Nope director Jordan Peele finally confirms the meaning of the mysterious shoe in the middle of the movie’s most harrowing scene. Much like his prior two movies Get Out and Us, Peele’s third feature-film Nope seems specifically designed to invite all sorts of wild theorizing and interpretation. And no single moment in Nope engendered more speculation than the film’s horrifying Gordy sequence, in which an young Jupe witnessed his chimpanzee TV co-star going on a rampage and mauling several people.
As harrowing as the Nope chimpanzee attack scene was by itself, it was one specific moment in the center of the carnage that really got people’s attention: the appearance of a single shoe, thrown from the foot of one of the mauling victims, impossibly standing on end.
Fans have indeed had their say on what this image was supposed to mean, many seeing it as tying in with the film’s overall theme of “bad miracles.” Now, Peele himself has confirmed that this bad miracles idea was spot on. Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Peele offered up the meaning of the shoe (around 34:49 of the above video):
The shoe represents a moment of where we check out of a trauma. And Jupe, he zones in on this little shoe, that’s Mary Jo’s shoe, that has landed in a precarious, odd situation. And this is the moment that he disassociates. So the shoe for me is in essence, in one way it’s the impossible shot. That’s an impossible moment.
Nope’s “Bad Miracles” Idea Explained
Peele then went on to confirm that Mary Jo’s hovering shoe ties in with the movie’s theme of “bad miracles,” an idea Peele himself teased in an early tweet accompanying the trailer. The bad miracles theme is in fact introduced by Daniel Kaluuya’s character O.J. when early in Nope he asks, “What’s the word for a bad miracle?” In the case of Jupe, the bad miracle of the floating shoe proves to be a life-saver, as his momentary dissociative fixation on it causes him to not make eye contact with the rampaging Gordy, thereby sparing him from suffering the same fate as his co-stars.
The bad miracles idea is then expanded upon throughout Nope, as later on an adult Jupe shows he didn’t learn the right lesson from his encounter with the phenomenon, failing to avert his gaze from the UFO Jean Jacket, apparently believing himself to be magically protected by the shoe, which he preserves like a religious artifact. O.J. on the other hand does come to see the significance of bad miracles, like the one that killed his father, and realizes that the only way to spare himself from being taken by Jean Jacket is to look away as though faced with a hungry predator.
The very term “bad miracles” of course invites a Biblical interpretation, and Peele does in fact also address the indirect Biblical influence on Nope, confirming to Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz that the alien Jean Jacket’s design was inspired by the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion which was itself influenced by Biblical angels. Peele said:
I didn't want to be sort of literal that Jean Jacket or this ocular Nimbus species is an angel, but I do think that there is something about where evolution and design collide that leaves doors open that may or may not be answered in the future.
Peele here indeed seems to entice fans with the possibility that more answers to their Nope questions could be coming in future movies. That, if it were to happen, would surely be an example of a good miracle, and one fans definitely won’t want to look away from.
Source: Happy Sad Confused/YouTube