The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)

Jordan Peele’s Nope addresses the power of looking. It’s about who has the right to look, and who is being looked upon. It’s about how that gaze can be manipulated to profit some at the expense of others. And it’s about reclaiming the right to look for people who historically haven’t been allowed to do so.

Nope is Jordan Peele’s third outing as a director, and like Peele’s other films, it’s full of layers. On the surface, it’s a classic alien encounter movie. A layer beneath that, you’ll find a critique of how we seek to turn everything into a spectacle. A layer beneath that, and you’ll discover a commentary on the power of the gaze. Yes, I’m talking about something akin to bell hooks’ “oppositional gaze,” which can be dangerous, political, and an instrument of resistance. Nope is ultimately about the way people of color have been looked upon and dehumanized by the white gaze but have reclaimed the right to look for themselves. The characters who best represent this message are OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), both of whom are paralleled with animals to emphasize the way they’ve been stripped of their humanity. 

In his very first scene, OJ is paired with the horse Lucky. OJ has come to do a screen test with Lucky for a commercial, hoping to finally get a gig that can keep the family business afloat after the loss of his father. A huge camera stares straight at OJ and the horse, trapping OJ and Lucky under its ominous gaze. All eyes are literally on him. The crewmembers order OJ to move the horse around, talking over him, and moving around him so quickly that he can’t speak up for himself or for Lucky, and even when he does, he’s ignored. He tells the crew not to get too close or look straight into the horse’s eyes, but they disregard what he has to say. When Lucky instinctively retaliates, OJ is the one punished for it by getting fired from the job.