Jordan Peele's Get Out was one of the best horror movies of the last decade, and put him on the map as a genuine auteur. Not only was it disturbing, well-plotted and darkly comical, but it was also a great example of why representation and diversity matters in modern cinema. Get Out told an important story about the contemporary African-American experience, and the subtle forms of racism which people of colour face today.

This week, when speaking at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in East Hollywood, the comedian-turned-filmmaker shared his own personal feelings about the importance of diversity in movies, and revealed that he feels no kind of pressure to cast a white lead now that he has the opportunity to cast minority actors instead.

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Peele stated: "I don't see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie. Not that I don't like white dudes but I've seen that movie. It really is one of the best greatest pieces of this story, feeling like we are in this time [where] a renaissance has happened and proven the myths about representation in the industry are false.

"The way I look at it. I get to cast black people in my movies, I feel fortunate to be in this position where I can say to Universal, 'I want to make a $20 million horror movie with a black family.' And they say yes."

He added: "The more you are armed with what you take in, the more ammo you have. ... Directing for me is about hiring the right people, listening to them and helping them do the best job possible ... You have to shelve [your ego]. You have to check it constantly. It’s so easy for it to come out and rear its ugly head. The ego is deceptive and it will screw you up."

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Us tells the story of a young African American couple, Adelaide (played by Lupita Nyong’o) and Gabe (played by Winston Duke), who arrive at their holiday home with their kids only to be confronted by a mysterious quartet of doppelgängers. Other cast members include Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, and comedian Tim Heidecker.

Thus far, the movie has performed extremely well both critically and commercially, managing to make an impressive $71.1 million at the box office on its first weekend. This means that Us now holds the title for the biggest opening weekend for an original horror movie, and the third best horror opening of all time after 2018's Halloween sequel and the 2017 reboot of It.

For the purpose of this article, I will be focusing primarily on mixed-race individuals with an experience that mirrors my own; a black parent and a white parent. 

Representation of people from ethnic minority backgrounds in film and television has been a recurring topic for some years now. 

And what has been unsurprising to me as someone who has a German mother and a Zambian father is that biracial people are often overlooked in any discussion on diversity.

It’s unsurprising because it's what I'm accustomed to - but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

It mostly boils down to the fact that in almost every society, the concept of being mixed-race just isn’t really a "thing". To most people, race is quite literally a black-and-white concept, with no middle ground, no nuances, or grey areas.

People with any black heritage are often conflated into one single category as though we were all just one homogenous group - with no individual backgrounds and continents of origin.

Did you know, for example, that Nicki Minaj (real surname: Maraj) is of part-Indian descent? I'm guessing not.

And incredibly, despite mixed-race individuals being one of the fastest-growing minorities, there still wasn't a "mixed-race" category in the most recent US census of 2010.

Society's constant dismissal of "mixed-race" as a racial identity meant that growing up, the characters in the mostly American TV shows and films I watched were never mixed-race.

And why would they be? After all, there's no such thing as being half black and half white, right?

Now, I don’t mean to say that biracial actors were never cast. However, even when the actors themselves were mixed-race, the actual characters they played were not. That is, their onscreen parents would not be portrayed by a black actor and a white actor.

In fact, as far as I can remember, the first time I'd ever seen a specifically half black/half white character in a mainstream American movie was in 2011's Bridesmaids when I was 17 years old.

In a fleeting moment at the engagement party of bride-to-be Lillian (Maya Rudolph), the camera briefly pans over to her parents, a white mum, and a black dad. (Yes, mixed-race representation really is that simple.)

So to clarify, I had seen just one mixed-race character in an American film before the age of 18 - and plenty of American films and TV shows in which biracial actors were cast not to play biracial characters.

Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry

Clueless' Stacey Dash

High School Musical's Corbin Bleu

The Cosby Show's Lisa Bonet

The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air's Karyn Parsons

Recently cast live-action Tinkerbell Yara Shahidi (Black and Iranian)

The Vampire Diaries' Kat Graham

My Wife and Kids' Parker McKenna Posey

The Hunger Games' Amandla Stenberg

Precious' Paula Patton

So, why is it that almost every single time a mixed-race actor is cast in a role, they suddenly cease to be mixed-race?

Is it somehow offensive to portray a character as being the child of both a black parent and a white patent?

Is it somehow ludicrous of me to think that my own mum (who happens to be white) is just as much a part of me as your mum is a part of you?

Or is she really as irrelevant to my life, my existence, and my ethnicity as Hollywood would have me believe?

The influence of film and television should never be underestimated. And I honestly believe that the lack of mixed-race characters in Hollywood has led to widespread ignorance about real-life mixed-race people.

In fact, our society is so accustomed to believing that mixed-race people are black only, that people are actually shocked (and this is based on my own personal experience) when it turns out we have a white parent as well as a black parent.

Even in cases where our skin tones and features are evidently a mixture of our darker-skinned parent and our lighter-skinned parent.

I grew up watching - or at least being aware of - "white family sitcoms" like Full House and Modern Family, as well as "black family sitcoms" like The Cosby Show and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

But where were the black and white family sitcoms?

The short answer is there weren't any. In fact, until 2019's premiere of ABC sitcom Mixed-ish, I can confidently assume there had not been a single one.

On a more positive note, I would say that film and TV in the UK - specifically in England - tends to be a lot more inclusive of mixed-race people.

While there are nowhere near as many sitcoms and blockbusters in the UK, there are many popular, long-running soaps such as Eastenders, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, and Coronation Street.

In many UK soaps, there have been a number of half black/half white actors playing mixed-race characters. These include Hollyoaks' Dominique Jackson and Chelsee Healey, and Eastenders' Jessica Plummer and Belinda Owusu.

Sitcoms such as Chewing Gum and Sex Education have also featured mixed-race characters.

And 2007's Run Fatboy Run is one example of the UK's comparatively small overall film output, which happened to feature a mixed-race character in the main cast, played by Thandie Newton.

I should point out, though, that these are primarily London-based productions and they certainly don't signify that half-black people are recognised as mixed-race in the UK as a whole.

But the point is, if mixed-race characters can be included in UK-based programs, there’s no reason why that shouldn’t be the case in the US. Particularly as the US is a much bigger country with a much more substantial film industry.

Part of the reason that being mixed-race isn’t considered a feasible concept in the US is that "full" African Americans themselves tend to have varying amounts of European ancestry - mostly tracing back to the days of the transatlantic slave trade.

In fact, according to The New York Times, scientists have found that around 16.7% of the average African American's ancestry is European in origin.

Now, we don’t consider the average African American to be mixed-race even when they do have non-African ancestry, so why differentiate simply because a member of the community happens to have a white parent?

I would argue, however, that this fact does not have to mean that mixed-race people (that is, those with parents of different races) should not be portrayed as just that - mixed race.

And unless it's due to a personal dislike of interracial families - I don't really see how you could argue against it.

One of the most high-profile mixed-race actors in Hollywood right now is recent Emmy-winner Zendaya.

The 24-year-old had her breakthrough role back in 2010 as Rocky Blue in Disney’s Shake It Up.

Now, in real life, Zendaya has a white mum and a black dad. But surprise, surprise, when casting her character's parents, execs of the show (thinking it was 1910 rather than 2010) chose not to portray them as an interracial black and white couple.

Interestingly, some argue that this type of casting actually benefits mixed-race actors, who are often considered "light-skinned" black people in the African American community.

It is argued that "light-skinned" black people are seen as the more "palatable" face of the black community, and are therefore able to secure more roles.

In fact, Zendaya herself once agreed with this theory, saying she was Hollywood's "acceptable version of a black girl".

"As a black woman, as a light-skinned black woman, it's important that I’m using my privilege, my platform to show you how much beauty there is in the African-American community," she said speaking at 2018's BeautyCon Festival. 

"I am Hollywood's, I guess you could say, acceptable version of a black girl and that has to change," she added.

This is a valid critique that applies to the entertainment industry as a whole, where black artists with significant European heritage tend to - with some exceptions - find it easier to achieve mainstream popularity.

In the music industry, performers like Drake, Beyoncé, and Barbadian-born Rihanna have become the face of the black community, leaving some darker-skinned African Americans to feel that they themselves don't cater to a Western audience.

This, as well as the marginalisation of mixed-race identities, needs to be addressed.

Now, I don't want to jump the gun here, but I do feel that it is changing - albeit incredibly slowly.

In fact, nearly a decade on from her days as a Disney starlet, and Zendaya is now starring in HBO's Euphoria - in which, miraculously, her character’s mum happens to be black and her dad white. (Again, mixed-race representation really is that simple.)

Other examples of mixed-race characters I have encountered in recent years include:

American Honey's lead character, Star (Sasha Lane), Glee character, Jake Puckerman (Jacob Artist), Grey's Anatomy character, Jackson Avery (Jesse Williams), and 13 Reasons Why character, Jessica Davis (Alisha Boe).

As fantastic as this is, it would be great to get to a point where I don't instinctively double-take every time I see a mixed-race actor playing - you know - a mixed-race character.

Because contrary to what mainstream media would have you believe... black and white are not mutually exclusive.

A man has taken to social media to share a video perfectly explaining why "white pride" really isn't a thing.

Sharing a video to his TikTok account, Michael - who goes by the handle @tizzyent - did a video response to a question he received on a previous video in which he was asked: "Why can't you be proud of being white?"

Michael, who has 1 million followers on the platform, said in no uncertain terms that there is "no such thing as white pride".

He then went on to explain the reasons why - despite there being a visible presence of white nationalists in the US - it isn't a thing.

"There is no such thing as white pride, in part because there is no white culture," he explained.

He continues, "You can have pride based on your ethnicity, like Scottish, German, Irish. You can have regional pride, like Southern pride. These things usually apply to your cultural identity like how you grew up etc."

"And some people argue ‘well other colors have pride’, and no, they don’t. Chicano pride, Latino pride, Asian pride, those aren’t colors," he explains.

However, there is one exception to this rule, according to Michael - Black pride.

It is important to note, though, that he is referring specifically to Black pride in an American context, where, as a result of the transatlantic slave trade, many Black Americans lost touch with their roots.

And so Black people in the US - generally speaking - do not know about their specific heritage aside from the fact that they are Black.

"They’ve had a unique experience no one else has. Black Americans were robbed of their culture. They don’t know where they come from. Two Black Americans meet, they could have come from warring African tribes, they don’t know," he says.

"What they do know is that their American experience was similar. In other words, the thing that connects them is the color of their skin and how society has treated them as a result," Michael continues.

Michael then goes on to explain that the terms white pride and Black pride have very different origins.

"You also have to consider where the terms White pride and Black pride originated; White pride was coined by White supremacists. Black pride is from the Black Power and Civil Rights Movement," he states.

"One represents superiority and hate and the other a fight for equality."

Michael's video has received an impressive 3.2 million likes and over 60,000 comments at the time of writing.

Many of his followers have taken to the comments to praise his insightful and enlightened explanation:

Spike Lee has stated that Black people are "still hunted down like animals" in the US as he slammed world leaders including former president Donald Trump.

The 64-year-old film director, who is the first Black person to lead the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, spoke passionately about recent racial tensions in America at the renowned festival.

"When you see brother Eric Garner, when you see king George Floyd, murdered, lynched, you would think, you would hope that thirty-some motherf***ing years later Black people would stop being hunted down like animals," he said, per Reuters.

The Do The Right Thing director even wore a cap with "1619" printed on it in reference to the date which saw the arrival of the first African slaves in Virginia.

Using his nickname for Trump, Agent Orange, Lee went on to say in response to a question about anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, per People: "This world is run by gangsters: Agent Orange [Donald Trump], there’s a guy in Brazil and Putin. That’s it: they’re gangsters.

"They have no morals, no scruples. That’s the world we live in. We have to speak out against gangsters like that."

In an interview with People last year, Lee spoke about what action needed to be taken in the US in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.

He said: "We have to look at everything as we enter A.C., or After Corona. The inequality between the have and have nots, the racial injustices. This country has to, and must, rectify what's wrong."

Lee added: "We have to make a concerted effort at all levels to address American life, and the areas where we've been lacking. All those deaths will have been in vain if we go back to the same thing."

This year at the festival, five of the nine-member jury are women, which means they are a majority for the fourth time in Cannes' history.

Needless to say, the topic of female representation was also a point of discussion at the festival.

Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal said, per Yahoo! News: "When women are listening to themselves and really expressing themselves, even inside of a very, very male culture, we make movies differently, we tell stories differently."

Featured image credit: PA Images / Alamy

Despite the fact that we are now in 2018, the phrase "not all white people are racist" is still used whenever challenging the issue of racism in modern society. All too often, the phrase is used in order to distract from the real discussion taking place and, more often than not, it leads to the issue being swept under the carpet with everyone being safe in the knowledge that, "not all white people are racist."

Much like the "all lives matter" and "blue lives matter" movements, "not all white people are racist" takes the conversation away from the crux of the matter: the experience of racism that often comes at the hands of white people.

This, of course, has been a long-running discourse, with legendary boxer Muhammed Ali tackling the issue on a UK talk show over 40 years ago.

Ali, who was known for his activism outside of the ring, appeared on Parkinson in 1971 and went on to address the issue regarding the "not all white people are racist" line of thought.

The boxer spoke about a variety of different subjects while making the appearance, and was particularly eloquent when it came to discussing race and culture. During the interview, Ali tore the controversial phrase apart, showing how whimsical the thought process behind the phrase, and the concept in general, really is.

He told Parkinson: "There are many white people who mean right and in their hearts wanna do right."

"If ten thousand snakes were coming down that aisle now, and I had a door that I could shut, and in that ten thousand, one thousand meant right - one thousand rattlesnakes didn't want to bite me, I knew they were good - should I let all these rattlesnakes come down, hoping that that thousand get together and form a shield? Or should I just close the door and stay safe?"

Ali goes on to ask: "Do you understand?" Before adding: "In Viet Cong, they're not all bad but Americans still dropping bombs."

"In Hiroshima, Japan weren't bad but they dropped a bomb.

"In Korea, they weren't bad but they still dropped a bomb.

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"So now I'm going to forget the 400 years of lynching and killing and raping and depriving my people of freedom and justice and equality...and I'm going to look at two or three white people who are trying to do right and ignore the million trying to kill me? I'm not that big of a fool."

Ali's words were met with a round of applause and left Michael Parkinson completely speechless.

Sadly, even though this interview was conducted over 40 years ago, Ali's words still ring true today. It's a tribute to his legend that he was not only ahead of his time, but also ahead of our own. Furthermore, it also must be seen as a huge problem in society that these archaic views regarding racism haven't actually altered much in the last 40 years.