KM Nelson Reflected On The Central Antagonist of “Nope”

For the third anniversary of Nope, KM Nelson wrote an essay for Heat Death pondering the film’s central antagonist and “how the film handles its nonhuman characters, and how it contends with the at-times fraught relationship between animals and humans.”  

Nelson told Study Hall, “The film has a lot to say about its human characters, as well as cinema and spectacle, but its portrayal of the nonhuman ‘other’ is what captivates me. Human primacy is a foregone conclusion in our stories, and while nonhuman characters abound (animals, creatures, and the like), they tend to be objectified, anthropomorphized, or presented as monsters. Jordan Peele and the film crew’s nuanced and grounded character design allows for Nope’s antagonist to become embodied — a character unto itself, rather than a one-dimensional monster.”

KM is an editor at Startmenu.co.uk.