Although its message can be adapted to many other phenomena involving the scientific community, its objective is clear.
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Hello dear econtrain friends, I hope you are feeling well. Today I want to talk to you not about a specific phenomenon or news, but about a movie, that although it did not have the box office success that the creators expected, it is still an excellent movie with a very important message for everyone, especially those who understand the threat of climate change.
Of course I am referring to the movie Don't look Up, released on December 10, 2021, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, but before I continue I want to invite those who have not seen the movie, to see it, it is worth it, even though the premise of the movie may sound a little boring or trite, the movie makes up for this with a dynamic story, entertaining, and masterful performances by DiCaprio and Lawrence, this I tell you because this post is LOADED WITH SPOILERS. In fact, not spoiling the movie for some is the reason I waited until now to write this. Although this movie I don't think it will suffer much from a spoiler, as knowing the plot superficially won't make it any less rewarding to watch.
That being clear, I want to say that this is not a movie review, the focus of this post is the message of the movie and the importance it may have for the community, even so, as I said, in many of the metrics of what makes a good movie Dont Look Up does quite well, well developed characters, given depth in different creative ways, good cinematography, good special effects, etc etc etc....
To understand the message of it we have to start by gutting the plot, the film revolves around the discovery by Kate Dibiasky [Jennifer Lawrence] a graduate student at Michigan State University, and one of her professors, Dr. Randall Mindy [Leonardo DiCaprio] of an asteroid heading towards planet earth, this of course comes as a tremendous initial shock to two people who apart from their good academic performance, are a fairly normal young woman and middle-aged man, everything happens very quickly and soon they are at the white house to brief the president of the united states to inform her of their discovery and devise a plan to deal with this threat that could destroy humanity.
It is at this point where all hell breaks loose, as the president of the united states is seen waiting for two scientists who come to talk to her about an existential threat to humanity to attend to vital matters in view of the situation such as the birthday of one of her assistants, This illustrates two things, how vain politicians can be and the contempt that many military men feel for the scientific community, when they finally manage to meet with the president, she does not even want to believe them because they do not come from one of the prestigious universities like Princeton or MIT.
And she dismisses the threat until it is confirmed by more reputable scientists.
Our protagonists turn to the media to try to force the government's hand, but this proves to be another complicated issue as it puts two fairly normal academics at the mercy of the banality of the media and an industry where the message does not matter, but how you look and how many emotions you appeal to... although Doctor Mindy stands up well to the media, Jennifer Lawrence's character is ridiculed and becomes the stuff of internet memes.
At this point I pause to draw parallels with the current situation on climate change, for although the film's message can be attributed to the Covid 19 pendemic. I don't think that's the point.
Let's start with the least price to two academics who speak of a threat that while not immediate, it is imminent and it is an extinction event, we have already seen this in real life. In fact there is a website where we can see a record of all the instances where political figures systematically dismiss scientific research https://climate.law.columbia.edu/Silencing-Science-Tracker.
This is especially true with reference to climate change, which has been known about since the early 60's but has been systematically ignored until the beginning of this new century where the consequences were inescapable, the lynching of Kate Dibiasky's character in the media for having a negative reaction to an understandably stressful situation, you try to tell the world that everyone will die in 6 months but only talk about the promiscuities of celebrities. This is obviously to phenomena like the Kardashian's which I refuse to comment on further, this is obviously an allegory to the reaction to Greta Thunberg when she had a similar reaction at a climate change summit.
But back to the movie, eventually DiCaprio's character manages to integrate well with the media and the government, while Dibiaski goes into obscurity, however although DiCaprio's character claims that he accepts the banality of the system in order to contribute from within, he soon realizes that he is just a scientist used to validate the decisions the government makes to the people, once again... another parallel with reality, to the case, the use of scientists and their research to deny climate change https://qz.com/1069298/the-3-of-scientific-papers-that-deny-climate-change-are-all-flawed/
Soon DiCaprio's character becomes disabused of such a notion, and starts a campaign that leads him to fight the government itself to convince people that action is necessary, and although the government agrees to a plan to solve the crisis by destroying the asteroid with nuclear weapons, this plan is cancelled at the last moment as a character who is a clear parody of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos [a billionaire sociopathic genius], explains to the government that there are trillions of dollars worth of minerals inside the asteroid and that it is better to capture it in a controlled way to bring it to earth and extract the resources, a further reference to the climate change crisis, and how governments while dismissing the consequences of it on the one hand, promise action on the other, but in reality run to the melting poles to exploit their resources, something I already wrote a post about.
This does not illustrate in a jocular way how economic interest and tycoons have so much power over governments, that they make them override even common sense and survival instinct, a very real problem of the modern world.
The movie has a very emotional ending which I am not willing to spoil completely, I can only say that in the end everyone faces the error of their ways, some with a clearer conscience than others, except the politicians and the millionaires, who pretend to escape the final judgment, however... in the post credits scene of the movie we are shown that this elite are not the hope of humanity, they can't even take care of themselves in a natural environment. They pretend to survive without us common people, but the truth is that they need us for everything. These people, would never populate the earth again, because most of them are not older than middle age, many do not even know how to fry an egg... and these are the people who pretend to condemn the world, with the illusion that they will use their wealth to survive... nothing could be further from the truth.
Within the film there are many more references to the modern problem of the systematic dismissal of everything related to climate change, the false promises, and the economic interest behind it, a particularly hairy moment for me is when talking about the economic progress that the asteroid would bring, it is not a direct reference, but it is clear that the measures to fight climate change should be stricter in the countries that have contributed more to it, but they are intended to be the same for all, delaying the development of poor nations, while rich nations have the science and resources to take measures without damaging their economy so much but choose not to do it just because the poorest can not. Still, I think this makes my point about why Dont Look UP is a great film about climate change, which can be seen as a humorous documentary and is highly recommended for those like me who have an interest in environmental protection issues, and therefore to everyone in this community.
Of course the film has been met with mixed reviews, but what can you expect when you talk to people about their banality, badmouth governments and make parodies of the millionaires who control the entertainment industry and the internet. I think the case of Dont Look Up will be like that of Idiocracy, dismissed in its time, it will become a cult classic in the future... I mean.... There are many more references in the film to the modern problem of the systematic dismissal of everything related to climate change, the false promises, and the economic interest behind it, a particularly tricky moment for me is when they talk about the economic progress that the asteroid would bring, it is not a direct reference, but it is clear that the measures to fight climate change should be stricter in the countries that have contributed more to it, but they are intended to be the same for all, delaying the development of poor nations, while rich nations have the science and resources to take measures without damaging their economy so much but choose not to do it just because the poorest can not. Still, I think this makes my point about why Dont Look UP is a great film about climate change, which can be seen as a humorous documentary and is highly recommended for those like me who have an interest in environmental protection issues, and therefore to everyone in this community.
Of course the film has been met with mixed reviews, but what can you expect when you talk to people about their banality, badmouth governments and make parodies of the millionaires who control the entertainment industry and the internet. I think the case of Dont Look Up will be like that of Idiocracy, dismissed in its time, it will become a cult classic in the future... I mean... if humanity ever has a future with this disaster of change.
Recommended Bibliographic Reference
[1] look up
[2] climate change
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