The audiences loving (& hating) Don’t Look Up
- Media
This year's top Christmas movie wasn't Love Actually (actually), or Die Hard. Audiences instead tuned in to Netflix to watch climate disaster movie Don't Look Up, before taking to social to share their reactions.
But while critics had very mixed reviews, audiences were at large more receptive to the film. Using Pulsar TRAC to map different associations and instances of positive or negative language, we can see that the audience reaction was some degrees warmer.
Delving a little deeper into this reaction, we find positivity from media folk who sit outside the traditional centres of broadcasting:
Don’t Look Up is hysterical and a brilliant send up of the inability of part of our country—the modern right—to deal with uncomfortable scientific information. Whether it’s climate science or Covid they would rather you just look away rather than confront reality. #DontLookUp
— Touré (@Toure) December 29, 2021
As well as amplification of the critics who do profess admiration via likes or retweets:
While everyone is complaining about how much ALL the critics HATED Don’t Look Up while audiences loved it, I’d just like to point out that I’m a critic and, er …. I rather liked it. My @wittertainment review from Dec 10 here:https://t.co/goT3ZA83gF pic.twitter.com/ADl6U5mTau
— Mark Kermode (@KermodeMovie) December 28, 2021
The film's entry into the wider discourse around the climate crisis, and the cast's advocacy for change in their accompanying press, also meant that the movie was frequently judged as an artefact within a wider struggle, rather than simple entertainment, for better:
It’s not a pathology to cry about the state of the planet. It’s a pathology not to.
My column. https://t.co/FLNvBil1c2— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) January 4, 2022
And for worse:
Sirota and McKay seem very intent on framing every criticism of the movie as akin to climate denial, and that is both profoundly dishonest and a symptom of the mindset that prevents real political change
— Sam Adams (@SamuelAAdams) December 30, 2021
So who was contributing to this discussion? We split the conversation between positive and negative, to observe the differences and commonalities between these two groups.
Within this conversation we see various communities that belong to one side or the other, some expected (US Conservatives), others less so (South African Astrologers). One immediately obvious aspect is the existence of very similar communities on either side of the divide.
In the case of movie buffs, represented on one side by Nintendo & A24 Dudes and the other by Cinephiles, the conversation is driven by metatextuality and comparisons, with judgement likely to depend on the perceived quality of the filmmaking and execution.
I’ve seen people describing “Don’t Look Up” as the “Idiocracy” of 2021, and I completely agree with that.
I LOVED this movie. pic.twitter.com/WOIqXvYPwS
— Grant Gould (@grant_gould_art) December 26, 2021
In the case of the Socialist groups seen within both the Positive and Negative conversation, debate was more centred on the issues raised, with contentions arising over whether the movie's politics were misplaced, naive or timely.
As an aside, this group appears to have quickly co-opted the movie and its message as a meme or shorthand within other, unrelated conversations:
So they are doing a wait and see and if older people start dropping like flies..then what?
This is like the UK version of 'don't look up' but with a virus and not an comet.
Good grief. https://t.co/xKs5dSkyla— Jen Wood - est optimum simpliciter (@unojen_wood) January 4, 2022
Beyond who's having the conversation, there's also the matter of what, exactly it is that's driving conversation.
