Theres been a lot of talk about this film and my own thoughts have been pretty conflicted regarding how to weigh the good and bad aspects of it, and I think this critique does a good job at addressing a lot of the things ive had problems with the film, mainly its underlying liberal rhetoric and the shortcomings of its American-centric narratives. Dont get me wrong I think its a good film and all, but theres some very real limitations to its overall commentary that I think we all need to be thinking about seriously.
very capitalist realism, but i quite liked it within those constraints
like yeah streep being very obviously a trump stand-in was certainly a big weakness as an allegory, maybe it made it more entertaining as a film that gets more people seeing it and thinking about the urgency of the issue, maybe it just lets smug libs off the hook and channels their energy into more useless electoralism, i dunno. if she played an obama figure and hardly anyone except weird leftists watched it, would that be better? i dunno.
but what i did like was how strongly it pushed the "daddy musk is full of shit and will not save you" angle, cos i think deep down everyone knows mainstream lib politicians arent gonna save us, but still hold out desperate hope for some deus ex machina from the tech billionaires. to me this is in many ways a much more important message, and i gotta say the guy nailed the role as well.
maybe im reading too much into it, but i kinda liked the subtle implication that the americans sabotaged the russian/chinese/indian launch as well
and the general charging them for the snacks was a seriously great bit
was she supposed to be a trump stand in? i thought the movie made a distinction between her and the conservatives. thought she was supposed to be like a typical liberal stand in like Kamala or someone?
she had very trump iconography (the banners and the caps etc), the dont look up rallies and everything were clearly supposed to be trump like, she was wearing red most of the time, her senior advisor was her incompetent son, there was the whole "judge with sex scandals" thing in the background, and she was radiating a trump kinda energy in general. cant remember anything that pointed to her being democrat, might have missed it though. most of the shit ive read about it seemed to have the same takeaway fwiw, so i think if they were trying for a "jabs at both sides" generic non-partisan president character i think they missed the mark
i remember she had a picture of Bill and Hillary on her desk, and i thought the difference was that conservatives were pretending there wasnt even anything to talk about when it went to their news show, vs everyone else and in the administration who did acknowledge its happening, tried to stop it, and then backed out after the capitalists basically said no and then they turned to damage control. i think its somewhat ambiguous on purpose, and shes clearly supposed to sorta be a jab at Clinton and liberals too i feel. i think maybe the film failed in that aspect too of not going after liberals clearly enough
A pretty weird movie, imo. Even the protagonists seemed to lack any real agency during the film, and the climax was basically coming together to make peace with the unavoidability of an apocalyptic future. I think it says a lot about America in that we can be comfortable with a future that lacks any positive vision so long as it asks nothing of us.
You know how leftists are often saying Bernie riles up the youth and then redirects their energy into obscurity in the Democratic Party? That's how I feel about Don't Look Up.
I think the movie does a good job of making fun of both conservatives and liberals and showing how basically we are all gonna die if they keep being in charge of it all, though i think it falters in analyzing the way the current western capitalist global hegemony is structured and how it functionally rules the world. The fact that the current system is inept and dysfunctional is true, but its very easy to just come out of it with a technocratic understanding of what needs to be done (just elect more "capable" technocrats). The analogy with the comet misses an important mark regarding climate change being the fault of this global capitalist system, and without that analysis there's no chance at stopping it.
Refuse to watch it ever since I saw an ad with Leo dicaprio looking up, which he was very clearly advised not to!! An outrage.
I liked it. I'm seeing folks dunk on it because it doesn't provide any useful call to action which is true. The protagonists just try to :vote: their way to salvation and they all die in the end. But, I think it serves as a perfect cautionary tale to radicalize folks without the film itself being too directly off-putting ideologically. I think the emotionality the actors put into the "We're fucked and that's scientific fact" could push those in the global north to take climate change more seriously. I think clips of "Don't look up" will circle youtube in the future similar to this one and ultimately serve to start paving the way towards more radicalization. Personally I think anything that says "hey, business as usual is fucked" brings folks one step closer to :back-to-me:. Imagine the potential of "Hey you know how they all die in the end? Imagine if in that one scene with the riot if they actually had overthrown the government. I wonder if they would have survived." Also, jennifer lawrence is hot and nihilist astrophysicist grad student deciding to makeout because "fuck it we're all gonna die" was a real vibe.
The general charging them for the snacks was such a good bit, and I loved that they kept bringing it back up.
Overall I thought the movie was good. A bit :LIB: I suppose, but aside from outright saying “The only way to prevent this is armed communist revolution” I don’t know what more they could’ve done. I guess maybe have the President be a bit less of a Trump allegory. But mostly it felt like it was made by people who are frustrated and scared because we’re all going to fucking die, which I respect because I’m also frustrated and scared because we’re all going to fucking die.
