Watched "Don't Look Up." Still thinking about it, but early thoughts: it was much more about media than I expected; the president was much more Trumpian than I expected; it captured the dread of climate anxiety but not the uncertainty.
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I think if the world's going to end, I'd prefer to know the date certain, rather than the slow uncertainty of climate change (and Covid). In that way the film's end of the world gives us the easy way out.
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It also depicts a spectacular, disastrous end of the world with spiritual suffering but without physical suffering. The earth disintegrating with near instantaneous death for everyone means no starvation, no maimings from crushed concrete. Again, the easy way out.
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Last semester when we were talking about disaster fiction in my critical disaster studies seminar, my students said they wanted their disaster and climate fictions to have (or contain) calls to action. I said I wanted fiction to help me imagine victory or reconcile to defeat.
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My students recoiled and scolded me. We don't want to reconcile ourselves to the end of the world, they said, we want to fight back. But I liked how hopeless Don't Look Up is, how the concerts and protests (and unshown organizing) are well meaning but hopeless.
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I will again recommend
@billsquirrell's novel Strange Labour as a piece of fiction about reconciling oneself to the end of the world. https://bookshop.org/books/strange-labour/9781989274354 …. Don't Look Up also made me want to see Don McKellar's Last Night (1998) again.1 reply 3 retweets 16 likesShow this thread -
Jacob Remes Retweeted Jacob Remes
This point continues to makes me think about how disaster and climate change discourse have been fused, hiding how non-carbon human choices create disaster and also hiding non-spectacular climate suffering like droughts and heatwaves.https://twitter.com/jacremes/status/1476379194363887622?s=20 …
Jacob Remes added,
Jacob Remes @jacremesIt also depicts a spectacular, disastrous end of the world with spiritual suffering but without physical suffering. The earth disintegrating with near instantaneous death for everyone means no starvation, no maimings from crushed concrete. Again, the easy way out.Show this thread3 replies 1 retweet 9 likesShow this thread -
Jacob Remes Retweeted hawoni
On the other hand, maybe erasing the suffering helps us better to imagine the end of the world.https://twitter.com/llhklw/status/1476380903492374530?s=20 …
Jacob Remes added,
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One more thought: it’s striking how the rest of the world is depicted (especially in the flashy montages) and occasionally mentioned, but it is basically beside the point. The only real actor is the US, and that’s it.
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That's actually one big way it doesn't work as a climate allegory. USA won't be main actor in climate drama of the coming century.
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