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 animexploitation for spectacle, while it also underscores the blurringboundaries between human and non-human oppression, since, asSusanne Kappeler (1995) claims, animal oppression interconnects withother forms of domination. Peele’s film also swings between ClauLévi-Strauss’s statement (1963) that animals have often been a projectionof human subjectivity, and Steve Baker’s allusion (1993) to the alienatingqualities attached to animals in cultural representations. Besides, the fiexplores various approaches to the animal-human bond, ranging fromanthropomorphism to animalism and the advent of critical animalstudies. As Derek Ryan (2015) argues, in anthropocentric theories,hierarchical divides between animals and humans are based on eitherundervaluing animal life or inflating the significance of humanity, giway to Peter Singer’s notion of speciesism. In contrast, as Eric Olson (1997)contends, animalism rather asserts that humans are also animals, thusestablishing a mutual interconnection between non-human and humananimals. Finally, as Dawne McCance (2012) claims, from the perspective ofcritical animal studies, the focus shifts from attending to what animalsmean to humans to what animals mean in themselves. Peele’s film alpaves the way for addressing the politics of subjectification acommodification in contemporary ontological debates about animalinsofar as, through the emergence of a new species, the power structuresof the gaze between non-human and human animals are addressed andsubverted. It is the aim of this article to approach Peele’s film Nope ascontemporary ecofictional cinematic narrative by means of exploring tdynamics of agency and oppression involving diverse species, therelations established between non-human and human animals, and thesymbolic trope of the gaze in the culture of spectacle.