I thought that the movie “Nope” by Jordan Peele was a mix of horror, comedy, and Western. Throughout the movie, OJ and Emerald Haywood choose to deal with a foreign creature that floats around in the sky and eats horses and people. During the movie, I didn’t think much about the symbolism or meaning behind the narrative, but after watching a couple interviews, Peele’s motive became clear.

During an interview with TODAY, Peele mentioned how he wanted to make a spectacle, or “something that people would have to see”, but more specifically, the dark side of spectacles. Peele claims that “the idea of spectacle harms us in many ways, whether it is something that we are so obsessed by that we give it too much power because it has a spectacular nature to it or if it is because we use the spectacle to distract ourselves from the truth” (1:38). After listening to his interview about spectacles, I realized that OJ, Emerald and Angel stay in Agua Dulce and decide to track this creature voluntarily. They are obsessed with the idea of capturing the creature in film or in pictures that they are willing to risk their lives to capture an “Oprah” shot. Even until the last moment, Emerald rides the electric bike to the well to capture any pictures she can of the creature.

In addition to the relationship that people have with spectacles, Peele comments on the effects of society on his movie and the theme of spectacles. During the production of “Nope”, Peele discusses in an interview with “The Hollywood Reporter” that the George Floyd protests were occurring. We had talked about in class how society and history affects popular genres at the time, which I think relates to this in a way. Peele claims that he wanted to give his characters a weapon of reclaiming their narrative and highlight how photography and media can be powerful as opposed to “how the industry has kept [the black narrative] out of that” (21:30). Moreover, the main thing that I took away from this interview was that he emphasized the balance between giving spectacles the attention that they require, but not obsessing over them. Peele claims that recognizing the danger of certain negative spectacles is necessary, especially in relation to politics and Civil Rights.