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'The Late Show': Jordan Peele Schools Stephen Colbert On Black Horror Cinema

By Tori Preston | Late Night TV | November 16, 2017 |

By Tori Preston | Late Night TV | November 16, 2017 |


Jordan Peele was greeted with a standing ovation from the audience on last night’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which he seemed both flattered and unnerved by. Then again, considering he’s on his, like, 10th month of talking about his smash hit film Get Out, it’s no surprise he’s made a few admirers along the way. The timing for this appearance couldn’t have been better, though, as it comes on the heels of the news that the film would be competing in the Comedy category during the 2018 Golden Globes. Just that morning, Peele himself had addressed the category confusion on Twitter:


And that’s a sentiment he echoed again with Colbert. “The movie is truth. The thing that resonated to people is truth. So for me it’s more of a historical biopic. Like the original title was Get Out: The Kanye West Story but I had to lop off the end.”

They pair discussed the film’s success, with its 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (what’s the missing 1%? “Racism,” quipped Peele), as well as what happens when you let a black person be the protagonist in a horror movie (“It turns out you have a movie that has a protagonist who is aware that horror is going down”) and how white and black audiences experience the horror of the film differently. And then the conversation turns to the fact that Get Out is already being taught in college classes, which gives Peele a chance to lecture Colbert a bit on the history of black horror films. And yes, Night of the Living Dead totally counts because that one black guy is THE MAN, ok?

“He is the guy who is ready to fight zombies because he’s been fighting white people off his whole life!”

Check out the entire segment here, but the history lesson starts around the 7 minute mark:

Hearing Peele namecheck Candyman just makes me want to see Tony Todd pop up in his next movie. Or anywhere, really. As long as it’s not right behind me.