Jordan Peele’s Nope is a very good horror film by conventional measure. But fans of Peele’s socially conscious filmmaking may be interested in more than just its conventional thrills. Certain scenes, characters, and plot lines in the movie seem to indicate deeper symbolic content beneath the surface. What’s behind it all? Clearly, this a film simply begging to be explained by Movies Up Close.
To summarize the analysis to follow, Nope is a film about the struggle for authenticity amidst the contemporary pressures—especially concentrated in Hollywood—to sacrifice one’s individuality and conform to a narrow ideal.
How did I extract that from the story of two horse wranglers facing off against a deadly, airborne creature? Well, read on to become an expert on this crafty, subversive film. Although Nope, when interpreted correctly, is a challenging work, I’ll do my best to keep my analysis readable and…ahem…digestible.
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1. GORDY
Let’s start with the monkey. I refer, of course, to the horrific tragedy on the set of the show, “Gordy’s Home!” This involved a trained chimpanzee losing control on set and killing or maiming most of the show’s cast. Only child actor Ricky “Jupe” Park escaped unharmed, but he witnessed the entire catastrophe—a surely traumatizing experience.
But you wouldn’t know it from listening to Jupe (Steven Yeun) talk about it as an adult. While touring guests around his place, Jupe recounts the infamous incident with bravado, as if the disaster were merely a humorous anecdote. But his outward demeanor appears to be hiding his true emotional state: the editing in the scene conveys that he remains haunted by the incident.
Why such a disconnect between Jupe’s manner of retelling and his lived experience? Well, since he now runs a kitschy theme park based on his childhood fame, we can infer that putting a positive, nostalgic spin on his career is part of his livelihood. After all, he notes that “Gordy’s Home!” has gained a “following” and that a couple once paid him fifty thousand dollars to spend a night with his Gordy memorabilia. Clearly, Jupe has ample financial incentive to present guests with a happy story. And he has bowed to that incentive.
On the other hand, the movie’s protagonists, siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) Haywood, have stayed true to their Hollywood history. Their great-great-great grandfather was a pioneer in early filmmaking. Carrying on his legacy, they run the family horse ranch as the only Black horse wranglers in Hollywood.
But an early scene illustrates that retaining their authenticity has come at a cost. Hired for a television commercial, the siblings fail to fit expectations in various ways. Emerald arrives late, OJ won’t rush the horse for the cameras, and Emerald’s rollicking monologue about her family’s storied history exasperates the crew. Even OJ’s chosen nickname disturbs the commercial’s actress, who can’t hide being unpleasantly reminded of OJ Simpson. Not surprisingly, the Haywoods lose the deal for the commercial.
This episode appears to be only the latest in a string of business failures. To stay afloat financially, OJ has already sold several horses to Jupe. Now, Jupe wants to buy the whole ranch.
So while the Haywoods, unlike Jupe, have stayed true to their roots, the industry has punished them for it. Meanwhile, Jupe has thrived presenting a façade. Since all three characters are nonwhite, it appears that nonwhite people in Hollywood face a choice: either exploit oneself and lose touch with one’s identity, or face substantial business repercussions.
And the pressure on the Haywoods to adopt a more Jupe-like approach is growing by the day. Emerald, for one, has had enough of losing money and encourages OJ to sell the ranch. OJ hates the idea, but he appears to understand that things can’t continue at the status quo.
That brings us to our next section.
2. JEAN JACKET
At precisely this point in the movie, the movie’s “monster” appears.
Later dubbed “Jean Jacket,” this creature camouflages in the clouds and has a curious way of devouring its victims: it sucks them up through a single hole and digests them alive. Judging by the sound of their cries from inside the monster, the process is torture indeed.
Given 1) our summary of the Haywoods’ current dilemma, 2) the timing of the monster’s appearance, and 3) various aspects of the monster’s design, we can make a crucial symbolic interpretation: Jean Jacket represents conformation to Hollywood expectations.
Consider the creature’s main defense mechanism: camouflage. As we established in the previous section, blending in with surroundings is a virtue in Hollywood. Jupe has mastered the art despite being Asian in a predominantly White environment. His willingness to “camouflage” has allowed him financial success, while the Haywoods, who refuse to camouflage, have struggled. Jean Jacket’s camouflaging ability, then, invokes the social pressure that all three characters face.
Next, consider the mechanism of Jean Jacket’s killings. As previously stated, the monster sucks up and squashes together its victims for digestion. We actually see this occur in one brief shot, which emphasizes the intensely claustrophobic experience of the creature’s narrow entrails.
This represents the confining, claustrophobic experience of Hollywood. In other words, just as Jean Jacket compresses its victims together into one cramped tube, Hollywood compresses its own “victims” into one indistinguishable mass. It only rewards adherence to a narrow and restrictive type.
Finally, consider Jean Jacket’s weakness: inorganic material. The monster suffers damage when it sucks up objects, which it sometimes mistakes for living people or animals. In fact, its final defeat comes when it attempts to ingest a human-appearing balloon. This weakness represents Hollywood’s need to draw material from real, living people, surviving by “digesting” their individuality. It appropriates, in other words, their authentic experiences and histories. Mere “things” don’t suffice.
So we’ve established that Jean Jacket represents the homogenizing influence of Hollywood. But why does it attack the Haywood ranch?
It’s because, as we’ve said, the Haywoods are feeling the pressure to succumb to Hollywood expectations. Their financial hardship has made them vulnerable to that pressure.
A quick detour. Recall that early in the film, Otis Haywood, Sr. (Keith David) marvels at the recent success of one of the family horses in a movie gig. He happily predicts that even more business will come their way “for the sequel.” While he speaks, OJ looks askance at him, possibly thinking that this focus on money is unusual for his dad—normally a compassionate, dedicated horse wrangler.
At this moment, a coin falls from Jean Jacket in the sky and kills Otis.
The symbolic meaning of this event is that Hollywood has diminished Otis’ authenticity with the temptation of financial gain. Otis’ musing about financial gain conveys that Hollywood has indeed “killed” his independent spirit. Therefore, Jean Jacket, the manifestation of Hollywood conformity, literally kills him with a coin right through his eye. The takeaway: Otis’ sight was clouded by money. He had dollar signs in his eyes.
(A seemingly relevant note: Jordan Peele has never made a sequel to any of his films. We can only imagine how much he was offered for a Get Out 2.)
So Hollywood destroyed Otis Haywood, Sr. with its temptation of wealth. Will it get OJ and Emerald, too? That’s the symbolic drama of Nope.
3. LUCKY
Now about that shoe.
When young Jupe helplessly watches the chimpanzee on its deadly rampage, he notices a costar’s shoe inexplicably standing up on its heel. This image recurs multiple times during the film, and Jupe now keeps that same shoe in a glass case in his house. What does it mean?
Jupe hints at the answer right before he performs his doomed “Space Lasso” show. Apparently giving himself a pep talk, he whispers to himself: “You’re chosen.”
This belief in having been “chosen,” we can infer, was borne out of his unlikely survival of the “Gordy’s Home!” attack. In other words, Jupe has concluded that he was personally “chosen” to escape the chimpanzee—and, importantly, that he remains permanently blessed and invulnerable to disaster. This belief is represented in his mind by the miraculously upright shoe, which is why he prizes the shoe so highly.
And this same belief informs his risky decision to use Jean Jacket as a tourist attraction. The monster clearly presents an extreme danger. Yet Jupe dares to summon it because, again, he believes that he’s invulnerable to harm, having survived the chimpanzee while the shoe balanced impossibly in the background.
That’s the literal meaning of the shoe in the movie’s narrative. But, since we covered the symbolic meaning of Jean Jacket in the previous section, we can also symbolically interpret Jupe’s brazen behavior toward the creature.
Recall that Jean Jacket represents the conformist influence of Hollywood. Therefore, Jupe’s feeling of invincibility toward Jean Jacket represents his confidence that he won’t lose his individuality to Hollywood’s conformist pressures. He believes that protecting his personal individuality and authenticity isn’t necessary, since, as evidenced by the shoe, he’s “chosen.”
This is a tricky point. For further clarification, recall the following quote from Jupe’s show:
I believe that we are being surveilled by an alien species I call “the viewers.” And though they have yet to emerge from their ship, I believe they trust me. If they didn’t, I don’t believe any of us would be here right now.
Let’s closely analyze this strange quote. In the context of the movie, it’s undoubtedly a literal statement expressing Jupe’s belief in actual aliens. But we’re more interested in its symbolic significance.
The first point that will help us understand that significance is that “the viewers” in Jupe’s monologue represent Jupe’s audience, the “viewers” of Hollywood productions. Indeed, Jupe is being surveilled by “viewers.” After all, he performs every day for viewers at his park, and his childhood roles remain televised in syndication. He’s speaking to “viewers” at this very moment.
Jupe goes on to claim that the “viewers” have a mysterious “trust” in him. Continuing to use our symbolic framework, then, we can infer that Jupe has confidence that his audience personally trusts him.
Finally, Jupe explains that he has this confidence because, if “the viewers” didn’t trust him, “none of us would be here right now.” Extending our symbolic reading, then, Jupe interprets the continued attendance of his audience as proof that his fans have a special, personal trust in him. Without such trust, he reasons, they wouldn’t have turned out to see him: they wouldn’t “be here right now.”
Let’s combine this symbolic interpretation with our earlier conclusions and summarize that Jupe has construed his ongoing fame as evidence of a special bond between himself and his audience—a bond that makes him immune to Hollywood’s damaging pressure to conform to a narrow ideal.
We established earlier that the upright shoe represents Jupe’s belief in that immunity. Thus, we can finally explain the shoe’s true symbolic meaning. In essence, the shoe signifies a kind of celebrity’s grandiosity, a belief that Hollywood success proves that one is invulnerable to all potential pitfalls.
And, of course, this belief proves incorrect. Jean Jacket in fact does devour Jupe, along with his entire audience. This represents Jupe’s loss of authenticity that we covered in the first section. Despite his faith in the specialness of his own stardom—in other words, his faith in the shoe—Jupe is nevertheless chewed up and digested into the conformist Hollywood machine.
We’ve noted that Jean Jacket’s digestion appears torturous and horrific, reflecting the pain of losing one’s identity. And indeed, several moments before Jupe’s death suggest serious emotional suffering.
For instance, as previously mentioned, when he narrates the filtered version of the “Gordy’s Home!” incident to OJ and Emerald, he involuntarily flashes back to the real thing, suggesting difficulty maintaining the façade. And before his Space Lasso show, he relives the gruesome catastrophe in even more detail, needing his wife to startle him back to reality. Pressured to suppress his bad memories and even outwardly refute them, Jupe is becoming consumed by his darkest traumas.
The film’s opening quotation from the Bible hints at this kind of anguish:
Nahum 3:6: “I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.”
Hollywood has indeed made Jupe a “spectacle.” The longer he exploits himself, the more “vile” he becomes, experiencing the horror of losing his identity, signified by Jean Jacket’s murderous attack.
In summary, the balancing shoe gives Jupe false confidence that his fame makes him invulnerable. This surely applies to many or even most celebrities. After all, anyone with a large audience may naturally conclude that they have a special, personal bond with their viewers and fans (“I believe they trust me”). They may feel safe from the “typical” Hollywood decline. But in reality, as Peele shows us, Hollywood is insatiable. It readily devours anyone, even the most famous stars, taking their identities and subsuming them into sameness. And this experience is terribly painful.
4. NOPE
So how does one defeat the monstrosity of Hollywood’s homogenizing influence? Well, we’ve already noted that Jean Jacket falters when presented with nonliving objects. Like Hollywood, the creature requires living things to digest and assimilate.
But there’s another useful tactic against Jean Jacket: averting one’s gaze. This fits with our symbolic framework. If you don’t view Hollywood content, you’ll be immune to its pressures.
(Note that the monster’s “eye,” which appears late in the movie, is rectangular and flickering, reminiscent of a screen. The message: Hollywood sees us not as people or even animals—but only as potential material for onscreen entertainment. In fact, at times in the movie, Jean Jacket’s rectangular vision frames the movie screen for us, subliminally linking the creature’s vision with cinematic entertainment.)
Finally, Peele thematically emphasizes one more way of fighting the monster: with a camera. Much of Nope consists of the characters’ attempts to capture footage or photographs of Jean Jacket. This doesn’t cause literal harm to the creature, but Jean Jacket explodes at nearly the same moment at which Emerald finally succeeds in photographing it—subliminally linking its visual capture with its death.
Symbolically, this is important: depicting Hollywood on film or camera may expose its toxic aspects, thereby weakening it. And isn’t this what Peele has done by making Nope? He’s encouraged us to reflect on Hollywood’s degrading pressures to conform. He has turned the camera around on the Hollywood monster. (OJ’s orange “Crew” sweatshirt in the finale underscores the symbolism of the characters “shooting a movie” about the monster and what it represents.)
Plus, by finally obtaining an image of Jean Jacket, perhaps the Haywoods can cash in, thereby relieving their financial strain and allowing them to retain their independence and authenticity. This, one might say, is how Peele has retained his own independence: by making a successful movie about the negative aspects of Hollywood. Note that the Haywoods’ last name is similar to “Hollywood,” but still somewhat different. This suggests a successful modification to the Hollywood standard.
The Haywoods’ triumph, though, isn’t without collateral damage. They lose Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), an acclaimed cinematographer obsessed with the “perfect shot.” Antlers is a sincere artist who has kept his ideals intact. For example, he avoids too much corporate influence by doing “one [job] for them, one for me.” But despite this commendable approach, he, like Jupe, gets sucked into Jean Jacket, symbolically assimilated into the Hollywood machine. Why this terrible fate for Antlers?
It appears to be due to his obsession with stylistic perfection at the expense of valuing content. After all, Antlers captures footage of Jean Jacket, an incredibly significant achievement. But he doesn’t recognize that significance. Instead, he risks it all to get a perfectly angled shot of what he had already captured. As a result, he becomes symbolically mashed into narrow Hollywood sameness.
The meaning of this moment is that content, not form, is what determines important filmmaking. Obsessing too much over style and technical matters may distract from defying Hollywood standards. (Recall that Antlers spends much of his time admiring uneventful nature footage, reinforcing his indifference to subject matter.) Thus, Peele, a socially conscious filmmaker who generally eschews arty cinematic style, highlights his own filmmaking credo with his portrayal of Antlers’ demise.
Also falling victim to Jean Jacket is a TMZ reporter who inopportunely rides on to the scene. Given this man’s irksome prying in his brief appearance, his fate is no surprise, either narratively or symbolically. But note that the reporter’s helmet, which is silver with a single “eye,” looks awfully like Jean Jacket.
Thus, not only does the TMZ reporter die via Jean Jacket, but Peele also conveys that the man is similar to Jean Jacket. The gossip reporter is an agent of Hollywood conformity and social pressure, hence his visual linkage with the monster who embodies those goals.
Let’s also discuss Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), an offbeat supporting character. Like the Haywoods, Angel encounters several attacks from Jean Jacket. This makes symbolic sense, because just like the Haywoods, he is under pressure to sacrifice his authenticity. His girlfriend recently dumped him after landing a Hollywood role, so it’s only natural that he would consider conforming to a more mainstream Hollywood presentation. Therefore, like the Haywoods, Angel is vulnerable to Jean Jacket’s symbolic danger. Whereas the Haywoods’ vulnerability stems from financial strain, Angel’s stems from romantic strain.
Angel, though, escapes Jean Jacket in the end. That leaves him, OJ, and Emerald as the three characters to avoid symbolic compression into conformity. In our day and age, that’s no easy feat.
This holds true whether we live in Hollywood or not. After all, media ideals everywhere create pressure to conform. In America more broadly, for instance, we celebrate the idea of a “melting pot,” but the melting can go too far, threatening diversity and even personal identity.
In summary, temptations abound to fit in. But Peele reminds us that to avoid the anguish of being digested into bland uniformity, we must reject those temptations. We must decline when pressured to sacrifice our history and our experiences. We must say, again and again:
Nope.
—Jim Andersen
For more movies explained, check out my piece on Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
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