mauryasme

[mauryasme]

𝐎𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐉𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭

I’m kinda surprised that nobody so far has made the comparison between the alien Jean Jacket from Jordan Peele’s Nope, and the flying polyps from H.P. Lovecraft’s horror story the Shadow Out of Time. They’re both creatures from outer space, described as aggressive and predatory, they can both camouflage themselves at will to avoid detection, they can manipulate wind and weather, are often noticed by the whistling and screaming noises they make as they pass by, they can both distort their bodies to change their shape and size, and they both attack their prey by sucking them up into a vortex though the sky. But here’s the REAL kicker. They especially hate to be noticed by people, and will attack anyone that directly looks at them. That being said however, I’m not entirely convinced that Jean Jacket is supposed to be a flying polyp, despite the similarities. It’s my own personal theory that Jean Jacket’s species (Occulonimbus Edoequus) originated from a gas-giant planet, or more accurately, 𝐉𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫. Because think about it, if I were a massive ambush predator that could camouflage specifically into a cloud, where would I prefer to live? Somewhere that’s constantly surrounded by swirling clouds seems like the perfect habitat for our favorite vore-roomba’s species to live. And it also kinda makes what happened to Jupe, Mary Jo Elliott, Jupe’s family and the other 40 people at the Star Lasso experience that much more horrific in hindsight. 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐉𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦.

[mauryasme]

rewatching this (⬇️) & deciding that in the context of the whole movie's structure and how gradually the gordy incident is fed to us, jupe fucking up his line is the best suspense tactic um maybe ever. to me.

[mauryasme]

god a giant white cowboy hat trying to suck up and consume the black cowboy families legacy like how all the cowboy movies irl feature white men even tho most cowboys were people of color, i didnt even think of that one yet. fucking jordan peele 

[mauryasme]

I saw Nope the other night and I know it’s not been out long but I’ve yet to find a satisfactory explanation for the significance of the shoe being balanced upright, so I’ll throw my own personal theory into the ring! Spoilers for Nope below!

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!!

The explanation that made the most sense in my mind was that the shoe being balanced upright truly was random. Not in the sense that Jordan Peele just added it in randomly as an extra “wtf” factor, but in the sense that it was just something that happened by chance in-universe. And I think the purpose of that was to be a contributing factor to Jupe’s “chosen one” complex. Like, realistically, if a child actor were to experience all of his co-stars getting mauled and/or murdered and he be the only one to survive unharmed, he might chalk it up to a miracle or luck or something and then be riddled with survivors guilt and have to get some major therapy. But a child experiencing this, and during the event he also sees something entirely unexplainable, which presumably only he sees, and then is the only one to survive unharmed? That’s when a traumatized brain, trying to make sense of something entirely senseless, goes “oh, this is undoubtedly some kind of divine intervention, and I survived this because I’m special.” This idea is solidified further by Jupe’s survival of his first encounter with Jean Jacket. At that point he’s thinking “first I survived an animal attack as a child and then I survive an alien encounter as an adult? There’s no way that’s just luck.” And each subsequent survival solidifies this line of thinking even more, creating a sort of confirmation bias. By the time we get to Jupe’s final encounter with Jean Jacket, he knows he’s special, he knows he survives these perilous scenarios because was chosen to survive them. I believe he even says it himself right before that final, ill fated encounter. He whispers to himself “you were chosen.” But unfortunately for him (and his entire family and everyone else just trying to have a nice day out at Jupiter’s Claim) the reality of the situation is that, no, you weren’t chosen, you survived all this time because of sheer luck. It was just a random chance that you survived a giant flying alien being choosing the area around your middle of nowhere country theme park as its hunting ground, just as random a chance as a shoe being balanced perfectly upright in the middle of a brutal animal attack

[mauryasme]

goddd on second nope viewing the moment that hit hardest was the "i see you" between em and oj during the final confrontation, because it finally made me realize the BRIGHTside of spectacle this movie presents.

the horror of nope is about the darkness of spectacle, our addiction to it, the way it leads to exploitation. but such a huge pervasive aspect of humanity isn't gonna be a black and white evil. deep down, so so many of us want, even NEED, to just be seen. for the stuff that disappoints us, the stuff we're proud of, the stuff we share with the people we love. we don't always need the crowd, we don't need ALL eyes on us, yet we're moving into a world and culture that claims we need as many eyes on us as possible at all times. surveillance, influencers, social media, forever exponentially growing spectacle. OJ and Em are bound by that world, struggling to work in Hollywood. the whole motivation of getting the Oprah shot is to save their father's business.

but in the end, when it was really looking like they might lose each other and make all their work pointless, they weren't reaching for a camera. they weren't looking at the absolute, unprecedented spectacle that separated them. they looked at each other. nobody else got to see that moment of determination. just them.

i think sometimes we are spectacles to each other on a micro level. we want to be seen, and it doesn't have to be by the world. we just need the eyes that matter.

[mauryasme]

I think what I adored most about nope is how jeanjacket, as a predator animal, functions in a way that makes sense for a creature designed the way she is. She spends most of her time dormant in a cloud, only leaving her camouflage to hunt, and she doesn’t ever attack without reason, and I think the most brilliant thing about the eye contact being what makes her go berserk is that that makes a shit ton of sense for a creature like her.

With her being shaped the way she is, the only way she Can attack someone is while making eye contact— and if another one of her species was to do that? That would be a declaration of all out war. That’s a clear sign of aggression, and the fact that the movie plays into that— the fact that the stadium Jupe built is shaped like an eye, the fact that she flares up at the balloon at first in a clear show of aggression, of fear, trying to scare off what she presumes to be a threat…

And of course, the fact that it just plays into the theme that not everything is a spectacle to be stared at, that people can be destroyed by seeking fame or fortune, that tragedy can’t be tamed and that the past will eat you alive if you’re not careful— and that it all fucking fits flawlessly into her design as a creature. It just. Nope is The Movie Ever.

[mauryasme]

OJ and JJ: Why Jean Jacket Let the Haywoods—Especially OJ—Get Away with More Than Anyone Else in “Nope”

I’ve seen Nope twice now. While everyone I saw it with enjoyed it, I heard a few cries of foul when it came to OJ and the others’ improbable good luck with all their near misses interacting with our favorite terrifying gulch-haunting UFO. I call foul back and say plot armor had nothing to do with it. Some luck, yeah, otherwise we’d have no protagonists. But that was hardly all.

Spoilers for Nope below

Keep reading

[mauryasme]

The way that the alien in Nope's final form looks like an old studio camera. The way the opening credits take place inside its stomach, shown as an endless darkness framed by billowing sheets - the blanket-like hood of an old camera that the photographer hides under. The way Jupe calls the alien The Viewer. The way Jupe makes stuffed animals of what he imagines the aliens inside the "ship" to look like subconsciously reference the camera magazines on the set of Gordy's Home with the body of a monkey. The way that Jupe was only saved because the table cloth kept him from looking Gordy in the eyes. The way that OJ and Em signal "I see you" before the final showdown. The violence of attention. The all-seeing eye. The panopticon. The camera obscura. The dark chamber. The spectacle.

[mauryasme]

NOPE spoilers below

My favourite thing about Nope is how Jordan Peele presented behaviour created by trauma because you never really see it in horror movies beside a mention and maybe a little cry.

So to see Jupe so affected by the Gordy incident that it affected his behaviour with Jean-Jacket was fuckin fascinating. Like the whole reason he kept feeding JJ was because in his head, he related Gordy reaching out to fist bump him to their "bond".

He tried to establish a bond with Jean-Jacket via feeding, basically Learning Theory of Attachment, but this was due to his misunderstanding of why Gordy didn't attack Jupe in the first place. Because the table cloth stopped him from having direct eye contact with him.

And this misunderstanding created his one-sided bond with Jean Jacket.

[mauryasme]

"At the heart of all great art is an essential melancholy."

-Federico García Lorca

[mauryasme]

Find my soul; and I’m yours forever

The Unabridged Journals, Sylvia Plath ( @louisegluck ) | The Kiss, Edvard Munch | Love and Pain, Edvard Munch | The People Are a Temple, Gennady Aygi ( @louisegluck ) | The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller (art by @colton-bell ) | Edna St. Vincent Millay to Arthur Davison Ficke ( @ruhlare ) | Couple on the Escalator, Holly Warburton | Happy Shoppers, Holly Warburton | Become, Emery Allen 

[mauryasme]

1. Clarice Lispector | 2. Egon Schiele | 3. Dylan Thomas | 4. Joseph Lorusso | 5. Jenny Slate | 6. Ron Hicks | 7. Mary Oliver | 8. Safet Zec | 9. Madeline Miller | 10. Antonio Piatti | 11. Ocean Vuong | 12. Peter Wever | 13. Richard Siken

[mauryasme]

Mẹ kể, mấy hôm trước khi đang làm vườn, mẹ bất chợt nhận ra bộ dạng thảm hại của bản thân, từ bàn tay đầy những nốt chai sần, bắp chân sưng phồng, cho đến làn da sạm đen và mái tóc chẻ ngọn dưới ánh nắng mặt trời. Bao năm nay, mẹ nai lưng ra làm ruộng nhưng không biết tại sao mình làm thế, hay phải làm đến khi nào. Mẹ cũng không biết điều gì sẽ còn lại với mình sau tất cả, hay sự hiện diện của mình có ý nghĩa nào hay không. Đột nhiên, những cảm xúc đó cứ thế xộc thẳng vào trái tim mẹ.

Mẹ bảo, thật ra chẳng có lý do nào ghê gớm, mẹ cũng không tổn thương hay buồn phiền vì chuyện gì cụ thể. Chẳng qua là mẹ đang bực tức với chính mình. Không hiểu sao bỗng dưng lại thế, chỉ là hôm nay mẹ thấy khó chịu với tất cả mọi thứ. Cũng có những ngày mẹ phát mệt với chính bản thân mình. Và mẹ sẽ bức bối lắm nếu không thể xả thứ cảm xúc này ra với một người nào đó.

Hôm ấy, tôi hiểu ra rằng đôi khi mẹ cũng muốn buông xuôi tất cả để dựa vào người khác. Những lúc ấy, mẹ chỉ muốn được là mình trọn vẹn, không phải là mẹ, là vợ hay con gái của một ai đó. Chỉ một ngày thôi, mẹ muốn được trút bỏ vỏ bọc của mình, mặc kệ mấy đứa con đáng ghét có quá nhiều thứ để quan tâm và ưu tiên hơn mẹ, rồi nghỉ ngơi ở một nơi nào đó thật xa.

Có lẽ, mẹ chỉ cần một chút thời gian không bị ai làm phiền hay can thiệp, một chút thời gian được sống cho riêng mình mà thôi.

- Trích "Mong mẹ hãy yêu lấy chính mình"

[mauryasme]

every time I finish a show I’m like yeah I feel empty inside but at least there are six more fictional characters I would jump in front of a bus for

[mauryasme]

Our Men Do Not Belong to Us, Warsan Shire

[mauryasme]

Past friends, a collection

Old Friend, Mitski

Portraits à Grindelwald, Ernest Bieler

Cocaine Jesus, Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Spirit Hold, Holly Warburton

seven, Taylor Swift

@boyfig

“Stuntin’ Like My Daddy“, Euphoria

Making Amends, Holly Warburton

One Last Poem For Richard, Sandra Cisneros 

Way Back When, Kodaline

[mauryasme]

ocean vuong, on earth we’re briefly gorgeous / florence + the machine, all this and heaven too