NOPE Fan Theories

Intro

The bottom of my stomach feels like a pool of liquid lead each time I think about having my picture taken. The feeling is inextricably linked to an old birthday party memory, faded as old film. A cousin received a disposable camera as a gift when I was very young. Four generations of my extended family gathered around the old ones to make the most of the time we had left to share with them on this planet. I wish with all my heart to remember the story that was being told at the time, the story that got the old aunts to chuckle, and made everyone’s face crack into picture-perfect smiles. But all I can remember is the flash, the hushed gasp of my youngest aunts, the immediate disapproving silence, and how the flash of the camera changed the mood in the room so far in contrast, that if one could photograph emotions, this new mood was the photo-negative of happiness, home comfort, camaraderie with family, and the passing down of stories from one generation to the next. The flash changed everything in the room as sure as stepping through a portal to another dimension. In place of happiness there was disappointment, in place of the safe home hearth, there was an unwelcome in the air, antagonism replaced camaraderie, and clandestine secrecy suddenly halted the once open-hearted oral tradition taking place in the living room, all because of a single click, and flash.

“Don’t you dare take my picture,” the old woman hissed.

In place of a memory of the story she told, all I can remember is her voice in that moment. Her previous lighthearted warble, replaced by this growl between clenched teeth, directed at a family member in a tone of blood-curdling enmity, froze me in place. I had chills then, and I have chills now, remembering that day. An uncle struck the backside of the offending cousins’ head.

“You know’d better than that,” the uncle said.

Later I would whisper to my wise old aunt, “why didn’t she want her pitcher taken?”

“Lots of the old-timers don’t want their pitcher taken.”

“But why not?”

My aunt looked around, scanning for signs that ‘they’ might be around. When she whispered to me under her breath, I thought she said;

“Because it steels your soul.”

A moment later, after another thorough scan for signs of ‘them’, she continued:

“I never will forgive yer momma for having your pitcher taken when you’s a baby.”

A Black Man on a Horse

The first image in the new trailer for Jordan Peele’s upcoming film, NOPE, is Eadweard Muybridge’s moving photograph of a black man on a horse. Muybridge created the first mechanical shutters, made of wood, rubber springs and a trigger that would snap closed within one-thousandth of a second. Over this image we hear Keke Palmer’s voice explain that this first ever motion picture was of her great great grandfather. The scene ends with the sound of a camera shutter and a rapid series of starkly contrasting black and white images that pass in the blink of an eye.

At which point I find myself asking;
What if we are witnessing the history of the first man to have his soul stolen by the use of the motion picture?

The chills come back as I remember my aunt’s words.
She wasn’t alone. Others felt the same about my mother, and her practice of photographing me. They truly felt like my soul was at risk of being snatched. They felt that their souls needed protection from these things. Many of the old ones in my family held this deep-rooted superstition about having their picture taken. Not the best adjusted members, just the family members that had been pushed to the edge of society. The ones who would not call these things by their names, for fear of “callin’ ‘em”. The ones who would only say “if you do that, the boogers’ll getcha.”
They would call them boogers. They would never call them what they are. They are not aliens. But they’re not ‘not aliens’ either.

Slowing down the footage of the clip during the shutter sound, I see three distinct black and white frames:

Trapped in a Greenscreen

As it turns out in the next scene, we find Keke’s character in a film studio surrounded by cameras. She is on camera, depicted in a monitor on a green screen set. Above her hang a couple dozen circular can lights, their silver rings illuminated to show their volume. Keke could easily fit inside the hollow of any of these lamps.

Okay, so now I know that Jordan Peele is making a movie about making a movie. Meta, I like it. Nicely done, Mr. Peele.

In the next image, we see the character on an unnaturally bright green greenscreen set. In the world of Hollywood, this toxic shade represents nothingness, visually. She wears an equally toxic shade of bright green around her shoulders in the form of a shawl. This part of her attire would hide and disjoint her form were it chroma-keyed away with the screen backdrop. Importantly, she is wearing an animal skin print top that vanishes in a sea of this unnatural, toxic-tinted green as she twirls. Visually, she is both in this world, and nonexistant. Behind her, the character of James Haywood, played by Daniel Kaluuya, stands with a black horse.

The scene cuts to a different over-the-shoulder shot of Keke. We see the camera she is speaking to. The behind the scenes crew is predominantly white men. Any of the more diverse crew are relegated farther into the background, standing still in the spaces previously established for them, each surrounded on every side by white crewmen. Those closest to the camera are white men, seemingly organized by age, who watch with focused scrutiny. Keke points at the black hole of the camera lens, bringing attention to the prominence of its existence. The imagery is symbolic of white creators sucking up black talent with their cameras faster than humanly possible while outnumbered minorities watch from an enforced distance.

A gloved hand twists a black circular dial clockwise. In our next scene, a series of horses, white, gray, and red, walk clockwise for exercise, each tethered to a mechanical circle. My inner horse-girl is excited and happy to see them. My inner scholar is excited to see them in the old ceremonial order. My inner old-woman is overly concerned that they could be making a movie about the sacred stories we leave unsaid, but having seen Lovecraft Country, places some trust in Jordan Peele to give the appropriate respect to the stories.

Next we see James in an orange hoodie ride out on a black horse. An orange inflatable sky-dancer is partially deflated, and looks bent over the black fence to James’ right. The direction they are pointed is important through the rest of the trailer, as many important visual elements point right. Two other sky dancers in the distance bend toward the right, as if they are all pointing at something, or praying to something. They resemble the Navajo Sand Paintings of the Wind People. The sand painting, incidentally, comes with four of the Wind People; one in black, one in gray, one in orange, and one in white- similar to the colors of the Buffalo People sand painting. Throughout the trailer, James wears all of the colors that the wind people wear: Black, Gray, Orange and White. I believe that Jordan Peele utilized the camera used to shoot this film in a ceremonial way, and that this trailer is his opening ceremony in multiple ways. Not only was the trailer played as part of the Superbowl, an American ceremony in and of itself, the trailer also invokes the four directions in the ways the horses and people are captured in film. We see the black horse face toward the camera, away from the camera, and face right. We later see the white or silver horse face toward the camera and to the left. The trailer we are watching is, in a sense, also a ceremony, as jordan peele has used the art of filmography to create a ceremonial sand painting, not with sand, but with cinematography.

In the next scene, the sky-dancers are everywhere, all bowing repeatedly to the right, in every color imaginable, and in no discernable order other than maybe some constellations. We cut to an image of James in the foreground, blurred out, cleaning his saddle, while in the midground, an older black man in a cowboy hat, leans against a corral, and looks off to the right as a thin yellow dust cloud blows behind him, and blows offscreen to the right. This cuts to a scene of a white truck and horse trailer traveling to the left at speed, as a black horse peeks out from the open window in the trailer. We see the trailer in the fast lane as Keke’s voice continues to explain that they are the only black horse trainers in Hollywood and the only Black-owned horse ranch. The back of the trailer is stamped with the Haywood’s Hollywood Horses logo, the three H’s combined vertically to make a wavy image of a film reel, each frame with a horse centered in a different part of its stride. The curvature of the black lines in the H logo resembles a rope ladder blowing in the wind. Because of this, the horses depicted within the frames appear to be flying.

Keke’s character goes on to explain that ever since pictures could move, they’ve had skin in the game. A blase James mouths the expression in silence behind her, and the horse’s mouth moves as if it is also attempting to say their signature slogan. As she twirls, the back of the green shawl would completely obstruct the cheetah skin she wears and would visually disconnect her head from her body with the use of any greensceen chroma-key.

Dark Circles

As it turns out in the next scene, we find Keke’s character in a film studio surrounded by cameras. She is on camera, depicted in a monitor on a green screen set. Above her hang a couple dozen circular can lights, their silver rings illuminated to show their volume. Keke could easily fit inside the hollow of any of these lamps.

Okay, so now I know that Jordan Peele is making a movie about making a movie. Meta, I like it. Nicely done, Mr. Peele.

In the next image, we see the character on an unnaturally bright green greenscreen set. In the world of Hollywood, this toxic shade represents nothingness, visually. She wears an equally toxic shade of bright green around her shoulders in the form of a shawl. This part of her attire would hide and disjoint her form were it chroma-keyed away with the screen backdrop. Importantly, she is wearing an animal skin print top that vanishes in a sea of this unnatural, toxic-tinted green as she twirls. Visually, she is both in this world, and nonexistant. Behind her, the character of James Haywood, played by Daniel Kaluuya, stands with a black horse.

The scene cuts to a different over-the-shoulder shot of Keke. We see the camera she is speaking to. The behind the scenes crew is predominantly white men. Any of the more diverse crew are relegated farther into the background, standing still in the spaces previously established for them, each surrounded on every side by white crewmen. Those closest to the camera are white men, seemingly organized by age, who watch with focused scrutiny. Keke points at the black hole of the camera lens, bringing attention to the prominence of its existence. The imagery is symbolic of white creators sucking up black talent with their cameras faster than humanly possible while outnumbered minorities watch from an enforced distance.

A gloved hand twists a black circular dial clockwise. In our next scene, a series of horses, white, gray, and red, walk clockwise for exercise, each tethered to a mechanical circle. My inner horse-girl is excited and happy to see them. My inner scholar is excited to see them in the old ceremonial order. My inner old-woman is overly concerned that they could be making a movie about the sacred stories we leave unsaid, but having seen Lovecraft Country, places some trust in Jordan Peele to give the appropriate respect to the stories.

Next we see James in an orange hoodie ride out on a black horse. An orange inflatable sky-dancer is partially deflated, and looks bent over the black fence to James’ right. The direction they are pointed is important through the rest of the trailer, as many important visual elements point right. Two other sky dancers in the distance bend toward the right, as if they are all pointing at something, or praying to something. They resemble the Navajo Sand Paintings of the Wind People. The sand painting, incidentally, comes with four of the Wind People; one in black, one in gray, one in orange, and one in white- similar to the colors of the Buffalo People sand painting. Throughout the trailer, James wears all of the colors that the wind people wear: Black, Gray, Orange and White. I believe that Jordan Peele utilized the camera used to shoot this film in a ceremonial way, and that this trailer is his opening ceremony in multiple ways. Not only was the trailer played as part of the Superbowl, an American ceremony in and of itself, the trailer also invokes the four directions in the ways the horses and people are captured in film. We see the black horse face toward the camera, away from the camera, and face right. We later see the white or silver horse face toward the camera and to the left. The trailer we are watching is, in a sense, also a ceremony, as jordan peele has used the art of filmography to create a ceremonial sand painting, not with sand, but with cinematography.

In the next scene, the sky-dancers are everywhere, all bowing repeatedly to the right, in every color imaginable, and in no discernable order other than maybe some constellations. We cut to an image of James in the foreground, blurred out, cleaning his saddle, while in the midground, an older black man in a cowboy hat, leans against a corral, and looks off to the right as a thin yellow dust cloud blows behind him, and blows offscreen to the right. This cuts to a scene of a white truck and horse trailer traveling to the left at speed, as a black horse peeks out from the open window in the trailer. We see the trailer in the fast lane as Keke’s voice continues to explain that they are the only black horse trainers in Hollywood and the only Black-owned horse ranch. The back of the trailer is stamped with the Haywood’s Hollywood Horses logo, the three H’s combined vertically to make a wavy image of a film reel, each frame with a horse centered in a different part of its stride. The curvature of the black lines in the H logo resembles a rope ladder blowing in the wind. Because of this, the horses depicted within the frames appear to be flying.

Keke’s character goes on to explain that ever since pictures could move, they’ve had skin in the game. A blase James mouths the expression in silence behind her, and the horse’s mouth moves as if it is also attempting to say their signature slogan. As she twirls, the back of the green shawl would completely obstruct the cheetah skin she wears and would visually disconnect her head from her body with the use of any greensceen chroma-key.

About

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Sources and Works Cited

• http://chaudron.blogspot.com/2011/04/pollen-boy-on-sun-navajo-sandpaintings.html?m=1 Eugene Baatsoslanii Joe, Mark Bahti - Navajo Sandpainting Art - Treasure Chest Publications, Inc. 1978.
• https://www.etsy.com/listing/1160534589/navajo-and-laguna-pueblo-first-nation?click_key=1140c8ae96120d51424cb04272cb637111f87ff2%3A1160534589&click_sum=8e6e84c0&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=laguna+pueblo&ref=sr_gallery-1-5&sca=1
• https://www.si.edu/object/NMAI_281296
• http://philbrook.emuseum.com/objects/2655/the-wedding-of-art-and-science?ctx=a20697b5-9cad-426c-95d2-6accd29337d2&idx=3
• https://www.theclassroom.com/cherokee-beliefs-owls-5634.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8dfHBMhxKY&t=5s the navajo constellation Courtney Etcitty
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeha-Noha Navajo Shoe Game - shoe symbol on her purse
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al2f2bEs9Mc&t=134s ninánóh'aah

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Elements

i = 0;

while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
    print 'Iteration ' + i;
    deck.shuffle();
    i++;
}

print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';