Failed Oscar Campaigns: "Get Out" (2017)

Scene from Get Out

As awards seasons pick up, so do the campaigns to make your film have the best chances at the Best Picture race. However, like a drunken stupor, sometimes these efforts come off as trying too hard and leave behind a trailer of ridiculous flamboyance. Join me on every other Saturday for a highlight of the failed campaigns that make this season as much about prestige as it does about train wrecks. Come for the Harvey Weinstein comments and stay for the history. It's going to be a fun time as I explore cinema's rich history of attempting to matter.

The Movie

Get Out (2017)

Directed By: Jordan Peele

Written By: Jordan Peele

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Running Time: 104 minutes

Summary: A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.

The Movie

While there has been a handful of movies already that are likely to garner some Oscar buzz, the serious contenders start next week with Bradley Cooper's directorial debut A Star is Born. In a lot of ways, it's one of the more shocking things that the star of such farcical films as Wedding Crashers and The Hangover would be leading an awards conversation. However, it does seem like the perfect reminder of one of the many of last year's first timers who ended up in the Oscars conversation. Had anyone been asked to describe Jordan Peele even two years before Get Out was released, the consensus would be that he's nothing but a comedian, often teaming up with Keegan Michael Key in comedies like Keanu and the hit Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele, which was so successful and subversive that it once lead Chappelle's Show's Dave Chappelle to jokingly admit that they stole his bit.

But the bit is so primed to the African American experience. It's the racial divide that constantly separates blacks from whites. Key & Peele sought to point it out in the most minutiae of ways. In a five minute sketch that often went viral, the discussion of division would lead to some hilarious bits, all in between broader and low brow comedy such as the dangers of dubstep music and being extras on a zombie show. The show was an effective source for comedy, though it was always clear that Key and Peele had their sights on more than just comedy. While Key hasn't succeeded as transparently as Peele, both have often expressed in interviews - such as on WTF with Marc Maron - the fictitious belief in a "post-racial America" and that tensions still existed. The thoughts were always there, and Peele was going to make a film that addressed it.

Get Out is in many ways hilarious, terrifying, but most importantly thought provoking. What was sold as a demented Guess Who's Coming to Dinner for the 21st century would slowly unravel into something even more unexpected for a February release. It's a time when a studio's b-level movies get released. However, Peele surprised everyone when he not only released a film that was a box office success, but one that could go just as viral as any sketch on Key & Peele as well as lead to college-level classes and enough conversation to earn it an Oscar 53 weeks after its wide release. For any film, that's an astounding feat, and Peele did it with a gravitas that was stealth and brilliant, proving that the old adage that horror doesn't win Oscars is quickly becoming an outdated myth. The films can, and it's about time that everyone caught up to the reality.

- The Campaign -

In theory, the campaign began at the B.E.T. Awards. The first trailer premiered during the broadcast with Chance the Rapper providing a Q&A for those interested in the movie. At the beginning, it was a film sold to black audiences, in large part because it was an exploration of how society marginalizes an entire race. With cryptic imagery that was haunting, the trailer would get over 20 million views on YouTube in the first 24 hours. The interest was there, even if the belief that Peele was still "a comedy guy" ran rampant through most people's minds. He could be funny, but the trailer was anything but. It was jarring and presented something high concept and ambitious, at least for a February release. It was what essentially has come to be known in controversy as "prestige horror" (a term that even Blumhouse producer Jason Blum admits is bad and is meant more as a justification for people who don't usually like horror but like one film from the genre).

The campaign continued with a bold strategy that seemed a bit odd, especially given its relatively soon release date. The belief was that the film needed to premiere with positive buzz, so Universal and Blumhouse premiered it at Sundance. While the belief was that it could backfire, it was a move that created a buzz around the film and made Peele's debut sound like more than shtick. This was a filmmaker who had something important to say, and he was going to do it using horror. Whether or not this was the sole reason for the film's success is unclear, however the marketing paid off as the film premiered atop the box office and would go on to gross $255 million worldwide. By any stretch, the film's financial and critical success would be enough to call it a worthy investment, but Universal had bigger plans in store.

One thing that was evident about the film was its success in connecting to audiences. Nowhere is this more noticeable than on Twitter, where a hashtag meme sprung up upon the film's release. "The sunken place" was a reference to how blacks were marginalized within the story of the film. This would be applied to a variety of pictures depicting comical or serious examples of the sunken place. The film also spun its own video challenge, with many attempting to do a 90 degree turn while running in honor of another scene of the movie - even being parodied later that year in Tyler Perry's movie Boo 2: A Madea Halloween. Even further on, another scene that would be parodied involved Bradley Whitford's character, who in the film said "I would've voted for Obama a third time. Best president in my lifetime." A lot of the noteworthy examples applied to the Oscar voting, claiming that they would vote for Get Out three times if they could.

This would all be fine material for a campaign, but Universal went a step further and in May of 2017, they held a special event on a back lot called Wisteria Lane. The cast and crew were present as people walked around. It technically wasn't part of the campaign, but it helped to raise awareness that, despite Blum and Peele's belief that a campaign wouldn't work, the future of the film was awards season. Audiences and critics loved the film, which was a rare intersection nowadays. Add in that horror films haven't done well with Oscar voters was another setback, even acknowledging that the last February movie to have a Best Picture nomination was The Silence of the Lambs, which was over 25 years ago.

With all of this said, the film's significance continued to fuel conversation inside and outside of Oscar campaigns. In interviews, Allison Williams would claim that her white girlfriend role caused people to tell their darkest secrets regarding race, thus proving that there was a need for a social conversation. Meanwhile, Kaluuya was getting sympathy and love from people approaching him. Still, many analyzed the film's visual references, which stemmed from films to various historical signifiers (i.e. Kaluuya uses cotton in one scene to save his life). It proved that Peele's reference guide far extended the typical work of a film maker and that it was in many ways personal and went back several centuries. This lead to a class taught at UCLA about the film's many references, which was so popular that it created an online version that the public could take for a small fee. It received more attention when Peele actually sneaked into the class and surprised students. 

Add in that the film was one of the best critically acclaimed for the entire year, and it's incredible to think of how it entered the zeitgeist so effectively really before Oscar season kicked off. Even then, there was concern that Peele wouldn't get a Best Director nomination, even as Get Out defied odds and was a plausible Best Picture contender. Many even pitted Kaluuya for a nomination in spite of being an equally rare feat. It was a film that stuck its foot firmly in the ground and refused to leave. Among the humorous highlights of the many interviews Peele gave was a joking belief that he quite acting. Why? Well, he claimed that it was because of being offered the role of The Poop Emoji in The Emoji Movie, which made him wonder what he was doing with his life. Ironically, he starred as a sidekick to a character named Professor Poopypants in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie in 2017 instead. Still, it's fun to think of Get Out making Peele so prestigious that he couldn't do lowbrow comedy anymore. As far his IMDb goes, he's not done yet.

- The Payoff -

There's some delightful irony in realizing that the film that would dominate conversation during the 2017 Oscar season hadn't even come out by the time that awards were handed out for the 2016 Oscar season. The film premiered days before the Academy Awards in the year that Moonlight won, which felt like a nice metaphor in the shifting recognition of race depiction on screen. However, it showed how much of a challenge this road would inevitably be. It would be out over a year before the ceremony it was eligible for would actually air. Get Out was the film that surprised everyone, even in a year that saw The Shape of Water legitimize sci-fi with its first Best Picture win. 

Still, what was more impressive is that there were four Oscar nominations for Get Out, three of which had some partnership to Peele. Kaluuya received a Best Actor nomination amid glowing praise and sudden reassessment in the Oscar race in the weeks leading up to the ceremony. Many believed that Get Out could win Best Picture, especially since it also had a Best Director and Best Original Screenplay nomination on board. Of the four, only Peele won for Best Original Screenplay, which was the one category believed to be a sure lock. However, it was also a year where the film was overlooked by The Shape of Water - likely in part because of Guillermo del Toro's legacy of a career and the need to reward him for one of his most accessible and beloved works. Still, Peele made an incredible feat with his directorial debut - and odds are that this puts behind him the days where being cast in The Emoji Movie are potential options.

Little is known about what his next film would be. Another fun game about awards season is that Get Out was out for so long that Peele kept getting options and rumors for what lied ahead. He ended up doing what IMDb calls another "social horror-thriller" with Us, starring Elisabeth Moss and Lupita Nyong'o and set for a 2019 release. The cast and crew have gone on to great things as well, with Kaluuya starring in both Black Panther and another potential Oscar-nominee in the Steve McQueen film Widows. Comedian Lil Rel Howery would have a bump from the film, earning roles in the basketball comedy Uncle Drew and the new sitcom Rel. With that said, the film is closer to two years old than a spring chicken like most 2017 Best Picture nominees currently are, and that's an incredible achievement. Who knows what this means for the future of horror, if films like Hereditary actually stand a chance at making the cut. For now, it's time to acknowledge that film still has the power to comment on big issues in meaningful ways. It just takes someone creative enough to do it through film, memes, and think pieces.