A Guide to Black Cinema – Part 1: ‘Nope’, an introduction

 

Nahum Gale is studying for degrees in Journalism and Professional Writing and Arts in English and Creative Writing. His column ‘A Guide to Black Cinema’ will be published over the coming weeks. In his first, he reviews Nope.

 

 

 

“Now, did you know that the very first assembly of photographs in sequential order to create a motion picture was a two-second clip of a Black man on a horse? Yes, it was. Yes, it was. Look it up.”

 

…

 

A few weeks ago, in between classes at university, I took some time out of my day to attend a viewing of Jordan Peele’s newly released film, Nope. Peele, an African-American comedian turned effortlessly talented filmmaker, decided to take on a somewhat surrealist approach to his filmography with Nope, following on from his more strait-laced horrors such as Get Out and Us. The new film centred around a Black brother and sister duo attempting to keep their father’s Hollywood horse ranch alive amidst their economic downfall, all while the sudden arrival of a mysterious extra-terrestrial being preys on them from beyond the skies. Whack, right? I know, but, well, it just so happened, when the credits rolled, I pulled out my phone, texted my partner and immediately asked her to come see the film with me for a second time later in the week. A couple days passed and we saw it again, and I decided that Nope was, quite possibly, my favourite film of 2022 (so far).

 

But why? For you cannot just announce a movie is your favourite and just leave it at that. You have to explain yourself in some capacity. Or at least that’s what I think your obligation is and should be when discussing film. See, at university I study English literature, creative writing and filmmaking, so the discussion of cinema is quite frequently in my vocabulary. To be frank, no one talking to me about movies and literally any form of art that evokes narrative storytelling can just simply name drop a movie and leave it at that. There has to be more. Movies are more. Storytelling is more.

 

So, let’s try that again. Why did Nope so easily become a favourite of mine?

 

On surface level, Nope may be about cowboys and aliens, but the reason you love a movie should be more than just what you see. It’s how the movie makes you feel. That’s the important part. To me, Nope was truly a story about the troublesome commodification, appropriation, tokenism and consumption (remember these four words) of the Black experience, specifically in Hollywood.

 

Minor spoilers for Nope, but the means in which the themes of the movie come into play are rather natural, you see. The film stars a Black family living in Hollywood on a horse ranch, renting out their horses to film, television and commercial sets for profit whilst also claiming they are descended from the first man (a Black man) to feature on film, riding a horse. Whereas the brother, OJ, is rather timid and reserved, his sister, Em, is performative and exuberant, selling herself as an Oprah-stereotype to win the affection of the white filmmakers. Hence, she is forced to commodify herself into the form of a consumable, cookie-cutter shaped Black woman to receive any form of attention from them. Much like the horses that the family attempt to sell to the filmmakers, Em and her family serve a singular purpose in Hollywood and are forced to keep playing their part in the machine in order to fit in and succeed. OJ and Em’s father, meanwhile, is killed very early on in the movie when a coin – a token – rains down from the sky and impales his eye, skilfully foreshadowing the eventual alien menace. This action is however also prevalent as the patriarch of the family is seen being killed by a literal token, hence metaphorically labelling him, his family and business, even in death, as tokens of the Hollywood system and nothing more.

 

Throughout the movie, the mysterious and monstrous alien, visually replicating a giant UFO, consumes its prey whilst hovering through the skies. However, its key to note that the UFO design of the alien also remarkably resembles the shape and size of a giant cowboy hat (I know, I know, it’s weird, but it works). This visual cue symbolises the consumerism of Black culture, both figuratively and literally. Whilst the giant cowboy hat UFO alien eats away at the movie stars like any blatant horror movie monster would, the alien’s consumption becomes almost metaphorical when considering what it visually resembles and, furtherly, what its actions represent.

 

Nope’s leading family pride themselves on their entrenched heritage in Hollywood and filmmaking since their Black cowboy ancestor gave birth to the original imagery that would inspire not just cinema, but Western cinema. Since that imagery debuted though, Western films have become predominantly engrossed in white culture despite their origins in Black culture. It would be fitting to say then that, in this narrative, the cowboy hat UFO alien’s consumption of its Black prey in Nope resembles real life Black culture being consumed and appropriated by Hollywood at a violent and aggressive rate.

 

Alas, to return to my original question, how did Nope actually make me feel? Well, I guess I needed all that explanation and deciphering to admit that Nope made me feel, well, passionate.

 

Being a Black man myself, I haven’t felt this replenished by a cinema experience in a while. It’s the rare film like this that is directed, written and produced by Black creators that genuinely make me feel as if I am being invited into a story. A story for me.

 

… but it doesn’t just have to be a story for me.

 

For years, Hollywood has built their storytelling around the stereotypical and safe white guy protagonist and we, as the audience, sit and watch, no matter the race or culture, as if conditioned to believe the standard white guy represents us all in a story. But what if they actually don’t? What if there is a whole other field of cinema, like Nope, that is made not only for a Black audience, but to also invite fellow white communities in to understand exactly what the Black experience actually looks and feels like.

 

See, it’s more than just equality and surface-level racism. It’s also commodification, appropriation, tokenism and consumerism (here are those four words again). Films like Nope and directors like Peele detail and expand on these themes, presenting them through refreshing and entertaining forms of narrative media. I have seen plenty of cinematic depictions of the Black experience now to know which of these films are beneficial and which require more attention. As you know, I cannot just namedrop a movie and leave it at that. The explanation is my obligation.

 

So, let us dive into the realms of Black cinema and, furtherly the Black experience, because, there is so much more to discuss. Movies are more. Storytelling is more. Black is more.

 

 

 

Look out for Nahum’s second column next Tuesday.

 

 

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