** WARNING: Contains spoilers ***
“Don’t Look Up”, the Netflix film by Adam McKay and David Sirota, is receiving mixed reviews for its satiric portrayal of the end of the world. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 55% on the Tomatometer, falling short of even The Matrix Resurrected. Critics have faulted the film for being too preachy, too over-the-top in its lampooning of society and generally unfunny. Variety calls it a “smug, easy-target political satire” and “shrill and self-righteous” in its scathing review. CNN, understandably, attacked the film, which evidently hit a bit too close to home with its portrayal of vapid, celebrity-obsessed talking heads.
I enjoyed the movie a bit more than some of its critics, partly for the message, but also its cartoonish portrayal of the end of the world. It immediately reminded me of one of my favorite movies, Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks”, which oddly enough also earned a 55% score from Rotten Tomatoes. The tone was similar, and both were dark comedies about a threat from outer space. But there are important distinctions. First, “Mars Attacks” was a send-up of 1950’s schlock horror movies, while “Don’t Look Up” is a commentary on society, media culture and our complete lack of action to combat climate change (while also serving as an allegory for our pandemic response).
Secondly, the “Mars Attacks” characters in the government were ridiculous, particularly Jack Nicholson’s president. But, while “Don’t Look Up” critics have noted the particularly blunt edge of its satire and lack of subtlety, Meryl Streep’s president was, if anything, less ridiculous than the former guy. Thought experiment: if a comet was heading for earth, what would TFG’s ideas entail? Lasers? A giant pool queue? Remember, this is the guy who wanted to beat COVID by injecting bleach and shoving bright lights into people. How do you satirize someone who is beyond parody? Try to come up with a satirical president character who is more ridiculous than TFG. It can’t be done. He killed satire.
We would never allow the president’s completely unqualified kid to be a key advisor, right? Right? The president would never ignore a catastrophe explicitly because mid-terms were looming. Right? Again, if anything TFG is more ridiculous, almost explicitly using right-wing media as his source of information. I would have included a scene where DiCapprio’s character was trying to explain the threat of the comet, while the president hushed him to watch television.
Subtlety is ineffective. Irony is dead. Satire is on life-support. In today’s insane United States political environment, it is impossible to over-dramatize the extent to which a significant portion of the American people and our media will literally ignore what they can see with their own eyes. If anything, the people in “Don’t Look Up” weren’t willfully blind enough. Once they actually saw the comet, they came around. I can imagine the Fox audience in denial even as the earth shook, up to the minute they were incinerated by the comet.