If you have been on the internet this week, you have probably seen something about Don't Look Up. The Adam McKay-helmed flick is the top movie on the streaming service. It is one of the top reasons for people to hit their pants online.
The film has a critics' score of 45%, which is reflective of the deep divisions in how people view the movie. The reviews have been very negative. It was called a movie by people who spend too much time online. The underlying conflict of how to address the climate crisis is transformed by Don't Look Up from one of action into another of simple belief: do you listen to scientists, or don't you? McKay and Sirota have defended the movie on social media, leading to more meta criticisms to the point where we may all collectively be losing the thread.
I don't want to debate whether Don't Look Up is a good piece of art, satire, or stand-in for real life. The movie was thought-provoking and well-acted, though it has its blind spots, such as its sole focus on the U.S.
Five of you that have avoided contact with the movie, it is a star-laden affair about a comet headed to Earth and humanity's reaction to the impending doom. The comet is a metaphor for climate change, and the characters all play their part from the scientists screaming into the void to the tech billionaire who wants to mine it for minerals.
The Day After Tomorrow is one of the climate movies. The public discussion on climate change barely moved despite the fact that they have featured major stars. Don't Look Up is made in an era of social media and seems designed to spark conversation. It speaks to the fact that we are not enough for art and media that deal with the climate crisis.
The U.S. is in a cone of climate silence. More than half of Americans who are interested in global warming or think the issue is important rarely or never talk about it with family and friends, according to a 2016 analysis. Climate silence may be driven by the fact that the biggest media doesn't cover it so it doesn't seem important or worth talking about.
The movie Don't Look Up has had a lot of attention, with some of the biggest movie stars on the planet, a media campaign to promote the film, and prominent placement on the website and on theater marquees. The praise, vitriol, and everything in between reflect people's real reactions to the film, but illuminate the fact that we just don't talk about the climate crisis enough.
It has long been difficult for many of us to talk about the issue without a movie in hand. Maybe that is because the threat is too big and depressing to comprehend. Maybe we don't have the right vocabulary to put the crisis in an honest way. It's probably both. Don't Look Up opened the door and everyone wants to go into the debate room.
The need for more media like Don't Look Up and more discussions about it is reflected in this all. We are well past the phase of the climate crisis where people talk about it. This is the time where the world needs to be quickly winding down fossil fuel use, figuring out a just transition, investing in public transit, and a hundred thousand other things, all while dealing with the growing onslaught of climate disasters.
It is difficult to get those various balls rolling because of the relative silence around climate change. There are many reasons why people avoid the topic, from not knowing enough about it to agreeing we need to do something. The boat rocks for politicians who invest in the status quo so that they can outline the bounds of what is possible.
We have been too afraid to talk about what the world needs to look like if we are to avoid being struck by a comet. The planet falls into disrepair when we put those conversations off. The cupboard of our cultural imagination may not be empty yet, as evidenced by the number of people who have come tumbling out in the wake of a single movie. It shows that there is a desire for more.
Don't Look Up is not the best climate movie, but it is the worst. Defector pointed out that people seem excited to yell at McKay and Sirota because of the response. There is no reason that a few guys who made a single climate movie need to be the center of the conversation. No offense to those guys! We need more than a single climate movie because it is better if they are not. The public wants it. It may seem like a weak climate solution in the face of so much destruction. We can only change the future in front of us because politics brought us to this place.
