Jordan Peele posts Nope hashtag with video of creepy bird disaster
What can Peele's use of a viral news clip tell us about Nope?
Jordan Peele released the trailer for his new movie Nope last weekend, introducing horror fans to Hollywood’s only Black-owned ranch of horse trainers, that chromed-out motorcycle rider, and the idea of a “bad miracle,” but we still don’t have any real clue about what Nope is about—beyond some spooky shit happening in the sky. Well, Peele seemingly offered a little clue the other day, and it involves some spooky shit happening in the sky.
On Twitter, Peele shared a clip (with a Nope hashtag) from Today about a strange phenomenon in Mexico recently in which a huge number of birds suddenly (and seemingly inexplicably) dropped out of the sky. Some flew away right after, but others… did not. Suffice to say, it’s not an especially fun video, and if you have any fondness for our fine feathered friends, you can probably do without watching it.
It’s almost certainly not a piece of bizarre viral marketing (again, some of the birds do not get back up), but it definitely has a similar vibe to what happens in the Nope trailer. So what can it tell us about Nope? For one thing, there’s… uh, spooky shit happening in the sky? And… that’s where birds live?
Okay, we’re grasping at straws here, but The Guardian says that scientists believe the dramatic bird incident was likely caused by a pursuing predator, like a hawk, and that a large flock of birds accidentally collided with the ground while running away (flying away). The reason there’s such a large group of birds at all is that they were probably “murmurating,” which is that thing you’ve seen birds do in all sorts of spooky stories. They were probably flying around in one big group in hopes of distracting the predator.
So, if Get Out was about mind-controlling, body-stealing white people and Us was about abandoned doppelgängers living underground, perhaps the threat in Nope is…a predator bird, like a hawk. It’s flying through the air, cutting off the power, snatching up flags, scaring those inflatable waving tube men. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.