golden Globes are concerned, yes. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association determined this week that Get Out will compete in the "musical or comedy" categories for the upcoming awards.
The designation left some people – including one of the film's stars – scratching their heads.
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It's true that Get Out is, at times, very, very funny. It's also true that it's not really a straightforward "comedy" in the way we think of Girls Trip or A Bad Moms Christmas as "comedies."
But the decision makes perfect sense when you realize how weird the Globes categories are to begin with.
For starters, the HFPA didn't just make this ruling randomly. Universal Pictures submitted Get Out as a comedy, in what looks like a strategic move. Get Out looks likely to be a contender in this year's awards race no matter what genre you think it is, but the drama categories are likely to fill up with heavy dramas like The Post and Dunkirk.
Competing as a comedy should give the Get Out team a little more room to stand out – and, hopefully, pick up some momentum for the impending Oscars race.
Moreover, the HFPA's genre designations have always been kind of a mess. Just two years ago, a similar controversy bubbled up when The Martian ran as a comedy – and and took home the top prize. (When director Ridley Scott went up to accept his statue, he demonstrated his own ambivalence about the categorization with a little shrug.)
Add in the "musical" part, and the divide starts to look even more arbitrary. How does Les Misérables make more sense running against The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel than it would against Argo? If the idea is to let like compete with like, what do Dreamgirls and Borat have in common? Or La La Land and Deadpool?
Really, the fuss over whether Get Out is a comedy just illustrates the impossibility of divvying up films by genre to begin with. But until the HFPA decides to do away with that distinction entirely, it's only reasonable for a genre-bending film like Get Out to play in the category where it has the best odds.
Anyway, for what it's worth, Peele thinks his movie is something else entirely.
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