Jordan Peele’s film titles usually work on multiple levels, so many viewers were wondering what “Nope” means. Is it just an acronym, or is there a deeper meaning? We’ll take a look at the layers of “nope” in the context of the movie.
What does “Nope” mean?
“Nope” has several different layers of meaning, and there may be even more ways to relate the word to what happens in the film. We’ve come up with three in particular that can be easily spotted:
- The acronym
- The definition
- A bad miracle
Nope as an acronym
NOPE as an acronym, is described in the movie as meaning:
“Not
Of
Planet
Earth”
It’s an uncommon (but not unheard of) way of referring to extraterrestrial life. While the etymology of the phrase is unknown, it’s likely a bastardization of the title of the 1957 film, Not of This Earth.
Used with the regular definition
Of course, “nope” is also used to express displeasure with the situation at hand. It’s said several times in the film as a reaction to the UFO and the predicaments the characters found themselves.
A bad miracle
Early in the movie, OJ asks Emerald, “What’s a bad miracle? They got a word for that?” Her response is a simple, “Nope.” Of course, she’s saying that she doesn’t think there’s a word for a bad miracle, but it also gives us the central theme for the film. Nope is about a series of bad miracles. Events that seem beneficial at first later turn lives upside down.
For Jupe, the bad miracle was surviving Gordy’s rampage unscathed which he parlayed into a career. For the Haywoods, it was the appearance of the UFO that might have saved their ranch but ended up practically destroying it.
So, “nope” means a lot of things, depending on your perspective. There might be even more twists and turns to the name that we haven’t discovered yet.
