If you didn’t get the “Gordy’s Home” storyline in Jordan Peele’s Nope (2022), Commander Shipp offers a look at one character from the classic cartoon series Looney Tunes that may help you understand and connect with the rampage that kicks off the film.
When Nope originally came out in 2022, I was overseas and had to wait a bit to finally watch it. However, upon jumping online in hopes of having a great conversation with fellow cinephiles about the great themes (of which there are many), I found a lot of mixed reaction. Most of the impressions were positive, some were lukewarm, some people really didn’t get it, and / or wanted a bigger reveal. What was super clear regardless of how many people liked it was this:
What’s Up With the Gordy’s Home Incident?
For those that haven’t rewatched the film lately or need a refresher, a quick summary: Steven Yeun’s character Jupe is a lead character on the fictitious show Gordy’s Home. On the episode entitled “Gordy’s Birthday,” the trained chimp on the show goes mad and kills several audience and cast members after some balloons pop and sets off the chimp. After he finally settles down, he finds Jupe and they nearly recreate their patented fist bump before Gordy is killed, forever traumatizing Jupe (and setting the stage for his later actions).
There’s been some great video essays about this topic that I’ll link at the end, but they mostly agree in my opinion on what the arc means: The incident is meant to be another parallel to the film’s alien and / or the inherent issues of domesticating a wild animal, which dovetails with the Haywood’s experience training horses. However, before I explain in detail what that means or rethread areas that essays have already hit, I want to look at one character from Looney Tunes that might….yes, you heard that right, Looney Tunes…perfectly explains Gordy’s Home and the rest of the film.
The character is Michigan J. Frog
Remember this guy? The dancing frog that had a killer voice and would frequently be the obsession of money hungry entrepreneurs every time he showed up. The basic setup is that someone finds the frog, hears the frog can sing, and immediately lines up tickets or showings to showcase their surefire bet to the world.
Except it never ever goes like that.
Frequently, the poor sap that found the frog is left in ruins trying to convince the public of their finding, as they do show after show and the frog never dances for anyone except the original person. This basic setup has been the entire basis for Michigan J. Frog’s whole run-on Looney Tunes, with the only exception being his usage on the WB channel when he became the unofficial mascot (which ironically meant he did sing for millions).
However, the real genius in this sketch lies in what it says about us and the characters who fall into the frog’s unintentional trap: it’s folly to think you have absolute control over an animal. No matter how comical it might be, how adorable your pets are, or how much you love interacting with animals at the zoo or other spaces where humans and animals get to interact, those spaces are always going to be dangerous if you forget that point.
Real-Life Parallels
To be clear, that doesn’t mean that your dog is going to bite your face off if you put a top hat on them and ask them to do a ragtime number. However if you don’t have a healthy respect for the animal, it can come back to haunt you. When it comes to the frog, his new found owners never respect the reason he sings or his shyness, they just want to make the quick buck. The frog owes them nothing and has nothing to lose when he’s put in front of a crowd of millions. Similarly, Gordy, the Haywood horses, and the Alien don’t owe their captors / trainers anything, they can lash out at any time.
Case in point: the real life examples like Siegfried and Roy, who had decades of experience training lions and tigers and yet Roy was still maimed. Or, if you remember our obsession with Joe Exotic from the Netflix series Tiger King (2020-2021), which showcased multiple incidents of park members being maimed.
Both examples are relevant because they show maiming is possible even in the best controlled environments (Siegfried and Roy) or how destructive it can be with very little controls (Tiger King). There’s an allure of capturing and controlling the wild that humans have been obsessed with for generations. And as many times as it’s hurt us, we keep going back for more.
This thought hasn’t been lost on Hollywood surprisingly, as film series like Jurassic Park or King Kong regularly point out the folly in trying to control nature. With John Hammond in Jurassic Park, he loses entire islands due to his hubris and gets people killed in the process while the promoter in King Kong (there’s multiple versions of this character so take your pick) gets half of New York flattened before Kong is tragically killed. Both of these capitalists, to borrow a phrase from Ian Malcolm, “were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should” but as you’ll see in a moment, even their failures don’t hit the same as our Nope and Looney Tunes character.
The Frog vs Capitalism
The frog also serves as a warning, not solely against greed, but against unchecked capitalism. Think about this: aside from not only misunderstanding the frog’s singing intentions, what’s another thing that they fail to consider when profiting off the frog? Heck, you can also ask this same question to Joe Exotic or Siegfried and Roy…
Do I have any right to profit off of this animal?
It’s a question that if we asked it more, might lead to better outcomes and more responsible interactions with other living beings. I’m not stumping for veganism with this post (I’m a very avid meat eater, so long as we do so responsibly), but one reason I like the thought processes people are employing with these lifestyles is that they are actually asking that question of themselves, or more succinctly:
Am I okay benefitting from this type of system?
If the promoters who wanted to use the frog’s voice for their own gain had taken a second to have that thought maybe it would have saved them the embarrassment of booking sold out shows for a frog. Maybe it would have stopped Roy from suffering his injuries, or maybe, just maybe, Jupe doesn’t get a whole arena killed by his negligence.
Capitalism Crushes Dreamers, Reinforces Class
The very first appearance of the frog features a pretty normal dude, he’s down on his luck, but he sees the frog as his way out, a chance to make it in the world or achieve the “American Dream.” We all know that doesn’t work out and it parallels a lot of themes in the film: Jupe had a shot previously in his life as a child actor, but until Gordy’s Home…he was just the Asian kid in their in-universe fictional show Kid Sheriff. If that role doesn’t come along, he has a similar fate as Ke Huy Quan (Short Round in 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) who recently has had a resurgence with his character Waymond in Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022). He has admitted publicly how he quit Hollywood because the bigger roles just never came to him as an Asian actor. In Nope, Jupe never gets that kind of chance and takes a larger gamble with the alien in hopes of reclaiming his past glory.
The Haywoods deal with similar issues of race holding them back from bigger roles or opportunities, as their horse business was a direct response to being cut out of the history books. They have an inherent need to see that business stay successful so they don’t let their great-great grandfather’s (sorry there’s another “great” in there) legacy fall to the wayside. Naturally, they are also blinded by similar forces that Jupe falls prey to, as capitalism and years of racial discrimination in Hollywood have forced them into their own dangerous gamble with the alien. While their experience with animals saves them from experiencing Jupe’s fate, it would be foolish to say the Haywoods were necessarily better – they got lucky to a degree. There’s no guarantee that if they had their Michigan J. Frog moment earlier in life that they wouldn’t have been just as susceptible as Jupe was.
The dreamers (Jupe, Haywoods, Frog promoter) see their animal prospect (Alien, Horses, Frog) as a way out – a possible avenue to come out on top in the free-for-all that is capitalism. But it never goes according to plan: these characters are constantly beaten back down by the system, back into their place, back into their class.
It’s here that we have to bring back the capitalists of Jurassic Park and King Kong. Both experience awful public failures…but they largely escape unfazed. Hammond turns into a philanthropist and while we don’t know for sure how they will end up, King Kong’s promoter is alive and will likely remain in their same class. For capitalists like Hammond, if anything goes wrong, they will likely survive and just end up in the same class there were in. For anyone attempting to strike it rich / advance up the class ladder, they could die like Jupe, barely make it out like the Haywoods, or like the Frog promoter, they could end up in a worse economic position than they started.
Conclusion / Thoughts?
So, did you already love the Gordy’s Home incident? Did this thought experiment help you understand it better? Do you completely agree with the parallels or think Commander Shipp if off his rocket? Let us know over on our Discord.
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