Don’t Look Up (2021, Adam McKay) has gotten a lot of buzz in recent days and for good reason, it is that rare fiction film that actually addresses climate change and climate change denialism. To my mind, the thing that makes Don’t Look Up such an important film is because it does something quite remarkable, it gets at the three core root causes of climate change denialism, right wing ideology, capitalism, and consumerism.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Right Wing Ideology
In terms of right wing ideology, the satire in the film goes beyond climate change to cover the right wing’s insane penchant for turning virtually anything into a culture war issue, even if by doing so they are contributing to killing people and the planet. Of course, this includes climate change, but it also includes COVID-19 in general and the COVID-19 vaccination in particular. In both cases (climate change and COVID-19), right wing ideology fosters a climate of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. This dogmatic propaganda spreads through a sea of right wing media discourses, Fox News being the most prominent though other notorious right wing channels (Newsmax, OAN, etc.) also spread this “fake news” and of course social media is a cesspool for such alternative right wing reality discourses.
We see this element throughout the film. For example, we see it with the various references to right wing media pundit Dan Pawketty (Michael Chiklis), who is clearly a stand-in for right wing pundits whose whole career is based on using these alternative right wing reality discourses – and the ensuing negative emotions they trigger, fear, anger, and hate – to drive ratings and followings that give these pundits a lot of influence and power. Pawketty may be a specific reference to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the signifiers of Pawketty running for president perhaps a nod to rumors that Carlson may be doing just that in 2024. Other obvious references to right wing ideological discourses include right wing wacko conspiracy theories and incendiary memes, such as these:
- “Jewish billionaires invented this comet threat so the government can confiscate our liberty and our guns.” (Jewish conspiracy theories are rampant in right wing media circles.)
- “Is the Comet a Hoax?” (We get numerous references to those who immediately resort to this tried and true tactic of undercutting threatening scientific discoveries with disinformation and conspiracy theory campaigns.)
- “This dude (pointing to a picture of astronomer Dr. Randall Mindy) is a known pornographer named Kip.” (This may be a reference to the insane QAnon conspiracy theory that there is some cabal of left wing elites running a child sex ring though it could just be how right wing discourses on social media are constantly making up facts to suit their agenda, including of course making up inflammatory accusations to use against their enemies.)
- “So, these two Marxists wave around the word ‘science’ and we’re all supposed to do whatever they say?” “They want to rob you of your freedom and that’s a fact.” These quotes stem from right wing discourses that use words (“Marxist,” “freedom”) and lies as triggers to get an emotional reaction that leads to mindless followers. We later get this interrogated when Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) instantly decries Isherwell’s suggestion of why he wants to mine the comet (e.g., to end poverty, create jobs, etc.) saying, “I bet they’ll say freedom and puppies too,” a stress on how the right wing and corporate power interests use language as a tool of manipulation, especially trigger words such as “freedom” and “Marxist”/socialist.
My favorite reference to right wing ideology is the “Don’t Look Up” movement in the film, a response to Dr. Randall Mindy’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate’s encouragement to get people to “look up” when the comet becomes visible. The “Don’t Look Up” refrain is just more ammunition for the right wing’s perpetual culture war, even if it will lead to killing people and the planet. In this context, again, the commentary here isn’t just climate change denialism it is also the recent conspiracy theories surrounding COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccinations (and we could of course throw in other recent anti-fact conspiracy theories, such as the big lie that President Joe Biden didn’t win the 2020 presidential election). In the film, we get a poll that suggests that 23% of people “don’t think there’s a comet at all.” The headline reads “Impact Deniers Gain Momentum.” This too is another nod to climate change denialism, but, again, it is also a nod to COVID-19 denialism and anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers who deny COVID in general or deny the severity of it and/or deny that masks and vaccines are a safe antidote to them. (I’ll come back to the “Don’t Look Up” movement in the film at the end of my blog post.)
Capitalism
In terms of capitalism, the film boldly gets at this permeating and glaring root cause in multiple ways. For one thing, the film punctuates that too many of our politicians, billionaires and corporations are more interested in making more profit/wealth than they are in stopping a civilization ending comet/climate change. And this is most definitely not just a Republican thing; indeed, the Democratic Party is largely a corporate controlled party as well (the Republican Party is wholly in the pocket of corporate power) and thus does little to nothing to stop climate change due to their own corporate donor interests. (The photo of President Janie Orlean with former President Bill Clinton cements this indictment of neoliberalism as part of this capitalistic element in the film.) The film effectively registers this in a number of ways. The billionaire character, CEO and founder Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), is obviously an allegorical figure, representing self-absorbed billionaires who are an island onto themselves. (Some writers have suggested he specifically represents tech billionaire Elon Musk.) Sociology and political economy professor William I. Robinson stresses how these billionaire capitalist figures are “transnational capitalists,” elite capitalists who are so wealthy and so powerful – whose wealth stems from transnational corporations – that they have no allegiance to any country and thus are in effect an independent entity outside of nation state control. Indeed, in Don’t Look Up, we see how Isherwell controls the president of the United States, which is amusingly punctuated in the scene when Isherwell intrudes on those gathering at the launch of warheads meant to stop the comet. He asks President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) to step outside the meeting room to talk with him. When she doesn’t immediately comply, he yells “Janie, now!” At this exclamatory command, President Orlean jumps, apologizing subserviently along the way.
Isherwell’s intervention in stopping the first mission to destroy the comet stems from his desire to destroy it in a way where he can also mine it for much needed precious minerals for his tech corporation. As he stresses, the comet is a “miraculous” opportunity, constituting “almost $140 trillion worth of assets.” That becomes the dollar amount that equates to risking all of humanity for profit/wealth/capital. In this way, the film brilliantly sums up capitalism in a nut shell, how its whole modus operandi is profit/wealth/capital before all else, even humanity and the planet.
Of course, this plan ultimately fails and the world is destroyed. This is a core part of both climate change denialism and climate change itself. In terms of the former, fossil fuel corporations who are dependent on keeping fossil fuel emissions flowing (and other emitting profitable industries, such as Big Agriculture) contribute to climate change denialism dogma. This is especially true of fossil fuel corporations who have resorted to numerous tactics to cast doubt on climate change, which we also see in the film. For example, the government/BASH corporation creates infomercials to keep the public calm and creates marketing campaigns that convince many people that tackling the comet in Isherwell’s way will “create jobs,” the stress in both cases being that the comet really isn’t the threat that people make it seem. (Fossil Fuel corporations have gone to even more extremes than this, actually funding faux scientists and creating propagandistic marketing campaigns to deny climate change. The great book and film Merchants of Doubt cogently documents this disturbing phenomenon.)
We also see this with numerous signifiers of how various figures and elements profit over this impending catastrophe, which is just bizarre since if the comet lands, these profits and wealth accumulation will be meaningless. But then that is the greatness of the film, how it authentically documents the sickness of our capitalist way of being, where people can only singularly think about how to enrich themselves even if enriching themselves becomes utterly meaningless. We see this with how people exploit the various announcements and cries about the impending end of the world, via social media memes. We also see this with the first day stock market rise (only to crash the next day) – like with COVID, mercenary entities will exploit needs and opportunities out of the misery of cataclysmic crises – and we conspicuously see this in this exchange between talk show hosts Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry): Jack: “If BASH’s stock is any indicator, then we don’t have to worry about the peer review.” Brie: “You are such a shameless capitalist.” Perhaps most hilariously, the shovel signifier speaks to how disasters can lead to price gouging as shovels are apparently in such demand that they are hiked up to $599.99.
Most disturbingly, by preventing the destruction of the comet just to protect humanity, we can see how this too becomes a more direct metaphor for how corporate power continues to go full steam ahead in slowly destroying the planet for profit. In other words, we can see this analogy in this way: Isherwell/BASH letting the comet keep heading for Earth so it can exploit it for mercenary gain equates to corporations (fossil fuel corporations, etc.) letting climate change get worse just so it can still reap more and more profit.
The other striking facet of this thread in the film is the epilogue, how 2000 wealthy elites have a space ship that seemingly saves them from the Earth being destroyed. We know they are some of the most powerful figures on the planet because we see their titles on their suspended animation cryosleep chambers, “Inter-Bank,” “Texcon Oil,” “Vendel Lobbying,” “GTW Equity.” In this way, too, though it is hinted that these rich elites will get eaten by the local animals (these wealthy elites are no longer the apex predators of their planet!), the deeper and more disturbing suggestion here is that while climate change will devastate the planet and millions will die, the rich elites will be just fine, relocating themselves to safe spaces that their money will buy them. That Isherwell and Orlean had this in the back of their mind may be why they were willing to risk their lives — not risk humanity, which they obviously could care less about — because they knew they had a way out. When Mindy at one point labels President Orlean and Isherwell “sociopaths and fascists,” he isn’t wrong. We can especially see this with Orlean leaving her son, Jason Orlean (Jonah Hill), behind, her self-centeredness only allowing her to think of herself. In this way, we can see what capitalism and toxic ideologies do to people, make them self-absorbed, un-empathetic “sociopaths and fascists.”
I must just add that one of my favorite touches in the film was after the planet has been destroyed; we see numerous objects floating in the atmosphere, including the stock market bull, which I have to believe is a punctuating and ironic signifier of just how meaningless the stock market and all it entails (profit, wealth accumulation, corporate power and capitalism itself) is though it takes the destruction of Earth to see this REAL of capitalism, that money/wealth is an arbitrary construct that we have created for ourselves and imbued with god-like sacredness, the floating stock market bull now not representing the stock market/capitalism/wealth but just floating debris, drained of any meaning except its signature of a lost humanity, lost because of what this stock market bull used to signify.
Consumerism
Finally, much of the satirical humor of the film stems from how consumerism has wholly infected peoples’ minds, people more interested in their consumerist (stimulation) fixes than they are for what matters, even when what matters is the end of the world. We see this element throughout the film especially with the show The Daily Rip, hosted by Brie Evantee and David Bremmer who represent the extreme shallowness of consumer culture, hosting such pap as the dreadfully fake exchange with manufactured pop star Riley Bina (Ariana Grande) and the ensuing charade of her faux distress at her recent break-up with equally shallow pop star DJ Chello (Kid Cudi). When the show arranges to not only enact a reconciliation between the two but the bonanza of a marriage proposal, it leads to ratings gold and a massive rippling effect of carry over to other social media. The spike in interest over these celebrities of course dwarfs any interest in what follows, the vital news that Mindy and Kate convey to the public, that a “planet killer” comet is heading to Earth.
After their turn on The Daily Rip, the public immediately filters them through the usual consumerist filters, making Mindy a sex symbol (he hilariously becomes the AILF) and making Kate a figure of the kind of vicious backlash that only social media can enact, the cruelties being the point, since cruelties have become a source of consumerist entertainment, at the expense of people. Most disturbingly, The Daily Rip hosts become allegorical figurations for consumerism itself, so out of touch with reality that nothing can shake them from the requirement for their popular show, to “keep it light, fun,” even in the face of the end of the world. Even after telling them the news of humanity’s potential extinction, we know they aren’t really hearing Mindy and Kate or just don’t care, because David says “this is very exciting.” Bizarrely, we see just how disconnected they are from their humanity and reality when Brie wants Mindy to “tell [Brie] we’re all gonna die” as sexual foreplay, the prospect of dying only becoming one more consumerist rush instead of something real. In this way, too, we get montages of people also in their consumerist bubbles, so consumed by their alternative reality of consumerist escapism that they can’t see the REAL, the REAL in this case being a world ending comet.
And this consumerist element really is a facet of our capitalistic way of being that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. I’ve suggested elsewhere (see my blog post on The Bling Ring and my essay on American Psycho) that consumerism is one of our most dangerous elements in our society, both in terms of creating a sea of low degree empathy individuals (when one becomes so self-absorbed in consumerist fixes, arguably one’s empathy is degraded) and in terms of wholly disconnecting selves from the issues that matter. Indeed, one could argue, as I think the creators of Don’t Look Up are doing, that consumerism has in effect created a sea of people whose very identity is a consumerist one, many people living purely for their consumerist needs, whether that be in terms of consuming for image, status, purpose, or stimulation. In this context, such people are utterly divorced from the REAL of the world.
Mindy says as much in his exasperated pleas: “Sometimes we need to just be able to say things to one another. We need to hear things. And if we can’t all agree at the bare minimum that a giant comet the size of Mount Everest hurling its way towards Earth is not a fucking good thing, then what the hell happened to us? I mean, my God, how do…we even talk to each other? What’ve we…done to ourselves? How do we fix it?”
How indeed.
Don’t Look Up
I want to finish my analysis with the evocative meaning behind the title of the film, the premise being that (right wing) people in the film are messaged to not “look up,” a faux form of (right wing, capitalistic, consumerist) resistance to an absolute truth that would negate the ulterior interests of moneyed and ideological powers. This becomes a willful ignorance of incontrovertible truths. In that striking Trumpian rally at the end of the film (President Orlean perhaps a stand-in for Trump?), one of the rally goers actually does “look up” and sees the incontrovertible truth of the comet – it is right there right before his eyes – and even he and the other rally goers cannot deny the truth of what they are seeing. Unfortunately, climate change can’t condense its incontrovertible truths to the single proof of a comet right before one’s eyes. (I suppose one could have extended this satire to having some individuals deny what they see with their own eyes, which I’m sure would be the case with some individuals!) Of course, the insanity of this reality is that like the comet, climate change (or COVID or…) too is really right in front of people’s eyes and one really only needs to “look up” to see it, to see climate change in the many symptoms of climate change we are seeing today, droughts, water shortages, sea level rise, extreme weather events (hurricanes, tropical storms, etc.) more and bigger and more intense fires, and so on. But then that is countered by these deadly trio of alternative reality making entities, right wing ideology, capitalism, and consumerism, which will continue to in effect tell people: “Don’t Look Up.”
Further Reading:
I haven’t done an exhaustive search for every piece written on the film but I have come across four really good additional pieces on the film, which I’ll list below. If anyone as additional valuable articles/analysis of the film, do let me know!
“Critics of ‘Don’t Look Up’ Are Missing the Entire Point”
“I’m a Climate Scientist. Don’t Look Up Captures the Madness I See Every Day”