Recently, a new trailer for a movie called Karen has Twitter users reacting and responding to Hollywood directors trying to imitate Jordan Peele’s style of directing and his impact with directing only two movies. Peele is the director of both Get Out and Us. Both of these horror movies are well-loved, as his style of storytelling is interesting along with him often detailing Black storylines that have nothing to do with slavery, which many feel as if is overdone.
Jordan Peele only has two films under his belt as a director and he already has people trying to copy his formula. Talk about impact.
— NUFF (@nuffsaidny) June 22, 2021
Dear Hollywood, Hear me out: STOP trying to duplicate Jordan Peele’s work. It can’t be done lol.
— Chris Williamson (@CWilliamson44) June 22, 2021
The new movie Karen details a woman who we all recognize from the media, a white woman who is racist and ready to call the police on unsuspecting Black people for usually causing no harm. This movie concept shows a Black family moving into a new house next to Karen, who then seems to conspire against them. Though this trailer came out last week, it is now opening up a discussion on Twitter surrounding the way that Hollywood tries to, and ultimately fails, emulate Peele’s storytelling.
https://twitter.com/SolaceCinema/status/1407304124501274626
This conversation made Peele trend on Twitter, though he did not actually have anything to do with producing the movie. Peele’s first movie, Get Out, is not a movie about blatant racism, but about how white people often commodify Black people or their culture. In the movie, the racism is less in your face and more disguised. This ultimately helps the plot of the movie as it makes it more suspenseful and interesting to watch. Many Twitter users felt as if directors do not understand this and instead use blatant racism to help their stories, which feels cheap and uninteresting to watch as Black people often have to deal with racism every day in their real day-to-day lives.
The Taryn Manning Karen movie has a trailer out, and this is my official reaction to this Lifetime-looking depiction of surface racism: pic.twitter.com/Ul2vCF9y1k
— Christian supports the Hollywood double strike (@wischofsky) June 22, 2021
ADVERTISEMENT
Twitter’s Response
When the video trailer was released, many Twitter users began discussing how they felt as if the movie trailer felt like an SNL skit, as it felt that cheesy. “Nobody asked for a murderous Karen” is what one Twitter user wrote. Many felt as if Get Out was an interesting film that highlighted today’s racism in a way that was suspenseful, relatable, and interesting to watch. However, people do not feel as if this type of horror subgenre of Black people being harassed by racist white people should exist, as this is the reality many actually face. One person calls it “race horror” which is an interesting perspective at the way Hollywood markets off of Black people’s pain for story-telling as they find it successful when Peele does it, but they are unable to tell the story in a discreet or interesting way that Peele was able to do in his first movie Get Out.
Race Horror has to be my least favorite genre now and she had so much potential when Jordan Peele pioneered that shit https://t.co/9M3fxJGChA
— Djaweps ???? (@MYSTERIOUX_) June 22, 2021
One person wrote that she feels as if people did not understand the entirety of Get Out, only the surface-level parts of the movie. They did not understand the subtle or small details behind the movie, which is why when someone tries to recreate a Jordan Peele style movie, they do not do it as well as they are not entirely understanding what makes his movies interesting to watch while also addressing important topics that might be difficult to include in a horror movie.
all of these Jordan Peele recreation attempts assume the core of Get Out was "haha white people scary" and try to recycle that over and over. They miss the nuanced message about liberal performative activism, about the obsession with black culture. 1/2 https://t.co/x7IrRZ9c1I
— notself (@notself_) June 22, 2021
