海角大神

Comedian Jordan Peele has found an unusual forum for discussion of race relations in America: a horror movie.

Mr. Peele, who starred in the Comedy Central series 鈥淜ey & Peele,鈥� directed and wrote the new movie 鈥淕et Out,鈥� which opens on Feb. 24. The film, which is reminiscent of the 1967 classic "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?," stars Daniel Kaluuya of 鈥淪icario鈥� as Chris Washington, who goes with his white girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), to meet her parents. Yet all may not be as it seems.聽

Peele told he was inspired to create the film when former President Barack Obama was running for office.聽

鈥淭here was a sentiment that we had a black president now, so racism is over,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t even felt like President Obama couldn鈥檛 talk about race in a way that was satisfying.鈥� 鈥淕et Out鈥� came about from a sense 鈥渙f knowing racism is still very much alive in this country, but that it was sort of being neglected as an issue,鈥� he said.聽

Peele said he also wanted to be very deliberate with his setting, putting the movie in New York. 鈥淚t was really important for me to not have the villains in this film reflect the typical red state type who is usually categorized as being racist. It felt like that was too easy,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 wanted this film to explore the false sense of security one can have with the, sort of, New York liberal type.鈥� He says he鈥檚 looking to have the movie serve as 鈥渁 reference point as we forge into the difficult conversation about race.鈥�

"Get Out," with its black protagonist, is also rare in horror movies, says Peele, who told of the genre, "there's this extreme lack of representation of black characters, black protagonists."

The movie is drawing various positive reviews, with writing that the film is 鈥減erfectly tailored to our post-postracial moment鈥� and particularly praised the movie鈥檚 opening scene, in which a black man walks down a dark street in a wealthy neighborhood and being tailed as he does so.聽

鈥淭he scene is a jolting piece of suspense craftsmanship and a clever dismantling of several decades鈥� worth of racist stereotypes: The black guy walking alone on a dark street, so routinely depicted as a figure of fear, menace and criminality, is here recast as a frightened, vulnerable innocent,鈥� Mr. Chang writes. (However, he personally felt that the sequence 鈥渋s so cleverly composed and effortlessly subversive that writer-director Jordan Peele never quite manages to top it.鈥�)聽

And though felt that 鈥渘othing in 鈥楪et Out鈥� is as scary as the things that inspired it,鈥� he felt that the film is 鈥渁lmost certain to be the boldest 鈥� and most important 鈥� studio genre release of the year. What it lacks in fear, it nearly makes up for in fearlessness.鈥�