Watch Philip Defranco discuss the controversy around Jordan Peele’s comments:
Today Jordan Peele found himself in the sunken place of the culture war when he advocated for white genocide. Or so you would think given the reaction of some people online. But such is the state of our polarized, outrage addicted culture. The quote that the clickbait journalism ran with to illicit the backlash was, “I don’t see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie.” And with that the culture war exploded in outrage as all the SJWs, Nazis, shitlords and Otherkin converged on their local parks and engaged in a Ron Burgundy style brawl that was so intense that I’m sure we’ll see some popular figures in the new Smash Bros DLC.
Ok, it wasn’t THAT bad. And in fact Jordan Peele went on to say:
“Not that I don’t like white dudes but I’ve seen that movie. It really is one of the best, greatest pieces of this story, is the feeling like we are in this time – a renaissance has happened and proved the myths about representation in the industry are false. The way I look at it, I get to cast black people in my movies. I feel fortunate to be in this position where I can say to Universal, ‘I want to make a $20 million horror movie with a black family.’ And they say yes.”
But in the cesspool that is the twitterverse we, of course, saw a lot of people take the bait. Of course the point of this tabloid was to incite outrage and draw attention and benefit from all the clicks and views propped up by everyone on all sides road raging about it online. Because like the ex girlfriend who stalked me, negative attention is still attention. But we all apparently have yet to truly learn that. And one such poor bastard happened to be someone whose content I enjoy, Jeremy over at TheQuartering (on twitter, youtube, minds, facebook). Jeremy tweeted out the article with the comment, “Imagine saying…’I don’t see myself hiring white dudes’ and being applauded. These times…”
Watch TheQuartering explain the situation around his tweet:
This picked up attention from others online and made its way onto the Philip Defranco show who reported on the controversy. Now I’m just not going to touch on the ouroboros nature of these incidents where journalists produce clickbait, then content creators expose clickbait, therefore effectively taking the bait. Then indie dude, like myself, with nothing better to do shares said click baited click bait to all his friends which only produces further clickbait. BUT there’s a real point to be made through all this noise. Jeremy isn’t wrong. But he’s also not right. And most of us are usually in this boat.
To simply dismiss legitimate claims of racism is only making the situation worse. There is no such thing as ‘reverse racism’ or the ‘false equivalency’ of comparing blacks and whites to black and white situations. But the real question here is was there any real racism that took place here? On the surface it sure looks that way. And let’s not kid ourselves, you replace the word “white” with the word “black” or “latino” or “asian” or whatever and of course it would be a morally wrong thing to say. So if the goal here is equality then we should be striving for nothing less. But is this a racist incident?
I’m about to sound like I work for Patreon but I really think these things need to be observed through a case-by-case basis. And in order to understand the words we really must understand the person. Look at what happened to Kevin Hart. He was fired from hosting the Oscars after online outrage over a tweet from 2011 which read, “Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ‘stop that’s gay.'”
Watch Ellen sit down with Kevin Hart to help re-hire him as Oscars Host:
Despite the fact this is something Kevin Hart has already addressed in the past, according to him, this didn’t stop the Oscars from dropping him faster than they hired him. Like Hart said himself in a snapchat reaction to the news, do people actually think that someone can’t grow and learn in 8 years? Do we all just start to view all of history through the critical lense of today’s cultural context? And where exactly are these flawless people? These pure, innocent people, who’ve never made a mistake, that these trolls seem to believe exist. Guess what? They don’t exist. We’re all horrible, flawed monsters navigating our way through the fog of life, just coasting along to whatever solid ground we can find.
Kevin Hart watched a life-long dream crumble beneath him. Even after Ellen sat him down and attempted to get him to fight for his job, the damage had already been done. Not the defamation against him but the damage to his dream. The fun, glamour and social relevance that this ceremony represented to him throughout his life, which he put on a pedestal, all came crashing down with their weak willed, bad faith, reactionary abandon of principal at the first sight of risk.
Oh, and the online trolls then came for Ellen, attempting to reduce probably one of the biggest LGBT icons to “just another white woman”. I’m sorry, Ellen is one of the kindest, sweetest, most positive people we have out there so to try and diminish the reputation and presence she’s earned, only reveals your own ill intentions. Ellen didn’t emerge in a time when your ethnicity and sexual orientation were celebrated in society like they are today. She was the rose that bloomed from the crack in the hard concrete when you lost you’re sitcom for your sexual identity.
But to be real, that’s really all she is to the intersectional community. Just another white woman. How dare she not stay in her lane. These social justice warriors are sadists. Sadists who are addicted to the dopamine hit that a good lynching provides. To me, they’re just as dangerous as these white supremacists advocating for a civil war. So don’t kid yourself, there’s no difference between antifa and those antifa target.
Watch SJW mob surround Tucker Carlson’s home where his wife hid in their closet:
The only thing more pathetic than the boy who cried wolf is the fool who listened to the false claim. And after everything the Oscars represented to Kevin, for them to sell him out so quick to appease a minority, faux-outrage mob of trolls reveals that, to them, he’s really nothing more than their dancing monkey to use for ratings. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Good on Hart for not giving THEM a second chance. They don’t deserve him. And so ever further the Oscars spiral into irrelevancy. Because they bent the knee to the social justice mob who aims to run black men out of town in the name of progress. When you don’t stand for anything you’ll fall for everything.
My point about Jordan Peele is just that, context. I wouldn’t describe myself as a Jordan Peele “fan” but I’ve always enjoyed his work. And When I watched “Get Out” I didn’t see the persecution of white people despite the fact literally every white actor in the film was a villain. I empathized with the main lead, believe it or not, despite the fact our skin looks different. Go figure!
But I know I was able to do so because the story and the actors enabled that relationship. When I was presented with the “black boyfriend” narrative it didn’t come across as political propaganda. It felt like cultural relevance. Even if it was a little political. But I was happy to support it given that if this was political, this is how you do it right. Because the concept, the acting, the writing was good. It was something the entire audience could unite under.
Watch Jordan Peele discuss how white audiences reacted to “Get Out”:
The issues he’s talking about are real issues. It’s always been cringey when studios feel the need to cast white actors in place of other ethnic roles like when they cast Christian Bale as an Egyptian. I think there is a real conversation to be had around visible representation in movies and shows. BUT THAT BEING SAID. So much of our content has been used as social justice propaganda that I completely understand people who may be suffering from political fatigue and just groan at every mention of “empowerment” and “dominance position” this versus “power group” that, yadda, yadda, yadda.
There just seems to be this odd idea that the only way to empower someone is to tear someone else down. Like the only way for a white person to be an “ally” is to just SHUT THE FUCK UP. Wow, great. For me, to be honest, I take more offense to the part where he says, “I’ve seen that movie before”. I totally understand push back against that. What is he even saying? Everything Hitchcock made, everything Kubrick made, star wars, lord of the rings, star trek, etc etc etc are all just the same movie because they were made and starred by whites? I have a feeling that Jordan, himself, was really caught off guard with this interview and was baited into saying some stupid crap. Otherwise he needs to invest in a publicist before he opens his mouth.
Be honest with yourself, when you go to a movie do you think to yourself, “I can’t wait to see all the statistically accurate visible representation according to the demographics of the region where the movie takes place,” or do you think to yourself “this movie looks interesting, I want to see what happens,”?
Racism is racism. Period. Whether you’re white or black or whatever. Period. And like Jordan said himself, the reality is he can now turn to a studio and say “I wanna make a movie about black people” and receive funding. That’s progress. So to keep moving forward let’s focus on how to unite audiences, not divide them. The less risk to a studio the less doubt they can have to fund these sorts of projects. And take risks on new up and comers like Jordan Peele.
I just don’t understand why Peele felt he had to even say this at all. He would have meant the same thing by just saying, “I hire who I feel best fits into my story,” and just left it at that. I feel like he was probably baited into weighing in about identity politics and just fell for the bait. Probably an example of someone who surrounds themselves with yes people and gets so caught up with confirmation bias they are lulled into a false sense of security by the wrong people.
But that being said, Jordan Peele is now a Hollywood elite, regardless his roots and so if what we want is true equality then he needs to take the public reaction for whatever it is and deal with it. This is the nature of the Hollywood beast. And he’s a big boy, he can take responsibility for the things he says. I’m sure he’s not losing sleep over what guys like me think. Nor am I losing sleep over shit people like him say. Everything else from everyone else is just playing the outrage game. On both ends of the spectrum. I didn’t really care for “US” but I’m still looking forward to his next one.
It’s easy to see politics everywhere you look these days. But I do think these situations must be evaluated as a case by case basis otherwise we just paint with broad brushes and end up dehumanizing people in the same way as the SJW. We can’t rob people of their individual sovereignty based on surface level evidence that we use to act as judge, jury and executioner. We’re all entitled to our opinions but we also all need to be mindful of when dialogue devolves into rhetoric. Because we’re ALL guilty of that.
Sometimes if we forget to take proper care of ourselves and reconnect with the outside world then our oversaturated minds can easily regurgitate these narratives as we project this rhetoric overtop of otherwise innocent situations. Not that these comments are innocent but I do not believe Jordan Peele is guilty of any wrongdoing.
Dear outrage mobs, this is how you look:
“I’ll say this: The scariest monster in the world is human beings and what we are capable of, especially when we get together.”
– Jordan Peele
Rule #8 