Why was there a shoe impossibly standing up during the Gordy scenes of Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’?

There are many strange and inexplicable occurrences during Jordan Peele’s latest film, Nope. Many of those revolve around the alien creature at the heart of the plot, but scarier than any monster from the sky are the scenes involving a chimp named Gordy.

Haywood Hollywood Horse Ranch trainers OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) have seen a strange UFO dropping from the clouds over their ranch. They want to capture footage of it and make big money from it. Next door to their ranch is Jupiter’s Claim, a cheesy tourist trap Western theme park owned by Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun). When OJ and Emerald go to visit Park, he tells the brother and sister a story from his childhood, when he was on a sitcom called Gordy's Home.

We witness this story in bits and pieces throughout the film. On its surface, it seems to have nothing to do with the main plot of a family trying to capture proof that aliens exist. If you peel back the intricate layers Peele has woven, however, you’ll see that it ties in directly with everything else going on. Park was a child actor on Gordy’s Home, a cheesy 90s animal-centered show about a family and their pet chimpanzee named Gordy. One day, during the filming of a birthday-themed episode, a balloon on the set popped, scaring Gordy. The chimp then went mad, killing and maiming his co-stars. The Gordy flashbacks are arguably more frightening and will stay with you longer than any scene involving flying saucers and alien creatures.

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During one flashback of the attack, young Ricky hides under a table, unseen by Gordy as he rips apart the cast. Ricky is frozen in fear as the blood flows and the carnage unfolds around him. During the flashback that opens the film, we see a shoe that stands impossibly on one end, defying gravity. Ricky can’t take his eyes away from the miracle. Later on in the film, Gordy shows off a part of office where he keeps memorabilia, including the shoe, still standing on one end. Gordy does see Ricky at last, but he does not attack. Instead, he slowly approaches and holds a bloody hand out to him, asking Ricky for a fist bump. It’s a heartbreaking scene, to see an animal so disturbed and scared, but filled with compassion for this child. As Ricky reaches out his hand to Gordy, the chimp is shot dead by the police.

So why was the shoe standing on its own? What does it mean? Earlier, OJ talks about bad miracles. OJ's father is killed by a coin falling from the sky, which is considered a bad miracle. The fact that the coin came from an alien being who had sucked up humans to feed on, then spit out their belongings from the sky is a very bad miracle. A shoe standing on its own during a violent, murderous rampage could be viewed as a bad miracle as well.

Peele never answers those questions, and he leaves it to us to figure out. Does the shoe represent bad miracles and the idea that sometimes bad things happen to us, and we can’t explain them or ever figure them out? Sometimes coins fall from the sky and kill you. Sometimes animals attack out of nowhere. And sometimes aliens that look like flying saucers try to eat you. That’s the cruel randomness of life. There’s nothing you can do about it. Or does it mean something more? Ricky intently watches that shoe during Gordy’s attack. So much of the film is about watching, from the flying saucer to the camera footage. Is there something in there about our need to see everything and know what it’s all about? If that’s so, then Peele proves his point by never telling us just what the shoe is all about.

Shawn Van Horn is a Film & TV Features Writer for Collider. He has written two novels and is neck deep in the querying trenches. He is also a short story maker upper and poet with a dozen publishing credits to his name. He lives in small town, Ohio, where he likes to watch rasslin' and movies.

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