Summary
- The standing shoe in Nope represents a "bad miracle," symbolizing the horrific consequences that can come from uncovering an alien presence.
- The shoe also highlights the movie's theme of turning tragic events into spectacle, as Jupe profits off the collectible despite the trauma it represents.
- The shoe's significance lies in its connection to the idea of protection or survival, as Jupe survived the chimp attack by making eye contact after noticing the shoe standing up. However, he fails to recognize the dangerous predator in the form of Jean Jacket later on.
The Nope standing shoe is one of the most puzzling and intriguing aspects of the horror movie. The latest from Get Out director Jordan Peele, Nope primarily focuses on an attempt to capture a UFO dubbed "Jean Jacket" on camera, yet a key subplot adds to the mystery of the movie. The backstory involves an incident on a sitcom that Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yeun) starred in as a child actor in which a chimpanzee performer attacked the cast. Amidst the chaos, young Jupe sees a shoe standing on its own in Nope's flashback sequence.
Strangely, however, the mystery of the standing shoe in Nope is never explained — not in the ending of Nope, and not even during the second depiction of the horrifying tragedy, which ended in the chimpanzee being shot dead. The movie shows the blue and white shoe standing upright with a few drops of blood on it. Jupe is later revealed to have kept the shoe and included it as part of a collection of artifacts from the sitcom. While there is no exact explanation given for why the shoe was pointing up in Nope, its real meaning can be found in the overarching themes that comprise Jordan Peele's latest entry into the world of strange sci-fi comedy.
What The Shoe Standing Up In Nope Really Means
Notably, when Nope protagonists and siblings OJ and Em Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) realize they are dealing with a UFO, OJ labels it a "bad miracle," which could explain the standing shoe in Nope. One of Nope's overarching themes is the concept of spectacle. As amazing as the uncovering of an alien presence is, the phenomenon comes at a horrible cost since the UFO dispelling waste killed their father and continues to wreak havoc. The shoe standing up in Nope could also be seen as a bad miracle given the unexplainable nature of the phenomenon and how it happened during a tragedy.
It plays into the movie's theme of turning tragic events into a spectacle, as Jupe is profiting off the collectible despite the trauma of its circumstances. There is also the reading that Nope's standing shoe is tied to how the movie examines predator instincts. Once OJ realizes the UFO is a living being, he realizes that they should not look Nope's alien villain in its eye. The movie repeatedly shows how some animals react poorly to eye contact and to reflections.
While several of Jupe's co-stars were attacked by the chimpanzee, he focused on the shoe standing up instead of the bloody incident. It was only after the animal calmed down that Jupe and he made eye contact, which led to the ape not attacking Jupe. In that regard, the miracle of the shoe standing up in Nope represents protection or survival — even though, as seen in Jupe's fate, the lesson was ultimately lost on the child actor.
Nope's Symbolism: Shoe, Gordy, & Alien Connection Explained
The standing shoe in Nope is just one of the many symbolic elements in the movie, and it's much easier to understand once the shoe's connections to Nope's other symbols are considered. For starters, the entire Nope subplot about Jupe surviving Gordy the chimpanzee's rampage by staring at the shoe is symbolic of how OJ would eventually learn to deal with the alien predator called Jean Jacket.
Rather than how the shoe remained standing, what's more important to consider is how this "bad miracle" allowed Jupe to dissociate from the ongoing traumatic event and survive — just like how OJ avoided getting hunted by Jean Jacket by looking at something else. In relation to this, while not much is revealed about Jean Jacket's origin or biology, Gordy actually symbolizes everything else that humans can expect from Jean Jacket's violently territorial species.
More importantly, Nope's plot is symbolic of modern capitalist society's attitude towards anything with the potential to be a spectacle. Whether it's a familiar trauma like Jupe's shoe or something completely alien and dangerous like Jean Jacket, humans will find a way to make any bad miracle profitable — as symbolized by how every single character in Nope is motivated by personal gain — even OJ who took the time to understand the creature's motivations.
In fact, it's notable how, rather than humanity's best experts on extraterrestrial matters, it was TMZ and a famous Hollywood cinematographer who were first on the scene. While it can be surmised that Nope is simply criticizing the entertainment industry's poor treatment of misunderstood animals for entertainment, even this aspect of the movie represents a larger, harsher truth in Nope's core message: humans are so enamored by the power of spectacle that we will literally do nothing and stare at it until it devours us whole.
Jordan Peele Confirmed The Nope Standing Shoe Meaning
Though audiences have debated why the shoe was standing up in Nope, the filmmaker himself has the final say on the subject. Jordan Peele explained Nope's shoe mystery and how it relates to the movie's theme of the "bad miracle," something that defies logic in a way that is fascinating even as it occurs in a traumatic way. As Peele explains, "the shoe for me is in essence, in one way it’s the impossible shot. That’s an impossible moment."
Peele also explains how the shoe affects Jupe in this moment when he was a child and how it explains how he remembers that moment. Peele reveals "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." This strange distraction helps explain how Jupe can view this horrific event in such a cavalier way. It also spells his doom in Nope as he fails to recognize the dangerous predator in his midst when discovering Jean Jacket.