On the surface, it delivers a tense monster-chase in the California desert.
Beneath the sci-fi horror thrills lie deeply layered themes.
Peele, known for the sharp racial satire of Get Out and the eerie allegory of Us, uses Nope to explore new frontiers of meaning while retaining his signature cultural wit.
The film follows siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer), Hollywood horse-wranglers who encounter something mysterious in the sky.
As they scheme to capture the perfect shot of this UFO predator, Peele weaves commentary on our obsession with spectacle and the erased legacy of Black pioneers in cinema.
The All-Consuming Spectacle
At its core, Nope is an examination of society’s appetite for spectacle and the danger of indulging that impulse.Peele has said the idea came from noticing how people can’t resist gawking at a car crash on the highway, even when it slows everything down.
In Nope, the awful spectacle is an unidentified flying predator nicknamed Jean Jacket that literally feeds on those who stare at it.
When characters look up in wonder or curiosity at the saucer-like entity, they risk being swallowed whole by a ravenous alien.
The only way to survive is to refuse to look, to say no and turn away.
In one memorable scene, OJ sits in his truck with the UFO hovering above and pointedly refuses to glance up.
He says no as he slams the door, embodying a survival instinct that contrasts starkly with the wide-eyed spectators who get devoured.
Peele illustrates this theme with parallel incidents.
Decades earlier, child actor Ricky “Jupe” Park survived a horrific event on the set of Gordy’s Home by not looking directly at the bloodied chimp rampaging through the studio.
As young Jupe hid under a table, he focused on a single shoe standing upright amid the chaos.
By looking there instead of at the chimp, he avoided eye contact and walked away unharmed.
That literal lesson saved his life.
In the present, however, Jupe draws the wrong conclusion and becomes fatally entranced by spectacle.
He believes he can confront the unknown for profit, confident he holds a special connection with beasts that others lack.
Once Jupe and his audience dare to stare openly at the alien, the spectacle strikes back and swallows them all.
That marks a new focus for Peele.
His earlier films were intimate nightmares: Get Out dealt with insidious racism behind smiling facades, and Us turned the nation’s underclass into eerie doubles.
Neither hinged on a single giant attraction the way Nope does.
Here Peele explicitly spotlights our culture’s voyeuristic hunger.
He opens the film with a biblical epigraph from the Book of Nahum, suggesting that the events ahead are a reckoning for humanity’s obsession with gawking.
In Nope, the eye of the beholder becomes a weapon turned against them.
As viewers, how often do we slow down to stare at tragedy, effectively feeding it with our attention?
Peele uses the alien, with its gaping eye-like maw, as a mirror to our own lust for sensational sights.
The creature wants to watch its prey but never be watched, evoking both thrill and peril.
Peele crafts a blockbuster that condemns our appetite for blockbuster spectacle even as it satisfies that urge.
We are left exhilarated by the show, yet uneasy that our very urge to look is under the microscope.
The Hunger for Profit and Exploitation
This theme runs alongside spectacle as a critique of monetization and exploitation, the capitalist drive to profit from anything extraordinary or shocking.In Nope, nearly every character who encounters the unknown immediately wonders how to turn it into a payday.
Emerald and OJ, desperate to save their struggling horse ranch, hatch a plan to capture the Oprah shot—clear, undeniable footage of the UFO that could net them fortune and fame.
They install a battery of surveillance cameras and hire a famous cinematographer, all for that lucrative evidence.
Across the valley, Jupe turns the UFO into a live show attraction at his Jupiter’s Claim theme park, selling tickets to witness horses sacrificed to the sky.
He assumes he can commodify this alien presence and revive his faded celebrity.
Peele holds up a mirror to Hollywood and our broader entertainment economy.
On a commercial shoot, the Haywoods’ horse Lucky is treated by a predominantly white film crew as just another prop.
OJ’s warnings go unheeded by the director eager to get the shot, resulting in chaos when Lucky kicks out in fear.
It’s a small-scale example of the industry’s willingness to endanger and exploit living beings for a thrilling product.
As critic Richard Brody observes, Nope positions itself as a film about exploitation and the cinematic history of exploitation as the medium’s very essence.
Peele nods to that history with references to King Kong and Jurassic Park, films where entrepreneurs monetize nature’s wonders with disastrous results.
He even includes a TMZ reporter who risks death for a scoop.
After being thrown from his electric motorcycle by the UFO’s electromagnetic field, the injured reporter panics not over his body but his still-recording camera.
Even on the verge of death, he pleads for OJ to film the spectacle properly—a grotesque testament to how deeply profit and fame infect our instincts.
The drive to monetize spectacle becomes almost a force of nature itself, overriding self-preservation.
The Haywoods embark on what the script calls a near-suicidal quest to monetize the monster.
They, Jupe, and the TMZ thrill-seeker all risk life and limb for glory or financial security.
Peele ties this back to the opening epigraph, suggesting that such rampant exploitation might invite judgment from above.
In a figurative sense, Jean Jacket rains down filth and blood on those who turn wonder into cold cash, delivering divine punishment for their for-profit show.
The film becomes a mythic cautionary tale where hubris and greed provoke the wrath of something ancient and vast.
Nature’s Revenge and the Uncontrollable Animal
Nope is also a tale of humanity’s attempt to tame nature and nature’s inevitable bite back.Peele presents Jean Jacket not as a typical flying saucer piloted by beings, but as a territorial beast.
That choice reframes the UFO story as a creature feature, a man-versus-nature Western.
The Haywoods slowly realize they aren’t dealing with a ship full of intelligences; the ship is the alien, a singular apex predator.
OJ, with his knowledge of animal behavior, is first to grasp its true nature: “It’s alive, it’s territorial, and it wants to eat us.”
His line strips away any sci-fi pretenses: humans trespass in a predator’s territory and face consequences just as swimmers do in Jaws.
Peele nods to Jaws, Alien, and The Thing, giving Nope that same cautionary ethos of running into a wild animal.
He raises the stakes by entwining that idea with our habit of overestimating dominion over nature.
The Gordy subplot makes it clear.
On Gordy’s Home, a trained chimp treated as a cute prop reverts to primal violence, with deadly results.
Producers ignored Gordy’s capacity for violence in their pursuit of a hit sitcom.
Young Jupe survived by sheer luck and by not making eye contact, not because of any innate charm.
Misreading his survival, Jupe believes he can tame the alien, only to repeat the same mistake on a larger scale.
The alien is no more controllable than the chimp, and Jupe’s confidence leads to dozens being swallowed alive.
Peele indicts human arrogance toward nature.
Every time Jean Jacket approaches, electronics fail—cell phones, cameras—all die in its electromagnetic wake.
Humans become slower prey without gadgets, forced to rely on analog film and untrained eyes.
It’s humbling. Some forces can be endured, not subdued.
While Peele’s earlier films didn’t involve animals so prominently, the dynamic of dominance upended is familiar.
Get Out revealed a predator-prey under liberal facades. Us saw a family threatened by literal shadows.
Nope externalizes that predator as a primal, alien beast operating by elemental rules.
Peele’s design for Jean Jacket evokes earthly creatures: lurking behind clouds like a hawk, reacting to eye contact like a territorial mammal.
When it unfurls, its billowing, jellyfish-like form merges the familiar and the otherworldly.
It becomes a mythic beast descending from the heavens, a dragon or leviathan brought to life.
The climax, with OJ on horseback facing the creature in a dusty arena, feels like a knight versus dragon duel set against a technicolor Western backdrop.
It is both modern and timeless.
Peele’s message rings out: human humility and cleverness—knowing when not to look, knowing when to run—allow survival against forces we cannot control.
Nature always has the final say when we treat it as a mere object or trophy.
Reclaiming Forgotten History and Black Identity in Cinema
Nope stays grounded in a human theme: acknowledging Black contributions erased or ignored by history.Early in the film, Emerald reminds a jaded commercial crew that the first motion-picture photographs showed their ancestor, Alistair Haywood, riding a horse.
No one in the room has heard his name before.
Many know Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion but not the Black jockey captured in those frames.
Peele seizes this omission and weaves it into Nope’s DNA.
By making the Haywoods descendants of that jockey, Peele gives a name and legacy to a figure left off history’s credits.
This theme runs quietly but powerfully through the film.
Unlike Get Out’s overt racial confrontations, Nope embeds the idea into premise and imagery.
The Haywoods supply horses to Hollywood but remain invisible margins.
Their pride in their ancestor’s pioneering role meets blank stares on set, reflecting how contributions of people of color go unrecognized.
Their quest to film the alien becomes an act of documentation and validation.
Securing that Oprah shot would cement their place in history, something already owed to them.
Emerald finally snaps the proof with a hand-cranked Winkin’ Well camera at Jupiter’s Claim—a triumphant moment of self-authorship.
It writes her family into a new narrative.
Peele has said that by existing as a big-budget genre film led by Black actors, Nope makes its own statement.
Race interacts with spectacle-making and exploitation, but the film’s very existence acknowledges those kept out of the frame.
Each nod to western, sci-fi, or horror genres becomes a way to insert Black protagonists into stories that once sidelined them.
The Western is reimagined as a Black cowboy tale, honoring a Black jockey whose name is finally spoken.
OJ’s Scorpion King hoodie and a Buck and the Preacher poster underscore an alternative Hollywood lineage.
These Easter eggs connect Nope to a tradition where Black cowboys and adventurers were always there, even when ignored.
Get Out made family sinister; Us made family fight shadows.
Nope narrows the focus to a sibling bond unique in Peele’s work.
On a ramshackle ranch they face a cosmic threat together, recalling 80s adventure films but with adult stakes.
They become pioneers of a new story, literally writing their name in the sky.
When Emerald locks eyes with OJ across the dust, confirming his survival, the human story eclipses the spectacle.
Brotherhood, Survival, and the Human Spirit
Nope is grounded in a personal story of family and resilience.OJ and Emerald Haywood embody very different personalities yet draw strength from their bond.
OJ is laconic, steady, attuned to the animals he trains—a modern cowboy figure.
Emerald is effervescent, ambitious, hungry to step out of her father’s shadow.
Early tension—Emerald chasing side hustles while OJ quietly struggles—gives way when the UFO appears.
The bizarre threat forces them into a tightly knit partnership.
Despite the danger, they remember who they are: Haywoods.
Emerald’s pep line, don’t quit, cements their unity.
The theme of family unity and survival gives the film its beating heart.
Peele crafts their relationship with warmth and humor—squabbles and jokes that lighten the mood.
When things unravel, they trust one another without question.
Peele visualizes that trust with a hand sign: two fingers from eye to eye to say I see you.
The salute recurs at critical moments in their plan to capture Jean Jacket.
Mythically, OJ and Emerald function as halves of a single hero.
OJ offers caution, strategy, courage; Emerald provides creativity, energy, determination.
Together they echo folklore siblings who overcome a giant by combining brains and brawn.
Peele invokes Western and sci-fi iconography with the Haywoods’ final stand.
OJ’s horseback charge against a raging dust cloud becomes a hero’s-journey tableau.
Emerald’s makeshift camera-balloon trap subdues the beast, and her triumphant click marks her rise as a hero.
In Get Out family was sinister; in Us family fought shadows.
Nope offers siblings facing a monster on a dusty ranch, a blend of Spielbergian adventure and Rolling Stone irreverence.
They carry on a legacy burdened by erasure and fear, and by film’s end they write their name across the sky.
They refuse to face the unknown alone, opting instead to signal I see you and face the sky side by side.
Conclusion
Jordan Peele’s Nope balances on a brilliant tightrope between popcorn entertainment and piercing cultural parable.
It thrills as a modern UFO adventure while dissecting our urges to look, to profit, and to matter.
The five themes—spectacle, exploitation, nature’s revenge, forgotten history, and family resilience—combine to give the film a rich, mythic resonance beyond its shocks.
Peele’s voice remains singular in contemporary cinema, sharp like a Rolling Stone critique and wonder-struck like a sci-fi sage.
Nope asks us to consider why we gaze at the extraordinary.
Are we prisoners to spectacle, risking everything for a moment of glory?
Or can we, when faced with the cloud-borne monster, find grounding in our shared history or the person beside us and live to tell the tale?
By blending cultural critique with grand filmmaking, Nope becomes its own Oprah shot—an undeniable spectacle that also captures something true about who we are.
Maybe next time we find ourselves staring up at a dangerous sight, we’ll hear that instinct whisper no, reminding us that sometimes the wisest choice is not to look until we’re truly ready to see.
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