Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect reviews the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up!
“Appreciate the brilliance of the season’s most profound, category-busting movie.”
Don’t Look Up is described as a parody of Trumpism and climate denial. It is elegantly that. But more importantly, the movie is a dead-on satire of the interconnected debasement of America’s politics, pop culture, conventional media, social media, spectacle, tech and corporate elite—and of how the corruption of each element corrupts the other, feeding the general cynicism and the craving for a fascist savior, political or corporate.
Credit goes to the director, writers, and producers: Adam McKay, David Sirota, Kevin Messick, and Ron Suskind. The public seems to grasp what this movie is about more than many critics.
Don’t Look Up is the top Netflix hit, so no spoiler alert is needed: A graduate student (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers that a comet is headed directly for Earth, where it will wipe out human life. She and her professor (Leonardo DiCaprio) meet with the president (Meryl Streep), who is torn between denial and acting decisively to save the planet (Trump and vaccines?).
The president has a demented chief-of-staff son (the Trump kids). I am told that the opportunistic Streep character was intended as three parts Trump and one part the Clintons.
The president, after dithering, initially orders NASA to send a nuclear weapon to explode in space and deflect the comet. But here comes the best part of the movie.
A tech billionaire, played by Mark Rylance, realizes that the comet contains trillions of dollars’ worth of rare minerals. So he devises a rival mission, blessed by the president, to break the comet into bits that will fall into the ocean to be profitably harvested. The mission fails.
In a formidable cast, Rylance steals the show. The Rylance character is the CEO of BASH Cellular, a data-mining company that can read people’s thoughts and predict their futures.
Rylance was actually a late addition. At one point, DiCaprio was to play both the scientist and the billionaire, and the billionaire was a more conventional business thug. Rylance, soft-spoken and new-agey, has created a character who perfectly captures the creepy, messianic allure of Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos et al., as well as their hypocrisy and willingness to sacrifice humanity.
As a Rylance obsessive, I have seen him, live, playing an astonishing range of roles from Richard III to a Minnesota ice fisherman, and this could be his most inventive and true creation of a character ever.
One of the movie’s many grace notes is the send-up of manic happy-news talk shows. Here, the co-hosts interview the scientists but want only an upbeat story. Even the good-guy scientist of the piece (DiCaprio) ends up corrupted, promoting the comet’s commercial potential and having a cheesy fling with the talk show co-host (Cate Blanchett), whose character is as cynical off camera as she is giddily upbeat on TV.
Those who have dismissed the movie as too much of a downer, or too obvious a parody of science denial, miss the point. Don’t Look Up is far richer as an excavation of the codependency of corporate and political fascism, enabled by the distraction of spectacle, social media, and tech.
The takeaway: If we are doomed, it is not mainly because of climate denial. ~ ROBERT KUTTNER
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Don’t Look Up” is great. Lots of parallels to the COVID situation.
Do watch this film.
Exactly. The reviews of the film that I’ve seen all point out the climate denial part, but it’s also chock full of send-ups of Covid science denial.
This is a spot-on review of this cleaver satire. For me Mark Rylance’s performance was a revelation. He interjected just the right amount of weird intelligence, misguided confidence and personal detachment. The film does examine “the codependency of corporate and political fascism.” Billionaires will always promote projects that reflect their self interests. We should be wary about allowing them to have too much power. Public-private “partnerships” will always benefit the capitalists first. This is a film that can be viewed more than once in order to note many levels of satire contained within, and the ending was perfect.
cx: clever
just the right amount of weird intelligence, misguided confidence and personal detachment
perfectly said!
and the more it is watched and re-watched around the world, the more the terms, actions and characters allow a common conversation
Yes!!! It’s a really important film.
I found myself sympathizing with the hopelessness experienced by the NASA administrator…I wonder why?
LOL.
Some critics on the left point out that this film gives the right more fodder to complain about Hollywood’s portrayal of the right. I disagree. It pokes fun of everyone.
I thought it was an accurate portrayal of the right.
Exactly. This movie wasn’t satire. It was reporting.
Absolutely agreed, yet some liberal friends of mine have pop-pooed it stating it makes Hollywood a target for the right wing.
This movie would have been a lot more effective if it reflected the current reality: a “competent” technocratic president who “follows the science” yet still hands out drilling permits like Halloween candy, adamantly refuses to ban fracking, protects polluting corporations and massively funds the biggest climate threat of all: the U.S. military. The presidential administration depicted in the movie left office a year ago, but still no meaningful action has been taken on climate change.
BTW, I’m told that my good friend NYCPSP wants me banned from this blog for saying uncomfortable truths like this. Talk about Don’t Look Up.
Well argued. Well said, Dienne. But if Status Quo Joe is a scraped knee, Trump is bowel cancer.
That was neither an uncomfortable truth or well argued nor well said. It was a biased, selectively chosen and edited screed that oversimplified (read: black/white, either/or) topics that cannot be distilled in such a way. Nothing uncomfortable about that.
Your points are well made, Greg. I agree.
You’re right, I was wrong.
That it was biased, selectively chosen, and oversimplified was precisely my point, Greg. Perhaps I didn’t make it very clearly.
That’s the limitation of this type of communication. Nuance, sarcasm, and anything else where hand or eye gestures help translate is lost.
Indeed
Dienne77…..
“I am told that the opportunistic Streep character was intended as three parts Trump and one part the Clintons.”
This satisfies my dissatisfaction with the current administration….although I’d still rather have Biden in office than the Orange one.
Glad you still read even if you don’t comment as much anymore.
I will probably be banned for posting to correct another one of your lies but I will respond to the lie you just posted.
I don’t want you banned for saying uncomfortable truths.
I said you should be banned for saying blatant lies.
This particular post would have been perfectly fine except that you lied and said that I wanted you banned for saying “uncomfortable truths”.
I love reading uncomfortable truths, even when I disagree. I don’t like when people intentionally lie. People can make mistakes and post information that is blatantly false. If it was unintentional, they correct the information. If it was intentional, they don’t.
I believe that basic honesty should be a requirement of folks who post on this blog. If I’m wrong, I don’t belong here.
dienne77 posted that 63 vaccinated people who attended President Obama’s birthday party tested positive for COVID in the 2 weeks after the party. That is blatantly untrue. There was a rise in covid cases in the 2 weeks after the party – which also coincided with the height of summer season when the population multiplied — and not one of that rise could be traced to the birthday party.
However, in researching this, I did learn that far right propaganda sites were also pushing that lie.
What would be the motives of someone to post a blatant lie? It was possible to criticize Obama’s birthday party as a terrible idea without lying.
But the lying is always in service to riling up anger against democrats. And the lying always happen whenever there is a discussion about one of the truly awful and reprehensible things that Republicans are doing to our democracy and to the health of teachers and the public.
dienne77 wrote what started as a perfectly reasonable comment. But then she ended with a lie about me.
Maybe someone who knows more about psychology can understand why this country has enabled people like far right Republicans and certain posters here to believe that they can lie with impunity because it helps them make whatever point they feel entitled to make.
As I have said before, there is a cost to us in not calling out lies. It just normalizes lying as something that we should all accept because it would be too mean to call it out.
Intentionally posting misinformation and attacking those trying to correct the lie for being too mean is right out of the right wing playbook. Maybe this blog demonstrates how well it works. Maybe I don’t belong here and more folks like dienne77 do.
Thank you NYC public school parent, well said.
NYCPSP,
Over the years, I’ve had disagreements with Dienne, usually because she was attacking Biden when he was running against the former guy. She can be very annoying when she spends her time attacking the Democrats, when the GOP supports a fascist moron. She was completely wrong in writing that Obama’s very ill-advised birthday party caused 63 people to get COVID. I read the news clips from Martha’s Vineyard and none of the COVID cases was tied to his party. But I won’t block her because when she is wrong, others (including you) point it out.
Cue a poem from SomeDAMpoet, ha,ha.
I mean, I feel like this spot here can only be successfully filled by that particular contributor….
BTW I don’t watch much on Netflix but “Don’t Look Up” was good.
Thank you Diane Ravitch.
But I was just smeared with a blatant lie and Bob Shepherd – someone who I respect – posted “well-argued, well-said”. That is a stamp of approval to the blatant lie that I wanted to ban dienne77 because she posted “uncomfortable truths” when she knows – and frankly, so does Bob – that I said she should be banned if she was going to keep posting blatant lies from right wing propaganda media like she did about Obama’s birthday party. Remember, it was completely possible to criticize Obama’s birthday party without lies, but not if the intent was to deceive and amplify the same lies found on right wing websites.
Bob Shepherd’s response gave credibility to dienne77’s lie. And it was insulting to me. I have never wanted to ban people who post “uncomfortable truths”. If Bob Shepherd thinks that is a true statement after all these years, then nothing I write will change his mind.
That is the problem with our discourse. I actually know real Trump supporters and I hear the same thing from them that I just saw from Bob. They agree with some part of what Trump is saying — just like I agree with some things Trump says! — but the difference is that they aren’t bothered by Trump’s lies about other things because what matters to them is that Trump is saying something that they like. They give their stamp of approval to a speech and don’t parse the things Trump said that were lies in the speech – and they don’t call them “lies”, they call it “getting it wrong”. Their approval legitimizes everything Trump says, not just the truthful things. And just incentivizes more lying. That is now “acceptable”. And it has debased our democracy.
I can either stop being part of this blog or call this out when I see it. I don’t know how to do anything else that isn’t being complicit with the lies.
By the way, I came to this blog because when it came to public education, I was shocked that the ed reformers were frequently posting blatant lies and not being called out on them.
There were always some parts of what education reformers said that was true. It was true that there were students who were in urban public schools where most students were struggling with reading or math and most of those students were living in poverty and most weren’t white. It was true that no one had come up with some magic fix for those schools. It was true that not all union teachers were dedicated and motivated and it was true that it was difficult to simply fire a teacher who had lost their desire to teach or was otherwise problematic.
Our conversation about public education became so debased because everyone nodded yes, that is a problem and then ignored all of the untruths that those ed reformers were saying to mislead the public into believing they had the right policies to make that better.
I came here because I felt that this blog was a place that didn’t just accept those blatant lies and let them go because something else the ed reformers were saying happened to be true.
But I think everyone here knows how difficult it is once the lies of education reformers became part of what was accepted as the “truth”.
I think if the media had called out the ed reformers’ lies in the beginning, instead of amplifying them, public education would be much better off.
Commented above before reading this. Don’t let it get to you NYPSP. You explain and give us reasons to disagree (which I sometimes do) and agree (which I think I mostly do). It’s easier to throw out pithy sentences with no context and explanation. It gets to me too, but seems to get to you more. That’s OK. As Kris Kristofferson wrote, stand your ground, don’t let the b@stards get you down.
I never was a fan of Status Quo Joe, but the man could turn out to be, as Diane has pointed out, another FDR, if only he didn’t have Sinema and Manchin in his way. I have been extraordinarily surprised and pleased by much of what his administration has done so far. My comment meant only to say that I agree with some of the charges made against the administration for business as usual. Overall, however, I think that he’s been an awesome President–one who has tried to address, head on, the most important issues. In comparison to the monster who recently held the office, he is a freaking saint.
GregB,
I read your comments above – thank you. I enjoy reading your comments and Bob’s comments and Linda’s comments and many others — even if some of them are occasionally are very long – because I respect that all of you are trying to explain why you have your opinions instead of just presenting them in pithy sentences with no context or explanation. You don’t write a pithy sentence and link to a right wing twitter feed full of false narratives or and you don’t support your arguments with blatant lies. None of you are trying to convince by deception. Why would you have to, if the truth is on your side?
Your Kris Kristofferson reference made me smile. Also took me back to one of the first record albums I bought with my own money and played over and over until I had memorized every word to every song – the soundtrack to the 1970s version of “A Star is Born”.
Just want to clarify one thing. What “gets me down” aren’t the people who throw out pithy sentences with no context or explanation. Or who support their opinions using blatant falsehoods.
What gets me down is when those people are given credibility and legitimacy because people who are respected treat them as if they are credible and legitimate. I miss Jon Stewart because he would call out people for what they are. But we now live in a time when a Republican leader can spew utter lies one day and the next day be quoted in the NYT without one iota of their credibility being damaged.
Too many people don’t pay any price for blatantly lying anymore in our culture or on the blog. They no longer have to apologize or correct their lies. They can post the next day and get a “well said”. It doesn’t matter if you posted something that wasn’t true yesterday because now you are posting something people like. That is very dangerous. That is what gets me down. Lying, being wrong, no difference, everyone gets things wrong sometimes so everyone lies. What’s the big deal?
It would be so much easier to convince people of my POV if I could oversimplify everything and use lies or an out of context example. That’s what the anti-public school folks do all the time. “Bad teacher can’t be fired, union’s fault”
It works. Just depressing to see it working here, where I thought folks saw why telling the truth matters, even if it does make it harder to rile up folks and make them angry about whatever you are angry about.
NYCPSP,
Lies do not go undisputed here. Readers jump all over them and present evidence.
To me the treatment of scientists looked very real. It’s not a satire, it’s very real how scientists (especially so called “non-Harvard” scientists) are ignored as if what they say is “just one of the possibilities” of a multitude of opinions, and we can bend it in any way that suits our purposes. If you say “after your hear is cut out you’ll die” is just an opinion, a pessimistic one, too, and there can be many other, much more cheerful outcomes of the operation, like heart regeneration, as was discussed by Tucker Carlson of Fox last Sunday.
Tucker Carlson produced a three-part documentary to show that the Jan 6 riot/insurrection/failed coup was organized by the FBI.
Todays NY Times has a full page today showing the planning, recruitment and organization of that day by the far-right Oathkeepers. They had arms stashed around DC to help them overthrow the government.
Bravo, Dr. Wierdl!!!
Yes, yes, yes, yes
Don’t Look Up is not satire. It’s reporting.
My students used to say to me, “But Mr. Shepherd, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion!” and I would say, “No. People are entitled to warranted opinions. Ones they have earned by basing them in reality.” There’s an internet meme that I love that features a superhero called The Credible Hulk.
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
A movie of our times. If you are a climate change denier, and/or an antivaxxer, and/or an anti-masker, and/or a Traitor Trump fascist MAGA loyalist, learning something isn’t for you, so just ignore this post. This movie is for people that still have open minds with critical thinking and problem solving skills.
This is, indeed, a must-see film.
Not always a fan of McKay, but with DAVID SIROTA? A real thinker. Mark Rylance is amazing.
Even if you come away with your own unfavorable review, it’s a thinker, an allegory for these times.
Which are terrible ones, & not just because people say, “Meh.” (As in “a comet is coming, & the world says, ‘Meh.'”)
Or was that just AMERICA says, “Meh?”
So many really superb performances in this film.