The Trouble With Making Movies To Make Us Care About Climate
The Potential and Pitfalls Of Climate Crisis Movies
You’ve probably heard of Don’t Look Up, a recent Netflix film directed by Adam McKay and co-written with David Sirota by now, but just in case here’s the trailer:
The film’s plot follows the frustrated efforts of two astronomers (played by Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) to communicate their discovery to greedy political elites and celebrity-infatuated media pundits that an extinction-level asteroid is coming for the earth.
And as you might have heard too, the film deploys the asteroid hurtling towards the earth as a metaphor for our climate crisis. Despite film critics claiming the metaphor is almost too obvious, I wonder if many people (especially in the U.S.) whose particular media ecosystems limit their exposure to information about the climate crisis might not see it as so obvious, as one commentary on the film suggested.
But just in case, to make sure their point gets across, the creators have also…
