Published by the Buck Lab for Climate and Environment at Colby College and Good Energy, a non-profit story consultancy for the age of climate change, a study published last month said the majority of Hollywood movies have failed to reflect the current climate change crisis.
The ‘Climate Reality on Screen: The Climate Crisis in Popular Films, 2013-22‘, conducted by researchers found that most of the blockbusters failed the “climate reality check” proposed by the authors. The study surveyed 250 movies from 2013 to 2022.
Evaluate representation of climate crisis in movies
The process is simple. The researchers looked to see if a movie presented a story comparable to the current climate change crisis. One film that passed the test is from 2017 Justice League, as Jason Momoa’s Aquaman character says: “Hey, I don’t mind if the oceans rise.”
But most of the movies fell short – lesser than 10% of the 250 films examined passed the test. Climate change got a mention in 2 or more scenes of lesser than 4% of the films. That is concerning as the current audience seeks to see their reality reflected on screen.
“The top line is just that the vast majority of films, popular films produced over the last 10 years in the United States, are not portraying the world as it is,” said Colby College English professor Schneider-Mayerson, lead researcher on the study.
Give us reality, instead of history or fantasy
It is important for movies to start reflecting the true scale of climate change on screens, instead of history or fantasy. The researchers see the test as a method for audiences and filmmakers evaluate the representation of the climate crisis in movies.
Movies that at first glance appear to have little overlap with climate or the environment passed the test. The 2022 Glass Onion and 2019 Midsommar also passed. Some that were more explicitly about climate change, such as 2021 Don’t Look Up, also passed.
The authors of the study tried to narrow the selection of movies by excluding films not set on planet Earth or set before 2006 or after 2100. They found streaming services had a higher percentage of projects that included climate change than the major studios did.
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