If a movie displaying the racial problems in America was nominated, it should have been Mudbound. The story and acting were exceptional and the emotional impact was great. I was surprised that Get Out even got a nomination after seeing it. Yes, it told a story about some Back and White relations in America, but that is not enough to make it a masterpiece. Although I do believe there are racial problems in America, the writer of this article goes to far in her assumptions about what Get Out's loss means.
7
Many commenters are saying that the movie was "virtue signaling" and, because the article claimed racism, it therefore "devalues the injustice that black directors, movies, and people face everywhere."
Really??? If you don't think there was bias against it on racial grounds, then you failed to read the article. Did you catch this statement? "Some other voters refused to watch the film because they didn’t want to engage with the issues it raises."
Not wanting to engage with the racism in this country seems to be pretty darn racist to me.
To claim racism, to claim bias in so many organizations devalues the injustice that black directors, movies, and people face everywhere.
9
Wow - your fav didn't make the grade so it's all due to to those rotten White folk. Maybe, just maybe it wasn't one of the best out there ? Despite the heavy favoritism thrown its way, it still didn't cut it, but No - it's them Evil white folks who can't face their true selves in the mirror.
Your argument is getting a bit thin
18
I would just like to point out that the "sunken place" also exists for many, although not on account of their race. The African-American plight as described by Kashana Cauley is undoubtedly real. Although African-Americans suffer because of their race, sometimes people suffer similar horrors but for other reasons. It seems there is a common cause to be made.
2
'Get Out' is a telling story of the thin veneer of Liberalism and the ugliness sometimes hidden under its hypocrisy.
7
I loved 'Get Out' and likely would have voted for it if given a chance. However, this article doesn't make much sense to me.
Is it possible 'Get Out' didn't win Best Picture because the voters' desire to "turn a blind eye to the true, contentious state of black-white relations in this county?" Sure, it's possible, but the evidence in this article doesn't appear to back up the premise.
First of all - let's not forget that this movie *WON* best screenplay. What does that say about voters' attention to black-white relations? The article doesn't attempt to explain.
Additionally, isn't it possible that some voters just didn't understand the movie? I'm sure I didn't understand it as much as others even though I thought it was great.
Lastly, this article mischaracterizes the information in the links provided:
1) This article implies that a voter said the movie "played the race card...", but it appears the voter was talking about the Oscar campaign. Was that an appropriate reaction to the campaign? I don't know. I didn't see the campaign, I only saw the movie.
2) One link supposedly says some voters didn't watch the film "because they didn't want to engage with the issues it raises." The article linked to didn't say any such thing and in fact discusses how the nominations of movies like 'Get Out' seems to be a signal that the movie business is changing in more positive directions.
11
I found it to be a brilliant picture. It reflects the racism found in so many places in our country, still. Why do you think Mitch McConnell announced, right after Mr. Obama became president, that he was going to be a one- term president? Why do you think the GOP, including its white supremacist president, finds so many of Mr. Obsma's admirable initiatives such as the ACA and our truce with Iran, so unacceptable?
7
The big R, alas, is a zombie, alive and well. We've just come to the end of the tenure of one of our best presidents ever, and the R party is bent out of shape trying to besmirch his achievements.
4
Why were Oscar voters overly dismissive of 'Get Out'?
Because the can't handle the truth about race in America.
Because they're deniers and soft racists.
That's the issue.
A separate issue is that Shape Of Water was a far better film. The title of the article is off-point and misleading.
8
If you have so pessimistic a view of whites, then why do you think it could change?
5
GET OUT didn't win best picture because it wasn't the best picture. Indeed, after watching it I didn't even understand how it had made the Oscar's list. Frankly, I never even thought about it being a "black vs white" movie; to me it just came across as a foolish horror movie that simply was not a good film. In this instance I believe black people are being unrealistic; everything is not about race. I will be interested in seeing other comments. I wonder if I am alone.
24
No, you aren't alone. It just wasn't a very good movie.
9
'Get Out' just wasn't good enough. The story plays with black identity in stereotyped ways. Were the subjugated black because of their physical prowess or because their minds were more susceptible to the machinations of the transfer process or something else? And, the film was dry.
10
Here's an idea. Why not just automatically give the 'Best Picture' award to whichever black filmmaker makes a movie that year? Because there's absolutely no reason other than racism he might lose.
Of course, that could cause problems some year if two black filmmakers submit pictures. Then you'd have to decide which is more oppressed - say, if one is female, or gay, and therefore deserving of Best Picture.
Perhaps the best solution would be to find someone who checks all the boxes - a transsexual gay black female in a wheelchair (no ableism here!). Any film that designated producer makes would automatically get Best Picture. We could then proceed to squabble over white vs black nominees in the various other categories.
Maybe 'Get Out' just made its points (with which in general I agree) too heavy-handedly. I found it worked neither as political polemic nor as horror movie nor as comedy; trying to be all these at once, it didn't quite work for me as any of them. It wasn't a bad movie. Just not as good a movie as I'd have liked it to be.
20
I saw all the Oscar nominated movies and agreed that The Shape of Water was the best. I liked Get Out, but placed it third behind Three Billboards.
Why does this have to be about race? How about judging a movie by it's merits? I believe there have been many instances where black actors and predominantly black themed movies were passed over, but this wasn't one of them,
17
Why didn't 'Get Out' win best picture? Here's a simple answer: it wasn't very good or very smart. While vaguely funny, there was no character development; they simply became other than what we thought. And the narrative was ham-handed. The question presumes that it should have won. My take is, had it not been structured around race (and really, it didn't need to be), it wouldn't have received an iota of its critical attention. None of this is to say that The Shape of Water was any better. It's not. It's only to say there wasn't a racial bias against the film. In terms of technical sophistication and narrative daring, Dunkirk was the best film of the year, and that didn't win either. I doubt its failure to win had anything to do with some bias against Brits.
18
not only are the majority of Americans uncomfortable with facing the real issues surrounding discrimination, they're also not intelligent or educated enough to understand nuances ... I suspect many didn't get the message the movie conveyed.
5
Anytime a movie that some people are emotionally invested in doesn't win Best Picture, there are stories trying to put some sort of dark explanation on the loss. Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan was subject to stories that people just blindly fell for a marketing campaign. These stories are also backed up supposed quotes by some anonymous voter or two.
Perhaps many voters just liked other movies better than Get Out. Remember, only one horror movie has ever won Best Picture -- this one getting four big nominations and a win showed far better love than virtually any movie of its genre in history, showing that the Academy did not have some big bias against it.
I liked Get Out, but did not think it was great -- had a somewhat weak conclusion. I didn't think Shape of Water was great either. I would have chosen either Lady Bird or Three Billboards myself, not because I had anything against Get Out, just thought they were better movies.
8
Taste is subjective. No such thing as a best film. An Oscar's only meaning is that only certain films were even nominated, and only members of a film "academy" opined about the few films nominated. Many films that later become highly admired flopped originally, like Citizen Kane. but it did win for original screenplay.
Look at the history of who won Oscars. There are many performances in certain years in films that did not win that are clearly superior in hindsight to some winners. Liz Taylor won for Butterfield 8 in 1960. Was that better than Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment? But that's just my opinion.
The best judges of screenplays are screenwriters and playwrights. Best judges of directing are directors, and so on. I'd like to know just who are the Academy members who vote. The LA Times was able to get some info, despite the fact that the Academy won't disclose membership. Average age, 63, 94% white, 77% male. 2% black. less for Latinos. By Invitation only, unless you are nominated for an Oscar.
Phil M. made a list of famous original screenplay winners, & feels Get Out is a lower level compared to previous standards. Get Out is a genre film, as is The Shape of Water, but they both say profound things about life, just as profound as the films listed by Phil M. in my book.
Why is a different style of film necessarily "a decline in standards"? Opinions in the end.
I don’t remember any of the best picture nominees playing at a theater near where I live. I was familiar with none of them and didn’t care who won. But the plot of Get Out doesn’t sound like one I would have enjoyed. Neither does a story about a woman falling in love with a water creature. Hollywood might try broadening the appeal of its movies.
8
Why does a movie’s judgement always have to rest on some issue with being black , feeling black , being white , feeling white , whites feelings for blacks , blacks feelings for whites and on and on . Maybe it just wasn’t the best movie .
This article is ridiculous. Art should be judged on its merit , period .
The Academy is supposed to be voting on the merit of the movie — maybe it was a great screenplay but wasn’t excecuted well enough to make it
“ Best Movie “ . Let’s stop looking for any reasons beyond the obvious .
24
Okay okay okay, whether it deserved to be best picture or not is not the issue for me— I think it did but who cares. The issue is the level of subtle or blatant, unconscious or flagrant RACISM in America at this very moment and how it is so much more comfortable for old white folks to deny it, obfuscate about it or Judy look past it. And I am old and white.
4
I've watched Get Out a few times now, I loved it. I also really loved Shape of Water. I was rooting for Get Out, but I was not at all disappointed when Shape of Water won. That said, the fact that there were people who either would not watch Get Out, or not vote for the film on its merits, speaks volumes to how deep white supremacy is embedded in our social fabric (I was going to say embedded in our culture, but that could be misconstrued).
So, there's all that to consider. I do have trouble with the syllogism Ms. Cauley sets up here, i.e., Get Out didn't win; a lot of people didn't vote for Get Out or voted against Get Out for racist reasons ("a lot" is an assumption on my part); ergo, Get Out was actually the Best Picture. Maybe it's not what is said explicitly, but more is implied, especially by her cherry-picked (and petty) put-down of Shape of Water. That she uses the quotes of others to do this is not a case of her being objective, but rather it's a cheap, underhanded method that detracts from her otherwise valid point.
11
Here is a partial list of Academy Award winning films in the Best Original Screenplay category:
Citizen Kane
On The Waterfront
The Apartment
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
Patton
The Sting
Chinatown
Network
Annie Hall
Rain Man
Get Out? It's a decent film, but proof that standards have certainly dropped.
22
I saw all the movies up for Oscars this year. I'm not a movie critic but I do think I'm discerning in that arena. After hearing about Get Out on NPR and other media outlets I decided to go see it, albeit late, that is, just before the Oscars. And, I was mostly interested in it because of the cultural aspect. Sorry, it was no where near the artistic endeavor of Shape of Water. Let's get serious, here.
15
I agree. While The Shape of Water may not have said a lot about racism, there was a scene where a black couple is denied access to the pie cafe. The amphibian man of the story is an ultimate outsider, and is beaten and ridiculed. Clearly, The Shape of Water was a front runnier with 13 nominations. It seems more like sour grapes to suggest the Get Out should have been Best Picture.
3
we enjoyed "get out" and thought it was well done. but we did not support it for "best picture" because we did not think it (or the other seven films that didn't win) were as good as "the shape of water."
this editorial implies that, in general, the vote for "best picture" was unfairly influenced by other issues. but, ironically, the editorial should concede that many of the votes for "get out" were similarly influenced by other issues: black voters (and supporters) voting for it because it was made mostly by blacks.
not only is the editorial not persuasive, it underscores the care we all need to take in "rewarding" work by under-represented groups--why there is a backlash in general against affirmative action. not every decision in society should be exclusively "merit-based," but many of us think the vote for "best picture" should be.
17
Being old, I seldom go to movies anymore. I only saw two of the nominated films, "Get Out," which I watched on HBO during the Summer, and "Mudbound," which I watched two weeks ago on Netflix. I tend to agree much more than I disagree the the political stance behind Cauley's column.
I thought "Get Out" was clearly thought provoking and certainly cannot agree with the comments below that call the film racist, etc. I did, however, think the Iast twenty or so minutes let the almost slapstick narrative sloppiness common to most films in the horror genre take over what to that point had been a much tighter and better film. I had no problem with Peele winning the screenplay award because the problems in the last part of the film appeared to stem more from editing and directional choices than the script itself.
I thought "Mudbound" was as thought provoking as and much more truly horrifying than "Get Out." While the issues in "Mudbound" may at first seem historical and not really current, I would assert that they reflect as deeply on issues Cauley stresses as "Get Out" does. I do understand that "Mudbound" does not show the African American characters "winning" but that, in itself, seems to further rather than diminish the points Cauley raises.
Of the two, the performances in "Mudbound" were on the whole stronger, the narrative tighter, the cinematography far more stunning, and the horror gut wrenching rather than slightly comic. I would have voted for "Mudbound."
15
not everyone fits the 'don't want to pay attention, or care, or learn' i don't watch a lot of films like holocaust films because i can't stand to watch how people are tortured and abused. it hurts my heart and i cannot look. it doesn't mean i dont read study and it certainly doesn't mean i don't care. this movie implied -and maybe i'm wrong - that this doesn't turn out 'happy' and i didn't want to like the characters and see them hurt further at the end. i know this makes me the enemy of grand movie making as i'm kind of a baby and fearful of seeing people hurt. i was very happy that this movie did so well as i like Mr. Peele a lot and was glad to see all his victories with this movie.
2
Moonlight won Best Picture last year.
11
Ease up - American Sniper didn't either.
3
I don't think racism had anything to do with Get Out not winning best picture -- even though I agree that Get Out was deserving. In fact, I thought Shape of Water was ridiculous from beginning to end. However, it is extremely unlikely that a first-time director of any race is going to win the best director Oscar. In being nominated for best director for his first film, but not winning, Jordan Peele joins very good company, including Orson Welles for Citizen Kane! http://mentalfloss.com/article/54575/21-first-time-directors-nominated-a...
It is really a pity that this article downplays the Oscar that Jordan Peele did win for Best Original Screenplay. That was an awesome achievement.
10
There are 30 films over the years that did not win Oscars in both categories. [See https://www.quora.com/How-many-Best-Picture-winners-havent-also-won-a-be...]. This year , like "Get Out", "Call Me By Your Name" won for the Best Adapted Screenplay but lost for for the Best Picture. So far i haven't seen any articles attributing this dichotomy to homophobia. Conversely, "The Shape of Water" did not win for its screen play. An excellent screenplay does not, de facto, translate to an excellent movie. Your suppositions re the results may be right or may be wrong, but the statistics call them into question, since these two awards have been out of sync 30 out of the 88 years of Oscar's existence -- about 1/3 of the time. So it just might be "willful ignorance" to automatically assume the voting had racial overtones. You know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
4
Writer’s Digest magazine just published a piece on the right way to do a screenplay, using Titanic as a case study. For all its box office and Academy Award triumphs, the film wasn’t even nominated for Best Screenplay, with good reason.
1
I was hoping for an opinion piece that would inform an aesthetic appreciation; for an exploration of art.
This article is simply chapter & verse of the unrelenting gospel truth espoused by the NYT opinion section.
Why didn't “Get Out" win for best picture? It wasn't even close to being the best picture. Really, it is just that simple truth.
I saw 6 of the 9 movies nominated for best picture, including Get Out & The Sharpe of Water. Frankly, the 5 movies I saw, other than Get Out, were all better than Get Out. That said, Get Out was a good movie, I enjoyed it, but it was in no way the best movie of 2017.
I went back through the years and looked at the list of movies that were nominated and did not win. Of the movies I knew & saw, I found movies that fall into the same "nominated but should NOT have won" feel of Get Out:
2009: District 9
2007: Juno
2005: Brokeback Mountain
1999: The Ciderhouse Rules and The Sixth Sense
1992: The Crying Game
Glad I saw them, some I have even seen again, none of them deserved to win best picture. Now a far more interesting question that has arisen after looking over the list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture): The list skews to very liberal, even progressive, ideology & nominated for Best Picture, because of this?
Ms. Cauley's opining in the NYT makes complete sense now.
Some criticism:
Vanity Fair: Get Out Samuel L. Jackson
National Review: Return of Get Whitey Movie
Guardian: Get Out...liberal racism in America
5
Why? Because the idea of putting white brains into black bodies is a dumb premise.
4
There is only one biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300,000 years ago.
What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation in isolated populations at altitudes and latitudes primarily related to Vitamin D production and protecting genes from damaging mutations.
What we call race aka color is a malign white supremacist socioeconomic political educational historical myth meant to legally and morally justify humanity denying African enslavement and separate and unequal African Jim Crow.
From the birth of the black church to the rise of black educational and social organizations black folks have been wise enough not to rely on white opinions regarding anything including artistic merit and quality. While at the same time demanding that America abandon color aka race bigotry.
2
Get Out was clearly an average film. We have lowered the bar on creativity and intelligence for decades. Just because there was a racial element and social commentary in the movie, does not justify it winning the best original screenplay. It was an okay movie, but great? No way.
10
Nonsense. “Lady Bird” should have won the Oscar for best picture.
2
The Stepford Wives, which this film takes its underlying ideas from, didn’t win best picture either.
5
I loved Get Out! Great movie. Great acting, story, great creepy especially! My opinion matters not in the eyes of the academy. Get Out just wasn't the best picture of the year. No matter what race, color, creed, sexual orientation or even what type of refrigerator voting members of the Academy owned, they chose correctly.
The Shape of Water truly was the best picture.
2
Darn it, I'm a Caucasian who has spent much of my life working for fair treatment of blacks, women, gays, handicapped. But "black" movies and tv shows (as well as hip-hop) rarely attract me, because black culture is not my culture. I also am not attracted to "gay" entertainment, for the same reason; I am hetero, not gay. And guy-movies with gun violence plus only a token female as eye candy do not attract me. As a white hetero female I cannot identify with black culture. gay culture. guy-culture. This not racism nor homophobia nor reverse sexism. It simply is how people are.
11
I agree. I am a 63 year old liberal white guy and I find that there is very little in the current popular that culture appeals to me. It's hard for me to relate to all the diversity going on in the main stream media, even on NPR and PBS. The media companies know people like me are aging out and they need new customers, so they appeal to the young. That's great for them, but being ignored because my demographic is not a money maker anymore makes me feel obsolete and therefore uncaring. The level of creativity and maturity in popular culture has sunk so low it has turned me off.
4
"It’s clear that America prefers its black people to remain invisible — in underfunded schools, in segregated neighborhoods, behind bars."
Thanks Obama!
Get Out was an excellent film, and this Caucasian loved it and might even have voted for it, but MY personal reality was best portrayed by Lady Bird. Jordan Peele took home an Oscar and Greta Gerwig did not.
The Academy voters are old, white, and male.
And film being a visual medium, they tend to go with beautiful movies, which is the only reason La-La Land even got close to an Oscar, imho. And why the visually stunning Shape of Water did get the award this year. That, and great performances, none of which won.
That Moonlight won last year pretty much assured that Get Out would not this year.
So I really don't think the outraged is warranted. Film by people of color and women are getting recognized, finally, and that's a good thing.
Plus the Academy is really loving these Mexican directors' film lately, and Imust say I enjoy their vision, too.
6
Get Out was a mediocre movie that wouldn't even have been there if the Academy hadn't been focusing on race. Skeleton Key had many of the same themes - and did the horror better.
8
Racism is real. Racism is still with us. Racism is a blight upon America. But please, set your sights somewhere else. Oscar winners rarely have anything to do with quality or the "best." And even if the best pic winner was chosen on some objective set of criteria that adds up to 'best,' Get Out wouldn't have made the cut. It had story problems. One example: The silly hypnosis sequence made no sense.
4
A lot of bad movies were nominated, this was one of them. The Post should have won.
5
Get Out was easily the best picture of the year.
3
I personally couldn’t even sit through the entire viewing of “Get Out”. It seemed artificial and unreal, especially the characters of the white couple who professed liberal values. That being said, the vote for best picture is more nuanced than issues of racism. I loved “The Shape of Water”, which was uplifting and knew that it would win Best Picture. Those of us who do acknowledge racial injustice, prejudice and racism as baked in practices in our country, make efforts individually to demonstrate caring and consideration for all who are oppressed. It seems counterproductive to keep hitting us white folks over the head with how much more Black People deserve, even in awards by the Academy. We get it, really, but “Get Out” was not worthy of a Best Picture Award, period.
7
What I find fascinating about the comments is the author gives numerous examples of actual Academy voters who admit to not voting for or even seeing the movie because they were upset by its racial message. She has receipts and folks are still denying that reality. That’s what it’s like being Black in America and trying to explain your experience with racism. Whether or not you feel the movie deserved the Oscar for best picture is a topic where reasonable people can disagree. However the reaction to the article in many ways mirrors the reaction to the movie.
6
Amen amen amen. It is so easy for folks to look past the issue. Which is much less about what film deserved best picture and much more about how easy it is to deny the black experience in America at this egregiously late date. And for the record I’m a 63 year old gay Caucasian.
1
It's worthwhile to read the articles Ms. Cauley claims reveal a bias against Get Out. The first quote she cites came from a voter who was describing their over-the-top love of "The Shape of Water" ("gobsmacked by the film"), not with their dislike or discomfort with the themes woven into Get Out. For whatever reason, the individual seemed to hue toward what they perceived as a more universal and timeless theme than some of the other movies provided. The second voter Ms. Cauley cites was not commenting about the movie, itself, playing the "race card," but rather was annoyed that the campaign to convince members to vote for "Get Out" had, in their opinion, suggested that not voting for Get Out was tantamount to racism. As for the assertion that some voters "refused to watch the film because they didn't want to engage with the issues it raises," there is no direct support for the comment. The cited Vulture article does quote a young Academy member who was upset that some older members didn't believe Get Out was Oscar quality, some of whom had apparently come to that conclusion without having yet seen the movie. While it is ridiculous to discount a movie without seeing it, I imagine that it happens frequently, and in any event there is no suggestion as to why the offending members had not seen the movie.
3
She gave three examples - cherry picked. How many Academy voters are there?
2
Could it be simply that "Get Out" was not the best picture of the year? I liked it. I like it when horror movies strike a more general nerve. I trust that it will be the beginning of a great career for the writer/director. If it had won I would not have been upset, but I think the award went to a more deserving movie from a director who had made many deserving movies. "The Shape of Water" does address lots of issues of today: sexual abuse in the workplace, homophobia, the misuse of power, the outsider, the plight of the physically challenged. And it does so with grace and charm with a delightful blend of genres, including horror.
26
"Some other voters refused to watch the film because they didn’t want to engage with the issues it raises."
It's irresponsible to vote for or against something without learning something about it!
3
Aesthetics - not politics - kept Get Out from winning Best Picture. Most people I know of any background who saw it liked it - but very few loved it or thought it deserved Best Picture. Also, you had a run of really excellent films at the end of the year - much better films: Shape of Water, Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name, etc.
Shape of Water addressed issues of bigotry much more deftly than Get Out.
5
I'm always a bit bemused by folks like Ms. Cauley - and Mr. Blow - who ironically make a very comfortable living that would be the envy of every coal miner in Appalachia by eternally bemoaning how oppressed they are because of their race. The pay is pretty good though, isn't it? They both essentially write the same piece - over and over and over again. And will continue to I'm sure until they are both comfortably retired years from now. Maybe, just maybe, The Shape of Water won best film because it was - the best film. With race having nothing at all to do with it.
8
Metacritic (a site that aggregates critics reviews) gave "Shape of Water" 87% and "Get Out" 84%. If "Get Out" has a significantly higher score, then maybe you can argue race played a role. But without that, there's really no basis to that claim.
4
“it’s clear that we have to work harder on producing the improvement in black life too many Americans think already exists.”
Agreed, we have work to do, but working harder is a moot point when children are raised to think African-Americans are not on the same level as White Children. My daughter attends a predominantly White Private College in SC and was having some issues with her roommates in her dorm. They all agreed to make changes to ensure their suite was comfortable, but my daughter was the only one that adhered to the contract of the changes they wanted made. Subtlety, they sent a message to my Black child that you will do your chores, but we don’t have to. That is learned behavior and as long as we have private preschools and elementary schools that lack diversity, as long as parents home school their children and keep them in their bubbles, all the marching, boycotting, articles in the world will not change some folks inaccurate perceptions of African-Americans. While the Dean of Residence Life handled my daughter’s situation well, she could not address the innate issues that are embedded in my daughter’s roommates hearts which undoubtedly stemmed from their upbringing.
We will never improve race relations in this country as long as parents close their doors to anyone and everyone who doesn’t look like them and teaches their children to do the same. No wonder that voting member didn’t watch “Get Out” it’s easy to ignore what I’ve been taught to ignore.
3
A thought-provoking entertaining B movie with production values production values like an old ABC Movie of the Week from 1975. NOT Hitchcock level film making, the sunken place scenes looked like Dr. Who, cheap.
4
Get Out's redemption of the TSA type was most surprising. I am still struggling with entrenched stereotypes holding sway.
Genre traditions exist, but they should not police our critical assessment to such a degree that we declare failure or success relative to genre compliance alone.
Get Out aspires to much more than its horror components suggest to readers here.
Grateful
1
" But during that time, the black incarceration rate nearly tripled, and it’s now more than six times the white incarceration rate. And the unemployment rate among blacks is worse than in 1968, and now twice the rate of white unemployment."
When o-when are American black people going to take responsibility for their (our) own behaviors, actions, and outcomes instead of lashing out at society? I impatiently wait for that day. In the meantime, some of us have been too busy to complain about not getting an Oscar for Best Picture. We've been too busy getting an education, learning debate, logic, and reasoning, not committing crimes, working every day, and learning how to get along with our fellow Americans.
4
When society stops lashing out at us, we will stop lashing out at society. I too have been educated, learned logic and reasoning, work every day and get along with everybody all while the society has put roadblocks in my way to try to keep me from succeeding.
1
Excellent movie - Get Out - was earth shaking -
I grew up as a little white girl in Kentucky during the Civil Rights Days - and - said - YES - many times while viewing Get Out.
Am soo happy - Get Out was made - it is a long time coming -
Am happy it won - Best Original Screenplay - to give Credence 'clout' for Jordan Peele to be giving Big Studio funding to write more screenplays on this very subject - How we all are numb and blind to race in America.
I wanted it to win - Best Picture - but - knew with all the other Best Picture nominees - Get Out didn't have a chance to win this category.
Ever since seeing - Get Out - I literally have been praying it would win - Best Original Screenplay.
Keep writing - Mr Peele - keep opening all of our eyes to see, feel and recognize - what it is - and - feels like to be black in America.
Thank you, Ms Cauley for writing this op-ed piece - I am forwarding it one to people I know who saw and were moved by Get Out.
2
On being black in America, "you have to twice as good, to get half the credit". "Get out" will stand the test of time as a great movie, the truths in it are well explained by Ms Cauley's Op Ed. I believe the reason for the disconnect with white America is that black people already know exactly what the "sunken place" is because they all have to live there everyday just to survive. To white America this is just a horror movie, to black America this is Allegory to powerful for words.
11
While Get Out was a good and quite noteworthy film, I don't feel it was worthy of best picture for the same reason that I don't feel it was worthy of best original screenplay: (spoiler alert) I'm still wondering just how the central character managed to free himself from the chair to which he was bound.
Given that I've been the only person to see an issue here, perhaps I did miss something in my first and only viewing. (I would certainly welcome readers who might know better to walk me through what they saw and I missed.) But, if I am right, because he must free himself for the film to come to the conclusion that it did, the fact that he did so in a manner that can only be described as incredulous, to my mind, the film isn't quite worthy of best picture.
1
Spoiler reply. He blocked his ears and so did not hear the hypnotizing spoon.
If you follow your line of reasoning, then why didn’t “Three Billboards” win with a lead character who assaults two teenagers in front of many witnesses, and somehow isn’t even investigated for burning down the police station? And how does a romantic re-make of the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” win Best Picture? The voters of the Academy are the true mystery here.
Excellent film-- still thinking about it. Multi-layered and multi-dimensional. Powerful... Should have won.
5
I saw the movie and thought it was a pretty good updating of The Stepford Wives, but definitely not the best movie I saw last year. Maybe, just maybe, a large percentage of the Academy voters felt the same way?
7
For those who loved Get Out, just imagine for a second that the plot was reversed:
Blacks kidnapping whites to transfer the brains of blacks into white bodies, so they can live on as whites.
How do you think the Liberals would react to that one? How would Hollywood?
Jordan Peele - what do you think of that plot for your next movie?
4
A version of that movie has been done. It’s called ‘Imitation of Life.’
Sorry, but you lost me when you referred to some amorphous group apparently called "the Liberals." Generalizations are fun, but they're not a useful way of looking at the world.
5
You're essentially describing the book "Black no More," which is well-regarded in literary circles as both a satire and science fiction.
Like nearly anything else, Get Out (or your hypothetical opposite) could be done well or poorly, and Jordan Peele did it exceptionally well.
Get Out was a well made, but a hateful, racist horror flick about whites transferring the brains of their older folk into kidnapped young blacks so the old whites they can live on inside the younger black bodies.
It has two messages:
Whites want to enslave blacks;
Blacks need to kill whites to be free.
Why didn’t it win best picture?
Is that question some kind of joke?
10
Mate, you really took away the wrong message from the film.
3
I am a longtime lover of sci-fi, monster, and horror flicks.
Get Out didn't win because it wasn't the "Best" picture.
It wasn't even a "good" picture. It was a mediocre picture.
The Oscars are not an affirmative action program.
Nor should they be.
15
I think the majority of these comments prove the authors point. How nice for white people to be able to dismiss the topic of racism. Maybe they should let everyone know when it would be “appropriate” to discuss. I don’t think black people get to choose when racism comes up.
3
@Sarah
The majority of comments are not dismissing the topic of racism. The majority of comments are pointing out that "Get Out" was not, by almost any measure, the best picture - or even close to being the best picture. And the majority of comments are pointing out that attributing its failure to receive the best picture award to racism is an utterly unsupported and spurious argument. The majority of comments do not dismiss or deny racism in the culture; they simply point out that the reason "Get Out" was not awarded with best picture was because it wasn't the best picture.
And, by the way, can you tell me how to turn on the comments feature that identifies the color of a commenter's skin. It's a feature you surely must be using since you seem to know which commenters on here are white
8
Oh, please. "Get Out" is probably the most talked about movie of the year. It won Best Screenplay. It got another boost of publicity and discussion for being nominated. I can hardly consider it silenced or made invisible just because it didn't win Best Picture.
This op-ed reminds me of Ellen Degeneres' joke at the the 2014 Oscars: "There are two possible outcomes tonight. Either '12 Years a Slave' wins best picture, or you're all racist."
12
Maybe whites are tired of being told how bad they are. Why does the author attribute the deterioration of black economic status since 1968 to discrimination? One thing is certain: that race relations is worse now than it was then.
5
Race relations ‘worsening’ = black people having a voice and being heard
Let me put it the way the author did: the contentious state of black-white relations in this country. The inability of whites to speak without be corrected, upbraided, chastised for appropriation; the conviction on the part of woke folk like Ta Nahesi Coates that race relations is not only irrelevant but irreconcilable, and glad for that.
Big Sick should have gotten the Oscar for best picture!
It really wasn't a very good movie.
5
So, the election of a black president says NOTHING about how the nation has progressed but the failure of a particular film to win Best Picture says EVERYTHING about how it hasn't.
Got it.
12
I saw Get Out and liked it very much. I have like Peele's previous work. But this piece completely misses the reality of white attitudes toward race in this country. It just isn't on most people's list of the things they think about every day. Ta Neshi Coates' talks about how white people won't every understand themselves until they deal with the issues of blacks in this country and he couldn't be more wrong.
5
I don't recall a lot of outraged straight black commentators raking the sands to expain how Brokeback Mountain could possibly have lost to Crash, so as a gay man, I'll just sit this one out. And smile.
17
I and a friend had a debate about “Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri” that raised some of these same issues. I said I didn’t find the small town in the movie convincing and thought the director had chosen to portray an outraged, mourning, tough woman by modeling her after Clint Eastwood. My friend argued that it was a movie about male dominance and violence, and asked me “Don’t you realize there’s a battered woman’s shelter in our town?”
So, my thoughts? What if tomorrow I decided to write a novel about a battered woman, spent four months on it, then handed it to a few readers, and one reader said, “This isn’t very good novel. The main character doesn’t hold together and he dialogue is wooden,” and I defended the manuscript by replying “Dont you realize that sexism and male violence endanger women throughout the US?”
And then, of course, she could answer: “That’s true, but this still just isn’t a very good book.”
2
It isn't a good movie. Too silly and cartoonish.
8
I saw Get Out opening day and twice more on HBO. It’s a wonderful film following through with Peele’s brilliant comedy work. My favorite is Phantom Thread, but how can the achievements of Dunkirk be ignored? Great filmmakers were behind those films. The premise of the article is faulty since it won Best Screenplay over Ladybird.
2
I get the impression that this writer wants black people to win every award in every category in every awards show. Otherwise, racism.
Good luck with that.
20
I began to wake to the discrimination, murder and violence exacted on black men, women and children by law enforcement listening to my local NPR station. Maine is among the whitest states and I'd been embarrassed to have been so ignorant for so long of the war zones, not in Iraq, Syria or the West Bank, but in the nation's own neighborhoods. When Valerie Plane was found hanging in her Texas jail cell, certainly abused by her jailers, I called my local station to ask why the public face of local public radio was so absent of diversity. I was told, in so many words, that black talent hadn't applied when positions became available. I felt that right there was a statement of thin veiled racism. I questioned why a policy of inviting diversity shouldn't be part of the station's hiring outreach. Maine may be one of the whitest states, though this is gradually and gratefully changing. Changing, too, is the diversity of talent at our local NPR station; slow but its there. This is a small thing, i get it. Though, Black Lives Matter is making a difference, slowly, like buds pushing through all that spring mud and all that white, white snow.
2
Many Americans of all races desperately want the "post-racial" idea not to be real. They tenaciously hold on to a racial construct, insisting that everything is and always must be colored by race. They assiduously refuse to judge people by the content of their character, but rather by the color of their skin. The only way to get to the post-racial ideal, a society that is color-blind is to start being color blind, to refuse to traffic in racial theories and constructs.
5
Why didn't "Get Out" win best picture? It wasn't the best picture.
14
20 years from now, when the awards shows are more diverse, I predict we will hear the nominees and winners say, "Some of my best friends are Eurocentric. And, I don't care what anyone says, where would we be without those quaint, old White men? I just love Wilford Brimley."
So let me get this correct: Whichever film browbeats the audience the hardest with political correctness deserves to win the best picture award and "Get Out" pulled that off this year? Is that really what constitutes "best picture" in 2018? Does there need to be a nomination filter which screens out any film that lacks the necessary politically correct browbeating credentials? I'm sure the author would like that.
10
quite simply: it was not the best picture
8
Blacks were as besotted by Get Out in 2018 as Whites were besotted by La La Land in 2017.
Neither got best picture.
Ironically, Whites in La La Land lost to Blacks in Moonlight, and Blacks in Get Out lost to a South American Fish in The Shape of Water.
Next year, a worthy South American film will lose to an Asian film.
And so on and so on...
7
I thought it was brilliant, but like the screenwriter Jordan Peele said, you have to watch it a couple of times because there are so many layers to it. Knowing what I know now after watching once, I think I will appreciate it that much more the second and even third time. I don't like creepy films and didn't see The Shape of Water. I agree with those who said Do The Right Thing should have won in 1989. It rates up there with one of the all time best movies. Spike captures New Yorkers like nobody else. What a cast. I mean how many times, if you are a New Yorker, have you walked into that the pizza parlor?
2
You think The Shape of Water creepy and not Get out? Define creepy. (By the way, The Shape of Water is anything but creepy.)
1
‘Get Out’ definitely deserved best picture!
So, let's be clear, Ms Cauley's opinion this morning is not about the movies, it's about white indifference or hostility to the plight of the black community.
So let's respond to the real issue.
White people really are losing interest in the cries of black people who blame their condition on white bias and racism. Not all white people, but enough to make a difference. So the real issue is "why?"
1. Black out of wedlock birth rates are ~80% in this country.
2. Babies born to black teens constitute ~20 to 25% of births in this country.
3. Black teen drop-out rates are ~50%.
4. Black murder rates exceed 50% in this country.
#1-3 create poverty.
#4 results from poverty.
All of this is blamed on white bias. Everything that is dysfunctional within the black community is the fault of whites. Everything. Free will does not seem to exist among black people if you believe people like Ms Cauley.
The problem with opinions like Ms Cauley's is that white people like me who lived through the Civil Rights era, lived in mixed inner city neighborhoods, witnessed the breakdown of the black family structure up close, experienced the crime of black thugs know differently.
We know that black thugs are just as culpable and despicable as white thugs.
We know that the breakdown of the black family is just as tragic as the dysfunctional trends in white family structures.
We're just tired of being blamed for all of the self-inflicted wounds of the black community upon itself.
13
I guess we are now at the point where whenever a black person's film does not win an Academy Award racism and bias will be cited as the reason. I hope Kashana never attends a baseball game where a white pitcher strikes out a black batter: inevitably her paranoia would drive her to Tweet that the pitcher was a member of the white patriarchy, and that his strike out was bringing society back to the Jim Crowe era. Our society grows ihcreasingly pathetic.
20
"Why Didn’t ‘Get Out’ Win Best Picture?". the answer is simple - because it wasn't the best picture. not even close.
17
As I understand it, the writer here is not making a case for "Get Out" as a best-picture caliber film.
She is pointing out how "voters' attitude toward the film" is a microcosm of white americans' attitude toward racism in American society in general.
Some voters dismiss the film because it's "playing the race card". Still, other refused to even watch the film precisely because it deals with the issues of race relations, which they find tiring.
"Such willful ignorance", as the writer puts it, explains why America cannot confront the alarmingly dire conditions plaguing the black community.
In the end, best original screenplay was fair; best picture would've been a stretch.
6
It didn't get best picture because it stunk. While watching it in the theater "I" couldn't wait to Get Out.
4
We should all watch the original (“alternate”) ending, available on YouTube. The originaal ending made the protagonistic a victim. The second ending, the one in the theater release, made him what he was, a hero. I understand the ending was changed after true-life events in America needed us to see a hero, not a victim. The meaning of the whole movie hangs on whether younsee the original or the theater release revision.
Get Out was a notable event in the racial landscape that permeates US culture, but did that make it the best picture? The proportional voting scheme used to pick best picture, which might have won Shape of Water top prize with a slew of second place #2 votes, makes analysis of the outcome a guessing game.
Maybe it wasn't even the best screenplay, but it won that award with a straightforward vote that reflected the voters' response to the seismic proportion of the film's message. Kudos for a horror film by a first time director.
2
I know why!
Even though 'Get Out' was a very good film, 'The Shape of Water' was far better.
'Phantom Thread' was better too.
There you go. That's it.
11
Same reason why "Brokeback Mountain" didn't win in 2006 - made people "uncomfortable," even though it clearly addressed a bigger issue than the contrived "Crash." Well, everything can't be ensemble cast allegories when reality knocks.
13
"Why didn't 'Get Out' when best picture?"
Um, because it was just an OK movie? Entertaining, but not great. I was actually surprised it was even nominated for BP.
13
"So those voters’ response was to attempt to silence the movie, which paradoxically proves one of its main points."
So not awarding a film "best picture" is now "silencing" whatever point of view or message that film advocates for or represents? Really? And, in giving "Get Out" the best screenplay award, what were those same Academy voters doing? They were promoting the message of the film with one award but voting to silence the film in another category? Seems a little schizophrenic if the point is to silence "Get Out." Let's go back a year. How does the award for "Moonlight" over "La La Land" reflect this writer's belief in Academy voters "silencing" black people through awards? Come on now. Let's ease up a little on the rhetorical overkill.
16
Why did 'Argo' win best picture, and not "Lincoln'? Not a question I can answer, unless it's that Hollywood didn't want to give the award to Spielberg for some reason. As to 'Get Out,' I actually thought it might win, because Hollywood would want to address the "Oscar So White" complaints. Or I thought 'Call Me By Your Name' might win, because Hollywood would want to show that gay is beautiful. Instead, 'Shape of Water' won, a film I literally slept through half of. I suppose I am totally out of step. I thought 'Get Out' was interesting at first, then weird; it resembled old science fiction stories, and in my opinion did not realistically address racial issues. However, if "Lincoln,' a jewel, a miracle of a picture, did not get the Oscar, why bother wondering about 'Get Out'?
2
It didn't win because it was silly. It should never have been nominated in the first place.
7
Movies better than Get Out: Mudbottom, The Post, Three Billboards, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water. Get Out had a tone problem. Was it a horror movie or was it a satire? Was it horrific or was it funny? No one knows. It was a cool movie because it broke new ground but a movie is not great because it has an important message.
3
Really? Any chance to come up with something original, Kashana? Maybe it just wasn't the best movie. Just because it has to do with racism does not automatically make it always deserving to be the winner. Moonlight won last year, not because it dealt with black issues, but because it was a truly great film that dealt with black and gender issues. If everything you stated about why Get Out did not win were true, then how could Moonlight win last year?
9
I also want to know why Denzel Washington didn't win for best actor, why Octavia Spencer didn't win for best supporting actress, why Lupita Nyong'o didn't win for best actress (even if she wasn't nominated) and why, instead, a bunch of white people took home most of the honors. Clearly, the Academy didn't receive the memo: not awarding african american actors and films will lead to accusations of racism.
10
This movie makes no intelligent points about race! stop treating it like a Spielberg movie. It's a stupid made for TV movie, there are plenty of other movies that touch on issues of race that have been rightfully nominated or won like "10 year a slave" or "The Butler" with amazing performances. This movie is simply a stupid horror without a point; it does not develop a deep theme, even winning the screenplay, which was stupid and more for a "made for TV" level, was undeserved. Lady Bird or The Big Sick were way better movies and had way better screenplays.
6
Many movie goers enjoy learning something from a film. Not many enjoy feeling they were being taught something.
It seems like folks are missing the author's point that Get Out losing isn't itself the problem but rather the justifications provided by some Academy members. Saying "it played the race card" isn't an argument about its technical merits or acting prowess, neither is simply refusing to watch it because you don't wish to engage with the issues the film raised.
4
This is a really interesting debate. The writer has a point here in a lot of ways, though there are many reasons a movie could be picked as best picture, not only viewed in terms of one parameter. I will say, though, that "Get Out" made the biggest impression on me of any movie last year and was one I've continued to think about in terms of what it was trying to show and how it resonates with the state of things right now, in 2018. Anyone who thought of this as just a horror movie (which I normally wouldn't watch) or only a comedy really missed what was going on.
"The Shape of Water" was fascinating and unique in other ways, and whether or not a film has political meaning doesn't have to be a factor in whether it's the best. I would have voted for "Get Out," though, simply because it got under my skin and continued to be food for thought long after seeing it. At least for me.
14
I saw all but one of the nominated films and would have voted for The Post as Best Picture. It was peerless movie-making about an important subject. Get Out was an entertaining popcorn film, as was the movie that won, The Shape of Water.
5
The short answer is, it simply wasn't that good. It certainly doesn't compare to the films it was up against.
Pass.
4
It’s impossible to pick a truly ‘best’ picture. Politics, personal preference, wildly different films, good and bad luck all get in the way, every single year. For instance, I loved ‘The Post’, which got completely shut out. Citing statistics is not the best way to explain that result.
2
I saw Get Out..It was cool B movie. Had no business even being nominated for an academy award and I suspect it was nominated only because it was essentially a black film and a gesture by AMPAS to be more racially inclusive and representative of America..I think those criteria diminish the integrity of the academy and the award itself..More importantly there is no such thing as a best picture or best actor. There is no way to measure such an achievement. The academy awards like all other awards ceremonies are just political self glorifying industry events and can not possibly measure what is "best"
8
As with Do The Right Thing in 1989, Get Out was THE best picture of the year. The film was Hitchcock level filmmaking. But "the master" never won an Oscar for best director, yet his films, like Spike Lee's 1989 masterpiece, are what people still study, talking about, and are inspired by. I believe the same will be true of Jordan Peele's Get Out in 30 years.
18
Agree heartily. I would add that I will always hold that Spike Lee's Magisterial "4 Little Girls" about the Birmingham church bombing deserved the nod over the also excellent "Into the Arms of Strangers" for Best Documentary (2000), for two reasons: it is the story less told, and it is an American story that is insufficiently confronted. Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Roberston, and Cynthia Wesley are names that ought to be as known to Americans as Anne Frank, and yet Are they? No; too black, and to requiring an examination of villainy from within rather than without. Call these girls by their names. Remember September 15, 1963, the far more infamous September day.
2
"Get Out" was the most powerful, insightful and important film of the year. But production values, acting, directing - so much else also matters. The vote for best film is so subjective, so emotional a choice.
Which makes one thing obvious - it's a mistake to put that choice in the hands of an organization that is overwhelmingly white, male and old. Frankly, if I were a black director or writer, I'd be a little concerned if these were the people who thought I'd made the best film about racism. White racism rules Hollywood. In principle (if not practicality), I'm not sure I'd want their votes - wouldn't it mean that I'd made a film that wasn't too much of a challenge to their own racism, that made them feel brave and self-congratulatory to vote for my film?
As a white voter, I was ambivalent about voting for Obama - I was happy that white Americans seemed ready to elect a black man for president, but I had no illusions about him as a politician; he got my vote because he wasn't a Republican. Slavery was not in his heritage, he hadn't lived the life of most American blacks, his policies were more white than black, his speeches to black audiences took on the tone of Martin Luther King, but the substance was never there. He's the one who promoted himself as the "post-racial president," a fairytale shamelessly pandering to whites who wanted to believe that they weren't literally born into racism.
The white Academy simply wasn't ready for the hard truth of "Get Out."
1
Get Out is the only nominee I’ve seen so can’t speak to comparisons. However, I was entranced by Get Out and have seen it a couple more times. It’s as unsettling to watch as The Pianist. What hooked me was seeing through Chris’s eyes how whites react to him and how queasy he feels when he can’t figure out why they act the way they do. I know of no other movie that does that. The actor was amazing. For what it’s worth, I’m an older white guy.
4
Get Out was a great movie. The Shape Of Water was good to, but didn't carry out the same ambition and success of getting a cultural point across like Get Out did. But not every good movie needs to have that ambition to be the best movie of the year. However, what I really want to say is: but these are the Oscars. They might be as famous for picking the wrong best picture as well as the best. They probably were still a little dizzy from doing the right thing and picking Moonlight last year. Remember, these are the folks who picked Traffic over Brokeback Mountain for best picture. Brokeback Mountain is probably one of the better films made in the last 30 years. In every aspect it knocked it out of the park. I haven't taken the Oscars seriously since then.
2
Using Ms. Cauley's logic, "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" only won those 11 Oscars in 2004 because it was so relentlessly pro-Hobbit. "Get Out" was just a well-made "Twilight Zone" episode, nothing more, nothing less. If anyone something to complain about, it's Warner Brothers and Patty Jenkins. "Wonder Woman" got rave reviews, made tons of money, and, unlike the rest of the genre, had some pretty meaningful things to say. Yet it didn't get a single nomination in any category, not even the technical ones. I guess that means the Academy has no use for positive statements about women as well.
29
Every judged event or award is based on some degree of subjectivity. Get Out was perceived as inferior to the winner, as were the other also-rans. Racism might have been one of the factors involved in some of the judging decisions, but I expect that the biggest reason GO did not win was that most judges simply thought it was inferior to the winner, both technically and as a work of art. That’s a reasonable judgement to make, I think, and not evidence of racism.
1
Get Out is quite a good, thought-provoking film which clearly deserved to be nominated. I don't think it was the best picture of the year, however. That would be The Florida Project, a brilliant film which powerfully juxtaposes the well-off folks in Orlando going to Disney World with the down-and-out losers scraping to get by at cheesy motel. It didn't even get a nomination. That is the real questiom we should be asking. God only know what the Academy voters are thinking. These are the people who never picked the great Alfred Hitchcock as best director, and almost never picks the best film of the year. so you can be sure they don't have a clue. I would have preferred Ladybird, but The Shape of Water was a wonderfully stylized fairy tale. I hope to see many more movies like Get Out from black directors because the USA is a deeply racial society and Americans have to face up to it.
1
Here is a radical thought: Maybe the voters of the Academy simply thought that while "Get Out" was a great movie, it wasn't quite as great as the one they voted for. In other words, maybe it had nothing to do with race; rather, it had everything to do with the movies themselves.
Why does everything always have to be about race? Isn't it even remotely possible it was about a whole bunch of other factors relating to movie-making and artistry?
6
To be nominated for Best Picture is in itself a huge achievement for any movie, but particularly so for a horror movie. According to Filmsite.org, "The Silence of the Lambs" is the only horror genre Academy Award Best Film winner, and some would even categorize that movie as a crime / suspense film.
By the way, Denzel Washington was nominated again this year, his eighth nomination for Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor. He's only won twice, once in each category. Every other year or so for twenty years I've been sure he would win. Before I complain about a horror film not winning Best Picture, I'll ask myself yet again, "why hasn't Denzel Washington won since 2002?"
1
I'm not in a position to say whether the voters exercised racial discrimination. What I do know are movies and judging them is literally like comparing apples and oranges. A 100m race is determined by the guy crossing the line first. That's a definitive, measurable, result. Comparing one piece of art with another is entirely subjective and in the view of some, utterly pointless. Hence why Woody Allen hasn't even bothered turning up to collect his three Oscars. He considers it an exercise in banality and not worthy of consideration, despite others thinking his efforts are exactly that.
The Oscars are, for the most part, a popularity contest and a bit of a lottery. They have long had their preferences and artistic biases and the fact that a horror film has never won Best Picture - I consider Silence of The Lambs to be more of a thriller, than an out and out horror film - tells you the Academy aren't that fussed about them.
Added to that is a very long list of "and the Oscar should have gone to" candidates, again in my and others, subjective opinion. So I wouldn't read a whole lot into GO not picking up the award. The winner as shown in festivals elsewhere was clearly a very popular film, so it wasn't just the American academy that thought so. Of the films listed, all of which I've seen, Three Billboards was my favourite.
1
Get out is a clever horror film. It’s social relevance is well described by the columnist, in the way being subject to continual bigotry makes the victim feel. But crucial to the horrifying experience seemingly good and decent people are actually monsters and irredeemable. To work as a horror film it has to go beyond social statement to an extreme that no longer represents our reality, it must become a nightmare from which we actually awake by the end. We don’t have to have a happy ending, we just need to feel that it was not reality when we put away our suspension of disbelief. It’s worth seeing but that it should have been best picture is not obvious.
Their was another film that portrayed real events of racial bigotry and how the lives of Africa Americans were treated as insignificant which made the points better than Get Out but it was not considered at all. Detroit by Kathryn Bigelow.
6
I just did not think GO was very good especially compared to some of the other nominations. Actually I was surprised GO was nominated for Best Picture.
4
Why can't "Get Out" be a great movie--I thought it was--and "Shape" be greater--I thought it was--and we just leave it at that? The Academy rightly recognized how very good both movies are, but there was never going to be a tie, and to make "Get Out's" so-called loss some function of industry bias is to unduly diminish "Shape's" cinematic and storyline triumph and distract from what made "Get Out" so riveting and, well, real. C'mon folks, buy your tickets and enjoy the shows. They're both winners.
3
"Get Out" was a great movie which took us into the bowels of white racism and how it functions among us. It was a brilliant film. However, as a lover of movies, I have to say that, in my judgment, "The Shape of Water" surpassed every contender artistically and philosophically. Like "Get Out," it required us to wrestle with what we do to "the other" and did so in a manner both horrifying and whimsical. In order of excellence, I'd have picked Shape of Water, Three Billboards, and Get Out.
18
Oscars are won for a variety of reasons, some actually being admirable reasons. In general, the main character should be portrayed by an actor who displays a range of emotions and a command of non-verbal communication as well as of verbal nuance.
2
Though not a fan of horror films in general, I saw "Get Out" on the recommendation of my daughter, and was astonished by the premise, acting, and production of the movie.
The metaphor of the "sunken place" was both brilliant and ingenious. It clearly showed the level of invisibility to which African-Americans are subjected by the white majority, liberal and conservative alike.
In addition, it is unconscionable that those given the privilege of voting for best film refused to see it. That alone should invalidate their votes.
It is true that 2017 was a banner year for great movies. That may have the most salient reason that it was not selected as best film. Yet it was very gratifying to see Jordan Peele receive the Oscar for best original screenplay, and I look forward to his next movie as well as seeing many of the principal actors in "Get Out" appearing in equally imaginative and insightful films in the future.
4
Hated " Get Out." Don't want to see close-up gore, and horror is SO predictable..
Very boring. Why did movies seem to be better, years ago. I've been watching Topsy Turvy. Now tht is actually a great movie, with the dilemmas of three women central to the ending chapters. Plus just some terrifically beautiful music. Get Out - yawn.
10
There are many ways to judge a film on its own merits, but any attempt to compare and rank movies is not scientific or even objective. There are films one can admire without actually liking them. I would never argue that Clockwork Orange, La Dolce Vita, and Andrey Rublev aren't great films, but I could not bear to watch them again.
6
Thanks for exposing truths about the discrimination that harms African-American citizens. Systemic and worse today in ways that are shocking and outrageous. This is the reality that is ignored by far too many Americans--and swept under the carpet; even in the expression of art. The stats exposing the reality of massive incarceration need far more exposure and attention. I'm grateful that Ms. Cauley is helping to bring light where it's needed.
8
I didn't see 'Get Out.' I'm black and from the South Bronx, but I just don't like horror flicks. Last one I watched was one of the Halloween sequels on DVD well over a decade ago. I don't understand the connection the author is trying to make. Oscar voters who didn't watch or vote for 'Get Out' has nothing to do with racial inequality or systemic racism in America. It has to do with plain old human nature. A huge deal was made over this movie because of it's alleged social relevance regarding racism because it did remarkably well at the box office. If it had been a flop, no one would care, because that is how Hollywood works. The last horror movie to win Best Picture (and I believe it was also the first to be nominated) was The Exorcist in 1973. Let's not read racism into every single thing. There are a lot of great movies that got snubbed at the Oscars. Like 'Goodfellas' and 'Do the Right Thing.'
40
Actually, the last horror movie to win best picture was Silence of the Lambs in 1991. It pretty much swept the awards that year.
1
I completely agree with the author that more progress still must be made to end discrimination in the US. But, as a film lover, I would also argue that "Get Out" was not worthy of the Academy Award for best movie.
Film is an artform that brings together many different crafts. The screenplay for "Get Out" was terrific, and I think very deserving of that Oscar. But, there was nothing unique or inspired about the way it was filmed. While Kaluuaya was quite good, and the entire cast fine, there was nothing spectacular about the acting. None of the technical aspects of the movie - editing, sound, art direction, music, effects - were even nominated for awards.
You can choose to believe it "lost" because of race. But, maybe, another film won, instead, because all of the crafts - all of the arts - represented in that film were better.
29
It wasn't "Americans" who decided that "Get Out" would not win Best Picture: it was Academy voters consumed by other social priorities. If it were left to "Americans", we'd have ignored ALL the films up for the award, and given a SECOND Oscar to "Titanic".
13
Have you not seen "Dunkirk"? It makes "Titanic" look like Lilliput.
15
stu:
So I understand; but did it have Kate Winslet posing nude for a sketch?
4
i saw three of the contenders...and I am totally liberal and inclusive
but Dunkirk and three billboards were way better films...sorry
this was a great film too, but just not even close
Its all an opinion any way
1
Maybe the basic premise -- that whites envy and want to appropriate the talents of blacks -- didn't ring true to many people?
43
Maybe I have assumed that GO was a horror movie. If it's something more than that my apologies.
Whilst SoW was a brilliant movie by a brilliant director, which I liked very much, I strongly maintain that the revolutionary movie Dunkirk was it, hands-down. It is not an Oscar movie in any sense, though, no stars, no dialog, no women, no germans, and so forth...
Of course all of this is just one girl's opinion, but there u have it!
13
"Get Out" is a remarkable movie, and its a metaphor for race in America, to some extent. However, that the movie did not win top honors at many other national and international film festivals while Shape of Water did indicates, well, that Shape of Water is in a league of its own:
Del Toro's movie was voted best film in 2018 by the Venice Film Festival, Golden Globes, AFI, AARP, Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, Chicago Film Critics Association, DFWFCA, Denver and Detroit Film Critics Award, Florida Film Critics Circle, etc, etc.. Not just as the Oscars.
To claim racism, to claim bias in so many organizations devalues the injustice that black directors, movies, and people face everywhere.
47
Perhaps the Academy awards are about achievement in film making, rather than simply virtue signalling, as the author would clearly prefer.
105
You are missing the author's point. Some declined to vote for it precisely because it hit a nerve they'd just as soon not be hit. I believe this is the same reason tha in 2000, "Into the Arms of Strangers"m about the Kindertransport, won Best Documentary over Spike Lee's "4 Little Girls", the less-told and closer-to-home—and requiring racial reckoning—story of the Birmingham church bombing that murdered those four.
1
"'Get Out' made these voters uncomfortable by showing that black people can be silenced, whether ignored, stereotyped or even, as happens in the movie, kidnapped."
Reading the voluminously unsilenced cultural commentary praising the realism of "Get Out" and the Wakanda of "Black Panther" has me worried that a growing sector of the commentariat is losing touch with basic reality, as in Borges' "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius."
12
Love the Borges reference. Haven't heard mention of "Tlon, Unbar, Orbis Tertius" since high school. A flood of memories just came back.
Thanks.
Billy on.
5
Because it wasn't really all that good!
49
Perhaps it was not the best film in contention, did you consider that? If Academy Awards *must* be awarded to films that make a sociopolitical statement — regardless of artistic merit — then the purpose of the award is gone. That goes for awards to actors, directors, producers, cinematographers, screenwriters and all the rest. Vote on merit, not to make a point.
36
I haven't seen all the nominated films, so a priori it is unfair for me to comment. That said, I loved "Get Out" and think it should have won Best Picture. It is a darn fine horror film with nice bits of humor in addition to being excellent social commentary. I think it didn't win because (a) it's not a huge production like "The Shape of Water" or "Dunkirk," and (b) it is at heart a horror movie, both in the regular sense and the black experience and fears sense, and horror movies per se don't usually win Best Picture (ie. "the Exorcist" also lost Best Picture) as I think Academy members must look at them as lesser forms of entertainment so to speak.
12
The budget for “The Shape of Water” was in the neighborhood of 20 million dollars. That’s not a “huge production” by any stretch.
I agree, I don't think the majority of this society wants to confront uncomfortable truths. It's wholly un-American, even, we are raised to 'look on the bright side', to be happy, to have fun, etc. No wonder Europeans accuse us of being superficial. But it's hard to judge whether her thesis about why it didn't win is right; movie critiquing is subjective.
3
It would be one thing if voters had watched the movie, judged its merits and then voted for something else. But one wonders if the number admitting to not watching the film "because it plays the race card" also apply that rule to all films involving black protagonists, writers or directors.
If so, no wonder why #OscarsSoWhite
12
Really? You're wondering if academy voters are staying away from Black Panther, too. After all, lots of blacks in it...
Maybe the voters don't like horror films, or think they deserve the BestPic statue.
Maybe the voters don't like comedies, or they they deserve the BestPic statue.
Maybe the voters don't like horror-comedies, or they they deserve the BestPic statue.
Now me? I'd've cast a ballot for Get Out or Three Billboards over Shape of Water. Water was boring, struggled to be hip and "artistic," and featured human and aquatic actors I didn't find that enchanting.
Enough of the Academy voters watched Moonlight for it to win last year despite it being up against a movie about Hollywood. LaLa Land lost, thank God. It wasn't even the best musical made with people who can't sing and dance. Woody Allen did that better in Everyone Says I Love You.
But Moonlight put me to sleep. Literally. It was THAT slow.
So . . . are the Academy voters racist for giving the statue to Moonlight and denying it to Get Out? I don't think so.
2
I guess that when you are in the business of hammers - pretty much everything starts to look like a nail.
With apologies to Abraham Maslow: The Psychology of Science, 1966
24
Great movie. I've been a sci fi/horror fan since boyhood in the fifties. I've always been delighted that George Romero cast a black actor -- for no racial reason --as the protagonist in "Night of the Living Dead."
I guess the time for spoilers is past at this point. So I have to say that as much as I loved the movie, I immediately thought it made absolutely no sense that these super-rich white racists would choose to reincarnate as "Negroes." I mean, are the creators saying there are not a lot of racially pure Aryan boys and girls who could not have fit the bill and would not be missed?
That said, it was an excellent movie. "Best Film"? Although it could have been a contender, I don't think it quite made the grade.
6
I liked the movie. Like all good horror movies, it took real life & amped it up. But the racial dynamics portrayed were vivid & gripping. Well written & acted. It was my choice for best picture. But re. black (or any other ethnic group) incarceration rates, a simple rule of living holds: don't commit the crime, you won't do the time. Beginning, middle & ends of story.
8
It’s really important to remember that many of the people (Black/white/Brown/etc) incarcerated in American prisons are actually innocent and just couldn’t afford a proper lawyer to fight the system. 13th on Netflix delves into this issue and how it became this way in a bit more detail. Highly recommend that you watch.
Philando Castile.
Somebody please call me in a few years after the first transgender African-Latino wins for Best Cis-Director in a movie about how evil white men are. Then maybe we can get back to just rewarding good movies. In the meantime, I'll happily ignore Meryl Streep, the movement of the year and anti-Trump/American jokes.
19
These Oscar voters' quotes were ripped out of context. They didn't want to be told: "Vote for Get Out or you're racist!"
The first one explains that: ' "best picture" is not what it was when I was a kid, or even 15 years ago. It used to be about the subject matter...But we look for different things now. Part of the reason why I liked The Shape of Water more than the others is it's only "topical" in that it deals with outsiders, not racism or sexism or anything else...I was gobsmacked by the film. '
In other words -- it was the QUALITY of the film that the voter wanted to determine the vote, not its topic.
The second voter's full quote:
"It’s a good B-movie and I enjoyed it, but what bothered me afterwards was that instead of focusing on the fact that this was an entertaining little horror movie that made quite a bit of money, they started trying to suggest it had deeper meaning than it does, and, as far as I’m concerned, they played the race card, and that really turned me off. In fact, at one of the luncheons, the lead actor [Daniel Kaluuya], who is not from the United States [he’s British], was giving us a lecture on racism in America and how black lives matter, and I thought, “What does this have to do with Get Out? They’re trying to make me think that if I don’t vote for this movie, I’m a racist.” I was really offended. That sealed it for me.'
41
A good 'B' movie. 'Nuff said.
2
Okay, I’ve read the quotes in context now. And it doesn’t change my opinion of the columnists take on them one bit.
If it did win Best Picture then would it improve race relations in this country?
Highly doubtful.
15
These voters need a ticket for the clue bus. Not understanding that the notion of the outsider is critical to explain much racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia . . . and actually using this to justify your vote is almost priceless in its ignorance. Reducing “Get Out” to playing the race card goes well beyond ignorance and enters Bull Connor territory. In the words of Spike Lee from thirty years ago “Wake Up!” Both “Shape of Water” and “Get Out” were excellent films but let’s appreciate them for their actual merits not denigrate them for our own deficiencies.
3
Maybe I'm missing something as a white person from Minnesota. I just didn't think that the movie was all that extraordinary. I just saw it as a good scary movie, but not great. I pay attention to the quality of a film in terms of dialogue, storyline, directing and acting. For me The Shape of water was outstanding in terms of all four of these qualities. I would say the same about The Phantom Thread and Call Me By Your Name. To me Get Out was well above average in each of these categories, but not outstanding. Actually, the acting was outstanding.
And I think Ms. Cauly goes way too far when she says "It’s clear that America prefers its black people to remain invisible — in underfunded schools, in segregated neighborhoods, behind bars."
Millions of us would be thrilled to see black people thrive and live healthy, happy lives filled with opportunity for advancement. I think we should be taxing rich people and use the money to invest in education and infrastructure. But Republicans are in charge, and they're idiots. So we're borrowing money to give rich people tax cuts instead.
23
You already ARE taxing rich people and investing in education. How about somebody meeds the educators halfway?
1
I never saw it because all I heard was that it was a horror movie and I'm just not interested... This is the first time I heard about all the racial stuff in it...
(In fact, I haven't seen any of the nominated movies....;>)
1
It didn’t win because it didn’t get enough votes and it was not that special. It lapsed into bizarre weirdness at the end and there were many stronger films than this.
Every time a black thing or person loses or does not get something the assumption is racism. When whites don’t we wonder how can we do better.
Consider the possibility that you just were not that good rather than that those around you are racist. Why did the other 8 films lose?
37
Turn back the clock to the Academy Awards of 1970. Two of the finest performances ever committed to celluloid: Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy. And the award for Best Actor goes to...huh?...John Wayne. That was the last year I watched the Oscars. Ms. Cauley, the awards have never had anything to do with artistry or quality or anything but the whimsical moods of the voters.
6
Best Picture..it is like comparing apples to oranges to strawberries...you can't really do it. Same with best actor/actress, etc. Everyone has their own personal bias...For me, I won't go to a horror film, so it would never win best anything. I also thought 'Florida Project' was, by far, the best in terms of 'soul wrenching'...What is best anything anymore?
7
Perhaps people are getting tired of being preached to.
20
This comment is a good argument for not having any more churches, synagogues, mosques, religion-based educational institutions and televangelists either, is it not? For that matter, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents and older siblings explaining right and wrong. Why single out film-makers or other artists as "preachers"? Then there's that annoying "I Have a Dream" speech and the Gettysburg Address too. The preaching would not need to continue if treating each other as we would ourselves be treated were as natural as eating when we're hungry or drinking when we're thirsty. Not suggesting that the argument presented in the article is air-tight at all. There were, after all, nine films nominated. We don't know if "Shape of Water" won in a landslide or garnered only 18% of the vote for the top slot in the first round of counting and didn't win until three, four or even seven of the other films were eliminated. We don't know how close "Get Out" came to winning, do we? The article could perhaps have benefited from a focus on why "Get Out" was a great movie, the all-around equal of "Shape of Water," if it was, rather than why it wasn't chosen. With the latter focus, the writer was forced to hedge: "...reveal what may have contributed" (or may not); "Some Oscar voters, in explaining why they didn’t pick the film, implied..." (and some didn't even so much as imply), etc., which left me less than convinced.
I bet being "preached to" isn't as tiring as being discriminated against.
1
Maybe "Get Out" wasn't, in fact, the "best picture?" The fact that the film deals with significant racial issues doesn't mean it's automatically the best picture of the year. Maybe "The Shape of Water" was a way better work of art, notwithstanding its' disregard of the black experience in America (Heaven forbid!) Really....get a life.
11
How about because the movie wasn't that good? You might turn the question around and say, "Why was it nominated in the first place?" It started out smart and terrific, then devolved into a run-of-the-mill horror flic, and finished as a total gag, with the absurd "TSA" joke as the last line of the movie. Best picture? I should hope not for Hollywood's sake.
It's amazing to me that one can point to a film about racial issues and allege racism because it didn't win, without actually pointing out any evidence of racism. The "you just don't like me because you're a racist" argument is a non-argument that can be used as a cheap shot against anyone at anytime without the need for logic. Like saying, "You only like that book because you're a woman / a man / an American / white / black, etc." It's impossible to refute because it makes no points on their merits but simply accuses you of an inherit bias because of who you are, not because of any evidence of bias or discussion of the subject matter intellectually. This sort of accusatory drivel should have no place in the NY Times.
24
Perhaps "Get Out" did not win because it was basically an extended episode of "Twilight Zone" or "Dark Mirror" with a racial theme tacked on. This made it social commentary. But the story itself did not actually have to be based on race. All it needed was some identifiable characteristic for the target group. They could have been short, or disabled, or Canadian. But making them black gave the film "significance".
Perhaps some Oscar voters thought that exploring racial issues called for a less frivolous platform. And I have seen more ingenious episodes of "Twilight Zone".
18
How would a Best Picture Oscar for GET OUT have improved the realities of which the writer justly complains?
3
The trailer (and hence the movie) was unwatchable because of the kidnapping. If you can’t watch it, you will not vote for it.
2
Get Out didn't win the Oscar for the best picture simply because it wasn't the best picture, not even close. Leaving aside all the social and political issues the movie raises, Get Out wasn't good enough to compete with The Shape of Water, Dunkirk, and Three Billboards... Now, if Ms. Cauley wants the academy to become an affirmative action institution, and award Oscars just to meet racial quotas, then she needs to make that argument.
16
Why didn't LADY Bird?
7
What??? Are you serious? It was a black comedy/horror flick! You think that should have been enough?
4
'Get Out" is a very well crafted film that despite the horrifying artifice of mind theft and confinement in a decorticated hell is only a mild exaggeration of the sick relationship of persons of African and European descent in America. It is dismal to watch resurgent segregation and tribalism overwhelm past victories in a more progressive America. The Ghettoization of our nation is increasing and we deny that increase, and turn our backs on it. Fortunately the film industry is still open to radical ideas. I hope to see many more films like "Get Out" make it to mainstream theaters. It may be that the horror genre accurately reflects our societal shortcoming.
2
Please tell this liberal, gray haired, well meaning white person what to do. Truly - what can I do?
3
It didn't get best picture because it was a pretty good movie, but not great.
This column make such ridiculous leaps of logic as to be utterly absurd.
14
or, maybe shape of water was a better movie.
4
I agree with all the premises the author puts forth, I also feel "Call Me By Your Name" should have won for best picture. Sometimes art, and beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
1
I liked GET OUT a lot - I thought it was a clever genre film, and was pleased it got the Oscar attention it received. If I were black, I'm sure the film would've resonated a lot more strongly with me. But I'm not, and I liked THE SHAPE OF WATER better, and I liked THE PHANTOM THREAD even better than that.
But perhaps that's because I'm English. And maybe if I weren't a man, I'd have liked LADY BIRD more than THE PHANTOM THREAD.
While it's fair to use the film's failure to win the Best Picture award as a springboard to examining broader issues of racism in America, at the same time, I wouldn't read to much into that loss. I mean, who remembers 2011's Best Picture, THE ARTIST? Best Picture is usually an inoffensive compromise candidate, the least challenging films on the slate, a film usually self-referential/reverential to the film industry - which is why it was such a big surprise that MOONLIGHT beat LA LA LAND last year.
5
Yes, It should have won best picture. I saw it twice and enjoyed it both times. It was brave. It was true. It was angry and funny. I joked about it with the TSA people at the airport. But "Moonlight" won last year, so...
4
I thought "Get Out" was a fantastic film, deserving its Oscar nod and screenplay win. But "Shape of Water" is a mesmerizing film, one in which a talented screenwriter and director achieved his vision. If people voted for Guillermo del Toro's work, it does not imply lack of respect for the other movies. At least "Get Out" won something, which is more than Greta Gerwig can celebrate, despite the quality of her own film.
14
I am an old, well-educated and upper middle-class white male. I absolutely agree that “Get Out” should have won the Oscar for best picture.
The male lead, Daniel Kaluuya, gave a great performance, but Gary Oldman deserved to win for a convincing portrayal of Winston Churchill, in spite of being a head taller than his character. There were other outstanding performances in “Get Out,” and Catherine Keener should have received an Oscar for actress in a supporting role.
Justice in the Academy Awards can be elusive. Frances McDormand gave her usual, compelling performance in an excellent movie, “Three Billboards Outside Hibbing, Missouri.” Meryl Streep, however, should have won the Oscar for her portrayal of Kay Graham in a good film, “The Post.”
Faithful to the history of Graham when the Pentagon Papers bombshell suddenly burst, Streep played her role with exactly the right nuance, self-doubt and heroism. The Oscar should not go to the person lucky enough to have a one-dimensional, bizarre role – no matter how well she plays it.
I don’t think there was a racial bias for those who did not vote for “Get Out.” The film was just too innovative on a very real issue and too disturbing for many older Academy voters. In contrast, “The Shape of Water” is also very innovative, but it comfortably filters its message for the audience through a metaphor.
We should all look forward to the next offering by Jordan Peele, including a sequel of “Get Out” implied by the final action scenes.
8
I saw both movies and enjoyed both of them. However, "The Shape of Water" was more of a traditional storyline in a traditional genre for Best Picture. "Get Out" was full of uncomfortable moments, implications, and despicable characters. By being classified as horror/suspense, I think a lot of older people were able to dismiss "Get Out" as not Best Picture material, when I think it should have been a strong contender. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of votes by age group.
5
I saw the movie. I liked it. I can't say I loved it
Maybe it just didn't win best pic because it wasn't the best pic? Is that possible in today's day and age?
I guess not.
109
My sentiments exactly. It's disturbing when it's assumed that if you don't like a movie there is something politically incorrect about you. I didn't care for "Dunkirk" either, by the way, and I wasn't insane about "Darkest Hour", despite Oldman's tour de force performance.
3
The Academy Awards are primarily a safe advertising platform for Hollywood. It's probably why in 2006 Crash beat out Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain for best picture. Still, in such a self-congratulatory Hollywood year with talk of women and blacks being championed why was Mudbound ignored? It was not only the best movie of the year, but the most important. It lacks Get Out's cool edgy vibe taken directly from Spike Jonze's film Being John Malkovich, but Mudbound is not only shockingly beautiful it shows the real horrors America posed, and still poses, to a protagonist like the decorated Black serviceman (Jason Mitchell as Ronsel Jackson) returning to America after WWII. It seems that Mudbound was not hip enough despite its brilliant cinematography by Rachel Morrison and exquisite directing and storytelling by Dees. Dees shows a devastating truth about America; it was far safer for an African-American man to live in post WWII Germany than in America. I don't understand why people would be threatened by "Get Out." It seemed a very safe choice for best picture. It's cool, clever, entertaining, yet abstract enough to not be particularly threatening. Its message about white liberal racism should surprise no one. I certainly wasn't surprised, in fact I saw it coming a mile away. So no, I don't think "Get Out" was the best picture of the year, Mudbound was. It appears that the author is saying that anyone who disagrees with her and isn't black is a racist. That is most unfortunate.
49
Mudbound had only a very limited theatrical release before it was available for streaming on Netflix. That's why it was not nominated for best picture. But it was a breakthrough for Netflix that the film received 4 nominations.
1
Best original screenplay ain't bad.
15
Get Out was a very, very good film. I was very thrilled that it won best original screenplay, which it strongly deserved. To say that it did not win "Best Picture" because of racism, however, is the kind of hyper-charged argument that does nothing but damage the cause of racial equality. Get Out was, in my humble opinion, not the "best" picture of the year, even though it was very, very good. The film that did win actually advocated for the same kind of racial and gender neutral goals that, presumably, Ms. Cauley would advocate. It just did so in a very positive, inclusive way. Unlike "Get Out," which was a horror film in which white people are monsters. (I would point out that many of the white people in The Shape of Water were monsters as well.) Just because the white people were portrayed as monsters in Get Out, and to a lesser extent in The Shape of Water, does not mean I didn't (as a white man) like both films. I did. But to say that Get Out was denied the Oscar for Best Picture because of racism is simply ... not a good argument.
79
The cinematic merits of "Get Out" aside -- an argument for another day -- it doesn't remotely resemble a "Best Picture" type movie, as anyone familiar with Oscar history could have told this author. Best Picture typically goes inoffensive, effortless and nominally uplifting fare. Like it or not, that's how this annual marketing event works.
It would seem Ms. Cauley expected this film to win because she wishes to promote its attitude and subject matter, thereby vindicating the benighted views of Academy members who wouldn't even watch it for just that reason
8
IMHO, "Get Out" did not win the Oscar for best pitcture, quite simply, because it was not the best picture.
It was definitely interesting and had an edge-of-your-seat, what-will-happen-next feel to it. But the plot was, frankly, confusing. I felt that what exactly was going on with the Armitage's cottage Stepford Wives type industry was left unexplained. Were the bodies of young black men and women being used for aging white folks? What about the Armitage's "servants?" Whose brains were transplanted into their bodies? And the significance of the "sunken place" just wasn't clearly developed.
"Get Out" COULD have been a great movie. But too many questions remained unanswered.
Just MHO...
21
agree 100%...stopped watching about half way through...after hearing all the hype I tried it again...sat through the whole thing, and still unimpressed (and the ending was weird...
1
The "servants" were the lead couple's Grandma and Grandpa. Couldn't be more perfect and an unexpected surprise.
2
While I agree with others that "Get Out" might not have been the best picture, your criticisms are ill-founded. These questions were answered in the film. How ironic it was when the maid said, "They treat us like family!" -- and we later learned they were in fact family, housed in new bodies. I respectfully suggest you watch it again. It's saddening when the writer works so hard to get the information out there and viewers don't notice.
We all have favorites, were impressed by our initial viewing of a picture and numerous other factors.
Clearly Brokeback Mountain should have won for all sorts of reasons the year it came out. Can anyone remember which picture did win that year?
Not many.
Ang Lee won in '06, but his masterpiece did not, yet it was as good as or better, than most films since then.
5
I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Cauley's excellent analysis of why 'Get Out's didn't win Best Picture, and how the same reason holds for why African Americans still occupy a "sunken place" in America. Without minimizing the unique and painful history of slavery and racism, I would add that Americans outside the top ranks of the wealthy occupy a similar place of second-class citizenship, to be seen but not heard. And to assert our equal rights to wealthy Americans draws the criticism of playing the "class warfare" card. But our constitution has guaranteed all Americans with equal rights. And it's time we assert them to overturn the unconstitutional Citizens United decision and stop letting our oppressors dictate the terms of our participation in a more just society, just as the Founding Fathers intended. So vote Democrat up and down the ticket in November, and don't be scared to be labelled a partisan. Partisanship in the name of liberty is no vice!
3
Horror movies do not win Best Picture Oscars. Perhaps that is the main reason, among other lesser reasons, is the reason that "Get Out" lost. Also, maybe just maybe, it wasn't the best movie of the year.
66
When were the Academy Awards ever about the best picture? I stopped watching them over 35 years ago.
3
When was the last time a horror film won best picture?
I’m appalled that Shape of Water won, but not because Get Out did not.
16
I enjoyed Get Out very much, but it was by no means the best picture of the year, nor was it the best screenplay. Lady Bird, The Big Sick, Three Billboards and I, Tonya were far superior in structure, dialogue and character. There are also enormous plot holes and contrivances in Get Out, yet it snagged the Best Original Screenplay.
Perhaps Ms. Cauley needs to acknowledge these things are subjective.
49
Touchy subject, even in movies, when we still live an institutionalized 'racism' (ethnic discrimination) ever since this country was founded. It is in 'our' tribal attitude, and culture, and expressed in deep economic inequalities, and certainly in education and in health care. We shall not see freedom until justice for the least among us is entertained, and real inclusion the goal. Equality in opportunities is sorely lacking, however much progress we claim is at hand. "Get Out" may be too much of a confrontation with our past for comfort, and an Oscar.
Ms. Cauley writes that "many white Americans desperately want the “post-racial” idea to be real; they want to think the country has made progress," but she doesn't reflect on the extent to which Get Out demonstrates this progress. Not very long ago, it would have made no sense to make a film about upper class white people wanting to have their brains implanted in black bodies. Get Out shows these folks bidding for the opportunity! Of course, we haven't reached "the Promised Land" of which Dr. King spoke, but Get Out, along with much more important events such as President Obama's election and re-election, shows that indeed this country has made a great deal of racial progress.
7
On the other hand,
is ANY picture REALLY the "Best Picture"?
So many factors, race and otherwise, influence voting, criticism, evaluation.
Art-related competitions are fraught with peril, which is why to quote the old ditty from aptly-titled "Horse Feathers" -- I'm against it.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
6
I loved Get Out...will see it again. But it wasn't the best picture of the year. Neither was the Shape of Water...Nothing to do with race or reptiles or billboards and unresolved anger...The best picture of the year was Lady Bird...and that's all I have to say about that.
17
It was campy fun, but a bit stupid too. The (spoiler alert!) movie seemed to change its plot about 2/3 of the way through. Were the black people hypnotized or were they vessels for the grandparents / etc? For the first 2/3 they were hypnotized. They did manual labor, didn't make eye contact, cooked, and were ordered around by the family like servants. Then suddenly they're the patriarch/matriarch in charge? It seemed like a rewrite - the earlier motivations didn't make sense. Not that you'd expect them to for a campy horror movie. This one will get plenty of play time in dorm rooms.
11
Nick, when Allison Williams' character refers to them as Grandma and Grandpa, it's evocative of the antebellum south when enslaved people were referred to as Aunt or Uncle, etc.
Wow, that's subtle! Or - and hear me out - maybe it was a stupid plot rewrite that the white people were transferring their brains into black people. Another example: the friend who proudly talks about being a TSA agent like he's in Special Ops is convinced that white people are brainwashing black people to use them as sex slaves. Is it a reference to historical abuses - or is it a juvenile joke that his obsession with interracial sex takes his mind there in every conversation. When the black police refused to believe him - was it a social commentary, or a funny joke about his crazy theories.
It was a stupid movie, but fun. I certainly wouldn't consider it a best picture candidate.
1
Get Out didn't win because it was a tired rerun of the 1940s genre spook-flicks-for-thrills fare, this time with a transparent and superficial race veneer. There was nothing original in the film and your op-ed writer, playing the race card to "justify" the film's lack of recognition is an embarrassment to creative voices, no matter the race.
19
I loved Get Out! I thought it was unique, original and very thought provoking. That being said - I did not think it was the Best Picture. Nor did I think the Shape of Water was. The academy is totally out of touch with what the actual film loving public thinks are "best picture." The film the academy swooned over was at it's core a disturbing relationship between an older man and a teen boy. Had this been an older man and teen woman - we'd all be (rightly) outraged and disgusted. My point just is - I think that the author attributes way too much emphasis on a few academy members quotes - and I would say those quotes are not at all representative as to why the film didn't win.
17
The Oscars are about money. They've often given best picture to films which are inferior to others that are more artful. See "crash" a vignette movie above "brokeback mountain"-- even its original story in the New Yorker is memorable.
"Get Out" was good, but certainly not as good as "Shape of Water" and thank goodness "3 Billboards" a Coen brothers knockoff didn't make it. The race issue becomes special pleading here.
4
"Get Out" was the only Oscar-nominated movie that I did not see. Not because I want black people to remain invisible in underfunded schools or behind bars or in any other number of second or third class or unjust places. I didn't see it because it was billed as a horror film and I don't like that genre, regardless of the subject matter or importance. I just don't.
8
Get Out: best film I have seen in years.
It did not win Best Picture because it was not the best picture in the minds of the voters, nor in my mind.
I also don't understand how a horror movie is supposed to make some grand observation about race relations. White people have and continue to discriminate against black people. White people don't, however, (spoiler alert) take the brains of black people and implant them into white people.
Assessing a film is not a civics class, it involves assessing acting, direction, plot and script. It does not necessarily, if at all, relate directly to the social message it does or does not convey.
Get Out was a very good first movie by a talented comedian and now director.
And, in my opinion, The Florida Project and I, Tonya were better movies, and, hey, you know what, those movies actually had some real observations about class in America (not based upon a science fiction premise but on the real world).
8
It is tiresome to read another writer playing the race card which, by now, is in tatters. Get Out was a wonderful film, not because of what it says about race but because it was an interestingly written gothic thriller with stunning acting by Daniel Kaluuya who is certainly a powerful and already accomplished young actor. It didn't win best picture because there were other pictures that, on the whole, were simply better. Three Billboards was far more interestingly written, and The Shape of Water truly unique in the most unexpected ways, as well as having superb acting, directing, writing, and original music. It had nothing to do with race, and we've now entered an era where the inappropriate playing of the race card is becoming much like the boy who cried wolf. If that card is to be played, it should be played with real purpose, not just general grousing. Time's Up on that, as far as I'm concerned.
20
I have always avoided horror films but being a good liberal, I went to see this one because it was reported to explore race a bit. And it did explore race. I still cringed throughout. Lest we forget, Jordan Peele made it in a very few weeks for very little money. The rushing and low cost showed.
I don't think cheap movies made on the rush should, unless truly exceptionally good rather than a truly timely conversation piece, should ever be best movie of the year. Come on. Have some standards.
That being said, I am aghast that The Shape of Water won best picture. AND for all the talk and writing I have experienced during and since the Oscars about more diversity and a new day in Hollywood, I mostly saw white men winning awards.
Hollywood has a long way to go.
4
Perhaps they did the best work--ever think of that?
2
I admit that I did not see Get Out until the night before the awards, merely because horror movies bore me, or at least have for decades. I was wrong. Not only was it an eye-opening message, it seriously creeped me out.
Was it the Best Picture? Maybe, but this was a strong year for films, with a lot of stories told, or retold to a new generation. One thing is for sure, I won't miss the next Jordan Peele movie that hits the screen.
1
Why didn’t “Get Out” win best picture? Cognitive dissonance. So many of who are not people of color would like to believe we live in a post-racial America. Jordan Peele took us to the “sunken place” where our attitudes about race still exist. The American horror story is our history of racism and it makes us more uncomfortable than any other tale of horror because, in our own sunken places, we know it’s true.
1
Sorry, but I'm not sure this is right - and I would have voted for Get Out as Best Picture. I wouldn't claim the Academy is the bastion of equality and progressivism. But in the last five years, 12 Years A Slave and Moonlight won best picture. So I don't think it's quite accurate to say that it didn't win because voters couldn't deal with a movie where a black main character is kidnapped. Maybe some people were put off by its racial themes or its confrontational approach, but it also might be true that other voters just didn't want a "horror picture" to win - not quite realizing the film is much more than that.
6
I haven't yet seen the fish movie, but I've seen both "Get Out" and "Three Billboards....". I thought "Get Out" was good, but not best picture good. However, I honestly don't know how a movie like "Three Billboards....." got nominated at all. While the acting is good, the premise is absolutely ludicrous. That being said, I think the best picture was actually "The Florida Project". Great writing, acting and directing. Very believable. Of course, no one is interested in what I think!
2
"Get Out" is a decent movie, despite Allison Williams.
Why didn't it win best picture? Maybe because it wasn't the best picture, not by a long shot.
7
I enjoyed 'Get Out' tremendously but, seriously, not every single time a race-themed movie fails to win Best Picture is an example of racism. 'The Shape of Water' was also really good, and... also about interracial relations.
22
It seemed to me that "Get Out"had a derivative plot. - moving one person's personality into another's body has been done before. Many times. Further, it is evident that reading racial overtones into the horror genre is at best a titillation of the current public furor over the black/white divide. Better, perhaps, to have images put before the public of relationships which lead the way toward healing the rift.
4
I liked Get Out as an excellent genre movie that was trying to be something really special and didn't quite get there for me.
I thought the metaphor "for a sunken place" for the dehumanization was effective and visually well done - that scene was the best in the movie. However, the "body snatcher/stepford wives" victims were far less effective, and the "satire" of the whites was quite broad - I mean, golfing, Tiger Woods, I voted for Obama (as in I have good friends who are black). The movie seems to be about false consciousness - and that really wasn't nailed from either the oppressor or the oppressed for me.
As for the best picture, I don't know, I didn't see the others. It probably was at least as good.
1
I haven't even read the article yet, and just based on the title of the piece, I agree -- Peele was robbed. "Get Out" will be recognized as being as groundbreaking as "Citizen Kane" in the future, and the 'fish love story' will be long forgotten.
1
To put the statistics Ms. Cauley cites in perspective, the overall homeownership rate in the U.S. in 2017 was pretty much unchanged from 1968 (about 63-64%); the overall unemployment rate in 2017 was higher than it was in 1968 (4.5% vs. 3.6%); the African-American incarceration rate has increased by 3x since 1968, but the White incarceration rate has also increased by 2.5x (the fact is, we’re just locking up too many people, of all races/ethnicities).
I’m not really sure what any of this has to do with which movie wins the Best Picture award.
11
I've been watching movies for nearly 70 years now, good and bad, and "Get Out" didn't win best picture because, while it was a good movie, it was not the best movie of 2017. I saw all of the nominees, and, for my money, the best picture was "The Phantom Thread." Others, evidently the majority of the Academy's voters, thought it was "The Shape of Water." Are we all racists because we disagree with Ms. Cauley's assessment of cinematic excellence?
31
Get Out was a good film but Call Me By Your Name was unquestionably the best film of the year.
2
The reason it didn’t win is that The Shape of Water was a better film.
25
I haven't seen "Get Out"yet, so I can't comment on it's worthiness. Among the films I have seen, "The Shape of Water" was a fun romp, but not best picture material. I would have preferred "Darkest Hour" or "Three Billboards ..."
I just watched Get Out again. I think it was even better the second time, although I admit I turned it off 15 minutes before it ended since I only needed to see the blood bath once. I think the racial concepts in the movie made it so awesome. I really don't like horror flicks, but Get Out was really solid. I liked it better than Shape of Water, except that Monster God dude was great.
It was a fine movie, but Shape of Water was, as the French say, right on the line between the sublime and the ridiculous. I'm not the biggest fan, but it was a better movie. The color of the actors' skins (clearly!) has nothing to do with it. Dunkirk was fine, and Billboards was a terrific story. Get Out was at best, #3, but not even that in my book.
4
Get Out won more awards than it should have won. It is a remake of The Stepford Wives. Nothing original about the screenplay.
We ennjoyed Get Out, but let's not make more of it than it is--a fairly predictable story, especially now that the aforementioned The Stepford Wives already did the plot, and one could see it unfolding from the beginning.
We are supposed to think of Get Out as the best picture of the year because otherwise we want the "post racial" idea to be real? And "we "want to think the country has made progress? It hasn't?
My first friend was a black boy named Woody. He lived next door to us in Veteran's Village, after WWII. My parents took a lot of grief because they were friendly to the family. They took Woody's family grocery shopping, let me play with Woody, etc. My father: He fought too.
As a child in Oklahoma I attended a de-facto segregated school. The year I graduated from college so did the first Black American from my college.
Fast forward to now: I have voted two times for a Black man to be President. Totally wish his name had been Woody, but I'm happy that it was Barak.
The Oscars are for movies. Real life is for real life. Ms. Cauley needs to understand the difference....and she also doesn't know movies very well because there have been many films over the years that have addressed the same themes as Get Out did (see, for example, The Scalphunters, 1968, which hit race relations and the position of Black people right on the nose).
14
I thought the race politics of "Get Out" were spot on, and was amused if unnerved to find the majority-white, liberal audience in my theatre cheering loudly for Chris. But I also thought the film was formulaic and predictable (I should admit I'm no fan of horror as a genre). I'm not the savviest movie-goer, but I figured out both the plot and the plot twist within minutes of the couple's arrival at the Armitage house. So I guess I ended up feeling that the Best Script award was well-deserved but not Best Film.
I would have liked to see Chris's best friend be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. His performance stood out as much more nuanced than anyone else's.
31
Now that many films hardly appear in theaters and appear on services that folks have also to pay for (Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, for example), some people just don't have the paid service that a "movie" appears on. Of course, one has to pay to go to the theatre, but things have just gotten a lot more complicated and expensive when Oscar nominees, for example, can appear on any of the three named services - that's a lot of money.
3
Oscar voters don't have to spend any money to see nominated films -- they get them for free.
Sure - but those voters also respond to what they are hearing, what they think is the buzz in the world outside their bubble too.
I won't debate Ms. Cauley's diagnosis of the problems this nation continues to face with respect to confronting its endemic racism but it may just be the case that "Get Out" didn't win the Oscar for "Best Picture" because it didn't happen to be the year's best film. Actually, very few film-related organizations ended up bestowing their highest honor on this amusing but ultimately sophomoric piece of work Apart from everything else, the kind of malevolent surgery that Ms. Cauley cites here mercifully doesn't exist, and so at best we're asked to address the issue of race in American society on a purely allegorical level. Considering the actual horrors that young black men are asked to deal with every time they encounter a white cop or a black drug-dealer. the idea of a nice kid with a white girlfriend having his brain "washed" by her putatively liberal parents doesn't come close enough to reality to produce the kind of gut punch that white America probably deserves. "Get Out" is reasonably well-made and certainly well acted but so are a lot of other movies, most of which don't win Oscars either.
82
I enjoyed Get Out a lot, he kept it simple and focused and it worked throughout for me. I am interested in what Jordan Peele does next, he's the real deal. But I never thought of it as a Best Picture, the competition was really pretty stiff. Del Toro showed a unique vision in The Shape of Water, and for that he deserved the Oscar. I would have also loved Call Me By His Name to win, both films left me blubbering like a babe at the end, so that is now my new standard in "great films:" do they leave me in tears by the end.
18
The Academy will always choose a sentimental tearjerker over even the most brilliant and wrenching social satire. I haven't seen shape of water, but Get Out turned me inside out and made me feel embarrassed to be a well-meaning white person. The horror genre was the perfect vehicle for dark comical overstatement. It has my vote.
1
The fact that it came out so early in the season was probably a factor. Had The Shape of Water opened in February of 2017 and Get Out in December, Get Out might have had more of a chance, and the Shape of Water probably would not have won.
12
I saw "Get Out" and liked it a lot. It had lots to say about race and race relations. But there were lots of good films this year, as there are most years. And, "Get Out" was far from a perfect film - the screwball premise led into lots of inconsistencies - look at how lots of the post-op black characters acted - was it really consistent with who they were supposed to be? Were there really very many characters in the film? Chris was brilliantly realized, but most everybody else was rather a cardboard cut-out.
That it should win Best Original Screenplay makes lots of sense - the conceptualization of the story and its realization thru lots of elements (take the irony of the cop car showing up at the end and it not going badly for Chris) - was brilliant and off the charts origional. But how did it stand out in acting, in directing and on and on in other elements?
To suggest that it didn't win Best Picture in large part because of racism is a big claim that denigrates all the other top films.
164
It is always a thin line between prizes awarded for genuine artistic quality and those given in some misguided attempt at recompense for historic guilt.
4
This is a very objective analysis. Thanks.
4
"Some other voters refused to watch the film because they didn’t want to engage with the issues it raises." This voter didn't want to pick a film that dealt with racism or sexism.
"“As far as I’m concerned, they played the race card, and that really turned me off.”
That sounds like bias to me.... The author is correct in that many want to believe we are post-racial - that we are truly a meritocracy. Unfortunately it is not true, as ample research proves and the daily lives of those who experience the bias can attest. You can't grow up in this country and be exposed to this culture w/out being inculcated with some bias. It is just simply human nature.
2
None of us can even remember today what movie just won best picture. I can't, even though I saw it and liked it. Something about a fish? It is certain we will remember Get Out. It was honest, bold, and transformative; a classic for many years to come. Still, I agree with you - it should have won, for a hundred reasons.
33
Those statistics on how things have actually gotten worse since 1968, or have made no progress, are chilling.
32