Horror
Bioethics In Popular Media: NOPE (2022)
Jordan Peele came to prominence as a director with his debut movie GET OUT. The film shook American culture by exposing the complex layers that racism can take, especially among the more progressive side.
This year, he came out once again with NOPE, a masterpiece that left audiences divided as the themes were as complex as they were difficult to grasp. If you were looking for an explanation of the themes, this is not the right article. However, I will talk about the bioethical questions this movie raised and maybe explain how the Monkey (Gordy) fits into all of that.
Nope: A Small Plot Summary (SPOILERS AHEAD)
The story follows OJ and Emerald who, after losing their father to a freak incident, must find a way to continue the business of horse training in Hollywood. Times are hard for the siblings.
Their personalities and goals do not align until they discover that a UFO is actively residing in their land. They want to take a picture of it and attain fame and fortune. When the siblings discover that the UFO is an animal, things take a turn for the worse, but our protagonists have a few tricks up their sleeves.
This movie touches on themes of exploitation of nature, erasure of people of color in Hollywood, the erasure of the staff and crew in the history of filmmaking, the society of the spectacle, chasing fame, and the importance of family. The beauty of this film comes from the multitude of ways it can be interpreted and understood.
My focus will be on the exploitation of nature as it relates to the spectacle using the treatment of the different animals shown in the movie: the horses, Gordy (the monkey) and Jean Jacket (the Alien).
Bioethics: Overview
Once again, we are in the realm of environmental ethics, the branch of bioethics that deals with the relationship of humans and the planet as well as other non-human animals.
This time I will address the ethics of animals in media, the exploitation in the creation of media, and try to see if ultimately it is a bit of a contradiction to care about this issue at all.
Bioethics Explained
In the first seconds of the movie, we are taken to the set of a sitcom that follows the adventures of a white family with their adoptive Asian son Jupe, as well as their pet monkey Gordy; We are celebrating the monkey’s birthday. Suddenly, a balloon pops and chaos ensues.
We are privy to a spectacle of violence as Gordy beats multiple crew members to death and disfigures a little girl. We are watching this horror through the POV of Jupe, who is hiding under the table, the transparent decorative cloth covering his eyes. Gordy then comes in for a fist bump when he is brutally shot by someone and falls to his death.
This 5-minute sequence establishes the themes of the movies: exploitation and spectacle. Gordy is a monkey who should not be working on a set full of stressors, lights and other triggers that might set him off. By trying to tame a dangerous animal for entertainment, humans paid the price with their lives, but the animal did not win either as it was itself killed.
The same thing happens with the horses. They are trained and tamed for different roles in Hollywood, but when new technology is created to digitally add them in, they are left to the side. In this movie’s case, they are sold only to be sacrificed to the alien.
The third animal, the alien, is given the same treatment. Jupe tries to tame him, forgetting that forces of nature should be left alone. When they are disrespected and disregarded, they act, well, like an animal. Jupe’s negligence leads to the death of strangers who paid to see the show, his family and himself. The alien loses its life at the end of the movie too, killed by the balloon version of the man who tried to exploit it.
The three times the exploitation of animals is explored, it ends in tragedy and misery. So what is the lesson, and why should we care? After all, we kill and eat billions of animals every day.
Well, that depends on you. You have to wonder what makes some animals more valuable than others? Why don’t we eat our pets? Why are some animals considered divine? Why do we feel disgusted about eating some animals and not others?
Animals should be protected because extinctions effect the survival of the planet. We are losing species every day and continuing this path is not beneficial. I am especially against using animals for spectacle because it is not necessary. We have technology that could erase the need to have wild animals in stressful and dangerous situations, for both them and the humans in their proximity.
Implications In Real Life
In addition to the physical threat that the wild animals can cause, the mistreatment of animals can lead to diseases when not properly handled (pandemic, epidemic, and large crowd maladies). Not only that, but the loss of keystone species can also shift the entirety of an ecosystem.
Protecting animals should be as far up in our lists as reforestation, sustainable living and reducing green house gas emissions because our planet depends on it.
