loud and proud: stay noisy jordan peele

Everyone’s always yelling at Jordan Peele. Whether it’s howling while watching Key & Peele, or gagging at Get Out we can’t help but make noise. This response is a result of his own thunderous behavior. Peele lives life out loud, creating work that moves him no matter what expectations society might have set for him. He refuses to be limited — and boy is it working.

Peele was born into a world that couldn’t have imagined a Black entertainer to be both a master of comedy and horror. Although this world was New York City in 1979, it was still one full of boxes and lanes. Peele grew up to be defiant. Yes, the same sketch comedy genius who “said biiiitch” is also an Academy Award award winner, acclaimed director and screenwriter (Get Out, Keanu, Us), actor (Key and Peele, Big Mouth) and narrator of the latest version of The Twilight Zone. 

This month, as we celebrate Living The Fuck Out Loud I’ve had to examine what it really means. I’ve come to understand that this can look in as many different ways as there are humans on this planet, but at the core, the constant is always being yourself. It takes loving yourself to trust yourself to be yourself, which is a hard thing to be. How radical is it to love yourself? Now how insanely radical is it to love yourself in a field that is highly competitive and has a set idea on what Black men can and should be within its restrictions? And how absurdly radical is it to ignore that, take a leap, and do what you were born to do? Extremely so, but Peele makes it look easy.

When I think Living The Fuck Out Loud, my mind instantly goes to people whose physical expression matches the statement. My brain goes to rock stars and daredevils who are undeniably noisey in their wardrobes or their personas. I see Prince or TLC, Eric Andre or Tyler, The Creator. While they are examples of this month’s theme so are people who are loud on the inside but quiet on the outside. I’ve heard comedians referred to as secretly insane people who look “normal” on the outside but hold a crazy chaos on the inside – the duality a big part their charm. I’d agree. Peele himself even said that, “the only difference between comedy and horror is the music.”  

Peele is a lesson to those who live outside the margins because it is the only way they know how to live. There are ample reasons to feel discouraged to be yourself but people like Jordan Peele make it easier for the rest of us by taking the leap. No matter how scary we must follow in Peele’s footsteps by silencing the voice that questions our bravery. Instead we must allow our guts to have the loudest voice in the room. In his Oscars speech, after winning the award for Best Screenplay he said, “I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible, I thought it wasn’t gonna work, I thought no one would ever make this movie, but I kept coming back to it cause I knew if someone let me make this movie, people would hear it and people would see it. I wanna dedicate this to all the people who raised my voice and let me make this movie.” Imagine a world where he hit the mute button on himself leaving us with no Get Out. I don’t want to.