{"id":2755,"date":"2022-01-01T23:32:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=2755"},"modified":"2022-01-02T02:21:15","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T02:21:15","slug":"dont-look-now-but-climate-change-has-a-cultural-reference-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=2755","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Look Now But Climate Change Has A Cultural Reference Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Have you seen Adam McKay\u2019s \u2018Don\u2019t Look Up\u2019, a satirical story about what happens when a \u2018planet-killing\u2019 asteroid is discovered to be on a collision course with earth?\u00a0 If not, I recommend it to campaigners, if only because it might become a widespread cultural reference point for climate change, without climate change ever getting a mention in the film.<\/h3>\n

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News of the impending end of the world gets a positive spin on mainstream news<\/em><\/p>\n

With an A-list cast, the film parallels many of the stages of human reaction following the scientific \u2018discovery\u2019 of human induced climate change in the 1980s, including denial, obfuscation, prevarication, political and commercial exploitation and so on, right up to today\u2019s billionaire dreams of escape into space.<\/p>\n

Stripped of the asteroid plot flesh, the narrative skeleton of Don\u2019t Look Up<\/em> is a potted history of climate change in terms of motivated reasoning in the political and media response to climate science.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0That makes it very different from previous attempts to take climate change to the big screen, by either attempting to explain the science or bring to life one or another possible future.\u00a0 It seems to me that\u00a0Don\u2019t Look Up<\/em> has the potential to make a real difference but first, a recap.<\/p>\n

The Scientists: \u201cThis Is Our Story!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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After a limited theatrical release in the US on 10 December the film appeared on Netflix on 24 December where it has since been the most watched movie.\u00a0 Movie critics described it as a black-comedy, a disaster movie,\u00a0science fiction, comedy or satire.\u00a0 Some panned it (see below) but climate scientists and campaigners have loved it.<\/p>\n

The first effect it had on me was that it brought back that horrible feeling you get when it suddenly dawns on you that humanity faces a huge threat which most others are blissfully unaware of:\u00a0 a sensation I remember having more than once as a campaigner, and then immediately feeling \u201cwe must do something about this but how?\u201d\u00a0 The second was to think if that\u2019s how it affected me, then this really is about others who have spent almost the whole of their working life struggling to convince others to act on the \u2018climate science\u2019. I tweeted:<\/p>\n

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Soon a succession of social media posts and articles showed a growing number of scientists and campaigners recognizing it as a pretty faithful analogue of their own experience in trying to get society to respond to \u2018the climate science\u2019.<\/p>\n

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No surprise because as it turns out, Director Adam McKay and collaborator David Sirota were motivated to make Don\u2019t Look Up<\/em> by through frustration with the lack of media and political attention given to the climate crisis, and McKay spent a lot of time talking to climate scientists about their perspectives in order to write the film.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s Wikipedia page quotes McKay<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>I started talking to a lot of [climate] scientists. I kept looking for good news, and I never got it. Everything I was hearing was worse than what I was hearing on the mainstream media. So I was talking to [David Sirota, who asked him to write the film], and we were both just like, \u201ccan you believe that this isn\u2019t being covered in the media? That it\u2019s being pushed to the end of the story? That there\u2019s no headlines?\u201d And Sirota just offhandedly said, \u201cit\u2019s like a comet is heading to Earth and it\u2019s going to destroy us all and no one cares.\u201d And I was like, \u201cthat\u2019s the idea!”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Author of the New Climate War<\/em> climate scientist Michael Mann took to<\/a> the columns of The Boston Globe and twitter to promote the film and was credited with being the inspiration for Leonardo di Caprio\u2019s astronomer character, Randall Mindy.\u00a0 On 29 December another climate scientist, Peter Klamus, wrote<\/a> in The Guardian\u00a0<\/em>that it\u2019s \u2018the most accurate film about society\u2019s terrifying non-response to climate breakdown I\u2019ve seen\u2019.<\/p>\n

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(@neiltyson is an astrophysicist)<\/em><\/p>\n

What The Reviews Said<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviews were \u2018mixed\u2019. Many of those most cross about the film took issue with it because they did not think, or could see how it would \u2018make a difference\u2019.\u00a0 So although entangled with their views about the film-making technique, professional reviewers became amateur political scientists and campaigners.<\/p>\n

On 8 December 2021 The Guardian<\/em> title a review, \u2018Slapstick Apocalypse According To DiCaprio and Lawrence \u2026\u2019 and the reviewer (on my browser it has appeared under two different names) wrote<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018<\/em>Adam McKay<\/em><\/a>\u2019s laboured, self-conscious and unrelaxed satire Don\u2019t Look Up is like a 145-minute Saturday Night Live sketch with neither the brilliant comedy of\u00a0<\/em>Succession<\/em><\/a>, which McKay co-produces, nor the seriousness that the subject might otherwise require. It is as if the sheer unthinkability of the crisis can only be contained and represented in self-aware slapstick mode ..\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

and so it went on, although it did end with: \u2018\u2026 But if the movie helps to do something about climate change, such critical objections are unimportant\u2019.<\/p>\n

Others included:<\/p>\n

Vulture<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018It’s hard to think about who, exactly, is going to be moved to make changes to how they live their lives by Don’t Look Up, a climate-change allegory that acquired accidental COVID-19 relevance, but that doesn’t really end up being about much at all, beyond that humanity sucks.\u2019\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Rolling Stone<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>A-list bomb of a movie, all inchoate rage and flailing limbs, falling right on top of you.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal:\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>A slapdash, scattershot sendup that turns almost everyone into nincompoops, trivializes everything it touches, oozes with self-delight, and becomes part of the babble and yammer it portrays\u2026 This might have been great fun if it had been executed with some respect for our intelligence, and for the power of sharpshooting satire, rather than glib nihilism.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

CNN:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018In its efforts to champion its cause, the film only alienates those who most need to be moved by its message<\/em>\u2026 The champions of science must always try to leave politics at the door. Otherwise, the task is not just convincing people that the comet is coming, the planet is rapidly overheating or the vaccine will protect them. It is also forcing huge swathes of the population to accept that a cornerstone of their personal ideology is wrong.\u00a0 And when the comet is this close, there just isn’t time for that\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

The reviews were followed by a small maelstrom of online comment about reviews, between scientists and reviewers, and comment about the comment. \u00a0Different people have read different things in the film.<\/p>\n

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In Current Affairs<\/a>, Nathan J Robinson took issue with the allegation of nihilism writing: \u2018The point is not that the working class are sheep who don\u2019t care about the future, but that the\u00a0rich\u00a0<\/em>manipulate people\u2019s perceptions of one another to serve their own self-interest\u2019.\u00a0 \u00a0On 30 December Forbes magazine carried an appeal<\/a> by Paul Tassi, \u2018The \u2018Don\u2019t Look Up\u2019 Critics Versus Scientists Narrative Has To Stop\u2019.\u00a0 Tassi wrote<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026the success of the movie, compared to its relatively lukewarm reception by critics, has resulted in a pretty bizarre new narrative<\/em> [apparently referring to arguments between McKay and critics, no doubt online] . The idea is that if critics didn\u2019t like the movie, they must hate its message, the idea that climate change is a clear and present danger to our planet …<\/em> \u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>I do not agree that I must declare that Don\u2019t Look Up is a great film, or else I\u2019m contributing to \u201cdamaging\u201d its message, and this view somehow puts me at odds with climate science. That is simply not how this works\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

Well if that\u2019s what\u2019s happening, I am with Tassi on that one but unless the scientists \u2013 film maker \u2013 critics argument begins to determine the public impact of the film, it perhaps does not matter that much.<\/p>\n

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How Don\u2019t Look Up<\/em> May Make A Difference<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are five reasons.<\/p>\n

First, Don\u2019t Look Up<\/em> is really quite funny.\u00a0 It\u2019s entertaining, it has big stars, and now it\u2019s well known so it\u2019s likely to get watched again, including by people who would might watch a political satire or \u2018just\u2019 a disaster movie but would never choose to watch a straight-up documentary on climate change.\u00a0 It can reach a totally different, or at least far wider audience, than An<\/em> Inconvenient Truth<\/em><\/a> Mark 2 (or 3 if you include the sequel).<\/p>\n

Second, it\u2019s well nigh impossible to watch it and not to buy into the thickly-laid-on conceit and narrative of the film \u2013 the impending asteroid doom scenario.\u00a0 That in turn makes it hard not to be emotionally on the side of the would-be truth-teller scientists.\u00a0 For me that makes it more of a parable<\/a> than a straight satire, black comedy or documentary: \u2018a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles\u2019, in this case that politicians and the media should take science seriously.<\/p>\n

Third in terms of effect, the swayable audience is not those who are dead set against climate action and who might (well) be offended if they recognize themselves in some of the thinly disguised Trumpian characters but those who are neither active deniers nor pro climate activists.\u00a0 For that reason I am not so worried as the CNN reviewer about it alienating audiences.<\/p>\n

Fourth, because it is not overtly about climate change, it will be hard for the denier lobby to \u2018deal with\u2019.\u00a0Already some would be critics have tried to attack the \u2018science\u2019 in the asteroid story, which just makes them seem ridiculous.<\/p>\n

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Fifth, the title \u201cDon\u2019t look up\u201d is a brilliant and entirely plausible call to action, or inaction, made possible by the simplicity of the story structure (unlike climate change) in which a straightforward specific danger comes from above. \u00a0I can imagine \u201cDon\u2019t look up!\u201d becoming a cipher for evidence-denial, a cultural reference point heard in places from pub conversations to newsrooms and Parliamentary or Presidential debates, even in public demonstrations.\u00a0 It will be understood by politicians and media.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you seen Adam McKay\u2019s \u2018Don\u2019t Look Up\u2019, a satirical story about what happens when a \u2018planet-killing\u2019 asteroid is discovered to be on a collision course with earth?\u00a0 If not, I recommend it to campaigners, if only because it might … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2771,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/2771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}