“It’s unlikely that’s going to reach anyone who’s skeptical of climate change,” he said.Īll that said, the impassioned responses to the film suggests a hunger for more climate content, said Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist and co-founder of the think tank Urban Oceans Lab. Svoboda noted that by the film’s end it was clearly lampooning Trumpian populism.

While “Don’t Look Up” took shots at both liberal elites and members of the right, Mr. “Does it create a kind of fatalism, even nihilism, by virtue of its people accepting the inevitability after a good but not particularly well-coordinated fight?” “Is he asking people to become more politically involved? Is he trying to reach across the aisle? That doesn’t seem to be the case at all,” Mr. McKay is clearly impassioned about climate change, he was doubtful whether the film delivered a useful message that would produce results. Yet Michael Svoboda, a writing professor at George Washington University and contributor to the web magazine Yale Climate Connections, said while Mr. After watching the 1983 television film “The Day After,” which imagined the aftermath of a Cold War atomic battle, President Ronald Reagan wrote in his journal that the film left him “greatly depressed” and hardened his resolve “to see there is never a nuclear war.” In 2012, while discussing his support of marriage equality, then vice-president Joe Biden credited the television series “Will & Grace” for educating the public.

Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”- itself reviled at the time by some critics - and the “The China Syndrome” shaped attitudes about nuclear power and war. Hollywood has played a role in defining big issues before. There are a lot of things we can do if we have the action, will and awareness.” McKay said on “The Daily Poster,” a website run by David Sirota, a journalist who is also a writer on the film. DiCaprio urged his 19.4 million Twitter followers to get involved. One of the film’s stars, Jonah Hill, appeared on The Tonight Show and encouraged viewers to ask their congressional representatives to pass HR 794, the Climate Emergency Act. Netflix and climate scientists have partnered with an online platform that lists ways people can take action. McKay has repeatedly stressed that he wants people to work toward that end. While “Don’t Look Up” doesn’t provide a happy ending either, Mr. Rare is the film that imagines a world where humans successfully work together to allay the worst of the crisis, save biodiversity and wean themselves off fossil fuels. Some films made their villains eco-terrorists - see Thanos in “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Godzilla: King of Monsters.” Or they present ecological collapse as inevitable - as in “Interstellar,” “Snowpiercer” and the Mad Max films. Hollywood has an uneven history depicting climate change in feature films, if it addresses it at all.

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