‘It affects everything’: why is Hollywood so scared to tackle the climate crisis?

www.theguardian.com

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12mo ago

‘It affects everything’: why is Hollywood so scared to tackle the climate crisis?

www.theguardian.com /film/article/2024/jul/20/hollywood-climate-crisis

14 comments

“I just wanted to make sure that with the movie, we don’t ever feel like it] is putting forward any message,” director Lee Isaac Chung, who grew up in Oklahoma’s tornado belt, [told CNN] “I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented.”
I’m sure his parents are thrilled to have raised an artist who is proudly devoid of substance. /s
- You joke, but probably. That's how you get people producing the sorts of propaganda that works best for conservatives. Its not about anything, its about how just checking out and going along with it is fine. And there's a ton of parents right now who really believe you can tell the story of humanity without telling about hierarchy, slavery, genocide, and war
- Reminds me of watching some behind the scenes stuff for the film Event Horizon. The director could barely stay in his seat he was so excited that they had had the brilliant idea to 3D scan the interior of Notre Dame cathedral and use that as their spaceship interior. Dude was over the moon. All I could think was, “Yeah, nice job. Way better than designing something original. Truly you are a paragon of the craft, good sir.”
Don't Look Up is about the climate crisis, you just need an IQ over 80 to realize it... Also very funny that it stars a guy who owns a yacht worth over 100m that probably emits more pollution in a day than most people do in a year...
- It was also criticized for being "too on the nose", which is exactly the type of behavior that the movie was criticizing. Basically the world is ending and when someone tries to raise awareness people don't react, so they get louder and lose patience because the world is fucking ending, and then get told not to be alarmist and to stop freaking out. It's the plot of the movie, and it's what happened to the movie.
Glad to see The Day After Tomorrow mentioned, since it was my first thought.
I know there are others too, and this Twisters guy saying movies shouldn't have a message sounds really out of place in Hollywood.
- Honestly, the climate crisis seems to be a subtle or explicit theme of a lot of what Hollywood makes, staring in everything from Waterworld and Mad Max to Pacific Rim and Don’t look up, and if anything might be overrepresented in speculative and science fiction.
  I don’t think that’s a bad thing now, but to say that Hollywood doesn’t have anything that talks about the climate crisis seems to say a lot more about the author’s either media literacy or taste in movies than it does about Hollywood itself.
- Yeah. Hollywood doesn't sell a message except one people will buy.
It's probably a pretty boring topic at this point. At least for a decade you hear about it constantly so it just doesn't have that sort of exciting aspect to it. It's like making a movie about inflation.
- If you explore the dynamics of people migrating en masse and severe drought causing crop failures and small countries mismanaging famines you jump right into war which makes for exciting movies
  
  If you explore the dynamics of people migrating en masse and severe drought causing crop failures and small countries mismanaging famines
  That's kinda the premise of interstellar, but people sort of ignore it and just focus on the space part. My cynical guess is that a movie such as you describe would have audiences mostly focus and care about the war aspect, while ignoring the setup and premise.
- Famine and climate refugees lead to authoritarian governments. Or, just have it in the backdrop like a comedy about a heatwave in March where people are sweltering and it turns into a meetcute.
  Or just the super fucked up first chapter of Ministry for the Future.
- A disaster movie…made boring because it’s about the potential future that we are creating?
  HOLY SHIT THIS MASSIVE, UNPRECEDENTED TORNADO IS KILLING HUNDREDS AND TEARING CITIES TO SHREDS! IT JUST RIPPED THA—oh. It’s because of climate change? Boooooriinnngg
  
  I was thinking if it started "tackling" the climate change. But sure