Don’t Look Up (or pat yourself on the back)
ATHARV GUPTA: Don’t Look Up, Adam Mckay’s Netflix-produced movie, made big waves when it came out for its powerful political commentary on the impending threat of climate change. This movie has a stacked cast, and it recently received a best picture nomination for this year’s Oscars. Unfortunately, this movie is a poor satire of an incredibly important issue.
You know a cast is staked when Timothée Chalamet doesn’t make the cut for the banner. Credit: Netflix.
For those who haven’t seen it, Don’t Look Up tells the story of two low-level astronomers who must convince the world of an approaching comet that will destroy the planet. The comet, of course, is a representation of the existential threat of climate change. Whether it’s the US government, a large tech corporation, or the masses of uneducated and apathetic citizens, the two scientists face many obstacles in convincing the public to take the threat seriously.
For context, I’ve loved Adam McKay’s past work. Vice (2018) and The Big Short (2015) tell great stories about complex history in a way that entertains without taking itself too seriously. Don’t Look Up was a disappointment compared to those. Not because it was a bad movie. It was fine—the performances all shine, it elicits laughs when it needs to, and there’s a strong plot throughout. My issue with it, however, is the social value it purports to convey.
Satire is defined as the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics. The challenge when satirizing something like climate change is the systemic nature of the problem: unchecked capitalistic growth, sprawling overpopulation, corporate lobbying, and greed. Don’t Look Up does little to investigate the systemic nature of this issue, and instead points blame at the individuals who won’t ‘look up’ at the comet.
Meryl Streep as our Donald Trump stand-in. Credit: Netflix.
Don’t Look Up thus feels self-aggrandizing in the worst way. The movie hardly goes further than one recurring joke: “Climate change is happening! Wait, no one cares? Wow!” In this way, Don’t Look Up feels like a 2-hour long SNL skit that simply identifies and trivializes a problem.
Not only does the movie feel self-important in that way, but it felt like a satire designed to make its viewers feel better about themselves. We watch this movie comfortably laughing at the ‘other’ people, who represent the average Trump supporter, who are so obviously misguided. We pat ourselves on the back, knowing that we would’ve been smart enough to ‘look up’ at the comet.
Scenes like this, with our two astronomers arguing with morning show anchors, are frustrating but for the wrong reasons. This scene points to the show’s apathetic viewers as the core issue, not the corporate interests that govern the media and its propagation of misinformation. Credit: Netflix.
That’s not good satire. Good satire is cross-cutting—it digs into issues at a fundamental level, it challenges our preconceived notions, and it pushes us to think critically about our own role in an issue. Don’t Look Up did none of those things. The tone of discussion around the film and its valid criticisms only proves this point further, with liberal commentators claiming that critics are somehow ‘pro-climate change.’ Is this not the definition of performative activism?
Don’t Look Up was an enjoyable movie, it just felt disconcertingly self-congratulatory on the very issue it’s intending to satirize. This movie felt like cheap humor, especially compared to the real fear around climate change.
Atharv Gupta is a junior in the SFS studying Science, Technology, and International Affairs, with minors in Computer Science and Chinese. This piece was adapted from The Kinosexual, his weekly newsletter discussing movies and television. You can subscribe to The Kinosexual here.