'Get Out' Should Win Best Picture, But Does The Movie Actually Need The Oscars?
GETTING TO THE WOKEN PLACE
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On paper, "Get Out," a film about the nightmarish events that ensue after a black man is invited to his white girlfriend's countryside home, doesn't seem like your typical Best Picture Oscar candidate. For one, the film's genre — typically read as horror, despite the director's own framing of "Get Out" as a social thriller — isn't a genre that has meshed well with the history of the Academy Awards1. The movie's premiere date also sets it apart from the other Best Picture nominees, for, with the exception of "Dunkirk," all of the other nominated films had opted for a late fall/early winter release date, a movie season designed to drum up and capitalize on Oscars buzz. "Get Out," by contrast, debuted last February2, a full year before the Academy Awards ceremony was set to take place.

But as Oscars Best Picture nominations go, this has been a fairly atypical year. This is a year where a fantasy film about a mute girl falling in love with a fish-man and a crime drama that has racked up controversies over its treatment of racism are the two frontrunners of the Best Picture race. It is a year where more "traditional" and stodgier Oscars fare, such as "Darkest Hour" and "The Post," rank low in the estimates of Oscar prognosticators. And it is also a year that has been incredibly politically fraught, so much so that the timeliness of a film may be given more weight than in previous years.

Will The Current Political Climate Help 'Get Out'?

In terms of timeliness, it's hard for other Best Picture nominees to beat "Get Out's" incendiary exploration of racism and probe into liberal hypocrisy. Almost right out of the gate after its premiere, "Get Out" ignited conversations about the country's racial politics and inspired spates of online discussion and social media memes. Pieces of the movie have also found their way into everyday parlance, such as "The Sunken Place" — a state of hypnosis that the protagonist is put under within the movie — as metaphor for a space of marginalization and hopelessness. In the era of Trump3, "Get Out," with its sharp satirical edge and its depiction of modern racism (rather than racism safely ensconced in the past) is a movie that seems to be in most direct dialogue with the social turbulence of our everyday lives.

 

The fact that "Get Out" is even in the running for Best Picture (and that, if it wins, it will be the third movie directed by an African-American to win Best Picture in the last decade) can be seen as a testament that the tastes of the Academy are changing. Over the past four years, the Academy's membership demographics have changed drastically. Its newly invited members, most of whom are younger and more diverse, now make up a quarter of the institution's voters. Most of them are well aware of the political impact their votes hold and are ebullient that "Get Out," a film that would have easily overlooked in the past if it were not for the influx of new members, is now being recognized by the Academy. 

Does It Matter If 'Get Out' Ends Up Not Winning Best Picture?

While "Get Out" has its fair share of supporters among critics and Academy voters, its fight for Best Picture is somewhat of an uphill battle. The current state of the race seems to point to the Best Picture winner being either "The Shape of Water" or "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri." The former has snagged the top prizes at the DGA and PGA awards, both strong predictors of the Oscars Best Picture race, while the latter has been crowned at the SAG, BAFTA, and Golden Globes awards. And although some would argue that the preferential ballot, a voting process which favors popular, consensus choices, has made the Best Picture race more unpredictable since its institution in 2009, it's still impossible to completely disregard the significance of these precursor awards. (In Digg's own Oscars prediction article — which uses press coverage, rather than support from the guilds, as our inference methodology — however, we believe that "Get Out" still has a strong chance of pulling an upset win.) 

But assuming that the prognosticators are right and "Get Out" does not take home Best Picture this Sunday, the bigger question remains: Would losing the award really matter for the movie? And does a groundbreaking film like "Get Out" need the validation from an establishment whose outdatedness has been the source of myriads of think pieces every Oscar season? 

The answer is… complicated. As much as commentators like to argue that the relevance of Oscars has abated in recent years (ratings of the ceremony fell to a 9-year low last year), the not-insignificant box office boost that an Oscar nomination or win confers upon movies would argue otherwise. In the case of "Get Out," however, the issue revolves not so much around securing an Oscar boost at the box office as it does around issues of representation and recognition. It's easy to watch the Oscars cynically, writing it off as antiquated, irrelevant and bursting with self-importance and self-congratulation. But, as earnest as it might seem to espouse this viewpoint, the Oscars do matter. They matter to moviegoers craving film representation that actively includes them and doesn't reduce them to stock characters or bit players. They matter to artists, especially women and people of color, as Peele has attested to himself, relating a story of how watching Whoopi Goldberg receive an Oscar for her supporting role in "Ghost" in 1991 left a huge impression on him as a young kid:

"I remember internalizing that […] Like, wow, she's speaking to me, 'cause this is something I want to do, I feel like I can do. When those nominations came together last week, I realized the awards and the acknowledgment is bigger than me, and bigger than my own personal accomplishment. By seeing my work be recognized this way, there's a whole generation of people who will be uplifted by that."

[Vanity Fair]

But even if "Get Out" doesn't win Best Picture, it's worth noting that it is still one of the most extraordinary movies of 2017. Like the snubbed "Wonder Woman," "Get Out" was one of those movies that managed to hit upon the elusive alchemy of being both critically acclaimed and commercially popular. Made for a measly budget of $4.5 million dollars, "Get Out" ended up grossing $255 million dollars at the box office, making it one of the most profitable movies in 2017. It also broke a slew of records, including highest-grossing original debut (beating the record held for 18 years by horror film "The Blair Witch Project"). And it helped make Jordan Peele the first African-American director to earn over $100 million dollars with his film debut.

So does "Get Out" need the Oscars? Not necessarily. The movie is already widely considered one of the best films of 2017 and has helped launch the film directing career of Peele, who plans on directing a series of social thrillers in a similar vein as "Get Out." But would it be great if the movie won Best Picture? Absolutely. And considering how the past two Best Picture awards were given to upset winners — "Spotlight" and "Moonlight" — it still seems likely that "Get Out" might come in at the last minute and nab the biggest award of the night this Sunday.

In the lead up to the 2018 Oscars, we're taking a closer look at each of the Best Picture nominees. Read our previous entries:

'Darkest Hour' Loves Churchill, But Let's Hope It Tanks His Legacy

Why 'The Shape Of Water' Is The Perfect Best Picture For This Garbage Year We Had

Is 'The Post' A Sign That Oscar-Bait Movies Need To Die?

The Unerring Dedication To Craft In 'Dunkirk' May Be Its Oscars Undoing

Will The 'Three Billboards' Oscars Backlash Make It This Year's 'La La Land'?

Does 'Lady Bird's Best Picture Nomination Represent A Breakthrough For Female Directors?

Would A Best Picture Win For 'Call Me By Your Name' Be An Authentic Victory For LGBT Cinema?

How Can A Film With The Pedigree Of 'Phantom Thread' Be An Oscars Dark Horse?

1

The last time a horror film was awarded Best Picture was "Silence of the Lambs" in 1992.

2

While a January or February release often bodes well for low-budgeted horror films, they are generally not considered an ideal launchpad for movies angling for an Oscar due to the length of time that transpires between the premiere date and the Academy Awards next year.

3

Unlike "The Post," which was produced during (and hastened by) the Trump administration, "Get Out" was gestated during Obama's second term in office.

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