Jordan Peele is Flipping the Script

Jordan Peele is a fierce advocate for women.

It’s been an amazing couple of years for this talented actor/director. In 2018, Forbes named him one of their influential “40 under 40,” putting him in the company of other big hitters like Rhianna, Donald Glover, and Jacinda Ardern. After years of producing the hilarious sketch comedy Key and Peele, Peele made the switch to writer/director. He earned an Academy Award for Get Out, the first black screenwriter to win in this category, and his second wildly successful film, Us, came out earlier this year.

Peele is a media pioneer, from centering Black protagonists in horror to reimagining science fiction classics like The Twilight Zone for the 21st century. When explaining to an audience at The Upright Citizens Brigade improv group why he doesn’t see himself casting a “white dude” in a lead role (not that he doesn’t like white dudes), he replied, “a renaissance has happened and proved the myths about representation in the industry are false.”

Away from the set, Jordan Peele demonstrates that it’s possible to be a powerful man in Hollywood and a powerful advocate for women. While shooting for Lovecraft Country in Georgia, the state legislature passed a near total ban on abortion. In response— and at the urging of Stacey Abrams not to punish hard-working film crews in the state with a boycott— Peele and his collaborator, J.J. Abrams, pledged to donate all of the proceeds of the show to groups fighting to protect women’s reproductive rights in the state.

When creators center the voices of women and people of color the way that Peele does in Get Out and in Us, that’s #MediaWeLike. Watch this blog for more stories featuring feminist men and allies.

Take Action! Join us as we #AskMoreofHim. We need leaders like Jordan Peele demonstrating how to be feminist men and allies to women.