The Dynamics of Agency and Exploitation, Animal-Human Bonds, and the Role of the Gaze in Jordan Peele’s Nope

Jordan Peele’s film Nope (2022) addresses issues related to anim
exploitation for spectacle, while it also underscores the blurring
boundaries between human and non-human oppression, since, as
Susanne Kappeler (1995) claims, animal oppression interconnects with
other forms of domination. Peele’s film also swings between Clau
Lévi-Strauss’s statement (1963) that animals have often been a projection
of human subjectivity, and Steve Baker’s allusion (1993) to the alienating
qualities attached to animals in cultural representations. Besides, the fi
explores various approaches to the animal-human bond, ranging from
anthropomorphism to animalism and the advent of critical animal
studies. As Derek Ryan (2015) argues, in anthropocentric theories,
hierarchical divides between animals and humans are based on either
undervaluing animal life or inflating the significance of humanity, gi
way to Peter Singer’s notion of speciesism. In contrast, as Eric Olson (1997)
contends, animalism rather asserts that humans are also animals, thus
establishing a mutual interconnection between non-human and human
animals. Finally, as Dawne McCance (2012) claims, from the perspective of
critical animal studies, the focus shifts from attending to what animals
mean to humans to what animals mean in themselves. Peele’s film al
paves the way for addressing the politics of subjectification a
commodification in contemporary ontological debates about animal
insofar as, through the emergence of a new species, the power structures
of the gaze between non-human and human animals are addressed and
subverted. It is the aim of this article to approach Peele’s film Nope as
contemporary ecofictional cinematic narrative by means of exploring t
dynamics of agency and oppression involving diverse species, the
relations established between non-human and human animals, and the
symbolic trope of the gaze in the culture of spectacle.