What Does the Gordy Subplot Mean in Jordan Peel’s ‘Nope’?

Right now, Jordan Peele is three for three with his latest film, Nope, being his third box office smash (despite what some people and Logan Paul may think). It is a dense but interesting film about the nature of spectacle that works so well. It’s a different experience than I expected, and I can’t wait to watch it again—and one aspect I keep coming back to is the side story of Gordy.

Spoilers for Nope.

Steven Yeun plays Ricky “Jupe” Park, a former child star who was in a show called Gordy’s Home!, a ’90s sitcom that featured a chimpanzee that became violent during production. The ape attack features heavily as the animal, Gordy, is alarmed due to being startled by a balloon popping. He goes on a rampage and brutalizes his co-stars, save Jupe (played in the flashback by Jacob Kim).

Young Jupe is hiding behind a lace veil, and Gordy approaches the boy and attempts to give him a blood-covered fist bump, but is killed by animal control.

In the present day, Jupe has a Western-themed amusement park that’s promising something big. We see him buying more of the Haywood family’s horses, but he is reluctant to let them be purchased back. That is because he has been using them as food for the alien space ship that is hidden above the clouds. Jupe has been trying to “tame” the creature and make it part of his amusement park attraction.

However, he doesn’t understand that this alien is a predator and cannot be tamed. Rather than just being oggled at, the alien swallows up Jupe, his family, and the crowd of people who were looking at him.

Throughout the film, Daniel Kaluuya’s character of OJ Haywood is trying to be respectful of the temperament of the animals around him. He knows that they can’t be fully tamed, that they have their own individual temperament and not every animal is meant to be trained. It is a lesson that Jupe should have learned with Gordy.

Trying to deeply analyze Jordan Peele films can sometimes be … a lot, because people think everything is symbolic. Sometimes things just happen. With Gordy, however, there is a clear line Peele seems to be saying about the idea of turning creatures (and even people) into a spectacle.

Gordy may have been a friendly chimp, but he was still an animal, who shouldn’t have been on a soundstage with chaotic elements that could scare him. He got startled and reacted as his instincts told him to act. The murder of Jupe’s family confirms to OJ that this flying saucer isn’t a ship, but a predatory cryptid, one-winged-angel-style creature that acts when its dominance is tested when people look straight at it.

Basically, it is a long way of saying: fuck around and find out—animal edition.

At first, this doesn’t click, but as the film wraps up, it is hard not to ignore that while it seems out of place, Gordy is meant to teach us something about the way we choose to turn certain people and creatures into entertainment.

(featured image: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS)