I always love Jordan Peele’s work. From Us to Get Out to NOPE, his skill and ability to create fantastical storylines while seamlessly sewing in serious and important themes has made him easily one of my favorite directors. I remember first seeing NOPE when it came out in theaters and having no idea what the movie was about, however, knowing Jordan Peele, I was expecting a horror or psychological thriller. When OJ is scared by Jupe’s children in the barn, before we actually know they are just kids, I remember being terrified and imagined the movie to turn into something reminiscent of Us but with ‘them,’ the typical ‘little green guy.’ However, when that turned out to be a false jump scare and we learn the ship is the alien itself, I loved how the film morphed into a new genre and fresh take on a western science fiction film.

One of my favorite things about Jordan Peele is his ability to hide so many hints on the plot in the films that I still seem to find more every time I watch. This was probably my fourth time watching NOPE and I decided to focus on this music, and specifically the lyrics and meaning behind the song choices, since Professor Zinman had suggested thinking about the lyrics as part of sound when we were talking about the clip from the midterm. When I looked up all of the songs used in the film, I was again left applauding Peele for his clever and calculated choices he includes in his films. The first song we hear is ‘Walk on By’ by Dionne Warwick when OJ and Em are walking into their house after first deciding to try and capture a video of the UAP. ‘If you see me walkin’ down the street/ And I start to cry each time we meet/ Walk on by/ Walk on by,’ are the first lyrics we hear. This song is about heartbreak and the desire to be ignored and move on, which I think ties perfectly into Peele’s overall theme of the implications of spectacle. For example, in the film, Jupe goes through an extremely tragic event in his childhood and sees Gordy the chimp brutally beat his co-actors and destroy the set, however, the first time he talks about the event, he is giddy and laughing about an SNL skit replicating the horror. With this initial song, Peele is suggesting what most of us really want in the face of tragedy which is to be left alone and forgotten. Later in the film, when Ghost is in the arena, Em puts on ‘This is the Lost Generation’ by The Lost Generation and Ghost runs off into the distance. This song is again right on the nose from Peele as ‘The Lost Generation’ refers to the generation who witnessed the horrors of the war and struggled to continue with their normal lives in the post-war era. This again relates to the overall theme of how tragedy can impact humanity, but it also can be related to the lost history of Hollywood and black contributions. This scene could be also interpretted literally as we see ‘A scared Ghost from The Lost Generation,’ another nod from Peele of the thematic undertones of this film. Finally, Peele’s use of ‘Sunglasses at Night’ during the stalking of Jean Jacket after it eats all of Jupe’s Claim, is again a beautiful nod to the themes of respecting rather than toying with spectacle. The song is basically about a narrator telling his girl that her deceptive practices aren’t unnoticed, as the shades are just a symbol of his powers of insight and intuition. In the song, the lyrics, ‘Her storylines are well-known to him, as deceptive as she thinks she might be: And I wear my sunglasses at night / So I can, so I can / See the light that’s right before my eyes / You can’t control me I turn to her and say’ can be seen as representing how OJ feels with Jean Jacket, that he can outsmart it. This can even be seen literally in the film when he cracks his door slightly to get a view of Jean Jacket and is only able to see it once light is literally illuminating his eye, but, we learn later that eye contact is exactly what makes Jean Jacket hunt. The distortion of the song shows that Jean Jacket does have the upper hand, especially when the decoy is thrown back through the window barely missing OJ as if Jean Jacket is taunting him. It isn’t until later in the film when they actually use the distortion of this song to their advantage to lure Jean Jacket that OJ realizes, you can’t tame a predator’, ‘you have to come to an agreement with one.’

Overall, I really enjoyed looking into the music in this film and seeing how Peele thematically and literally linked the lyrics and meaning into his film. NOPE is both multigeneric and multithematic using horror, science fiction, and western to comment on the ethical implications of spectacle, Hollywood history, and preservation of legacy vs tragedy. I always love watching easter egg videos on different Peele movies, however, I had never seen the music mentioned so I hope you all enjoy seeing his genius manifest in yet another form.