Don't Think Hard: A Review of Don't Look Up

Don't Look Up was pure capitalist propaganda.

In 2016, Business Insider reported that Netflix “produces more programming than any individual cable station or network.” Since the production of its sole original feature in 2013, House of Cards, Netflix released 30 original series in 2016. Today, the face of the entertainment industry has completely changed as star-studded Hollywood blockbusters are being produced for stream-at-home releases on arguably the most influential cultural monopoly.

Netflix, of course, didn’t introduce monopoly to the entertainment industry. The life-blood of the monopoly lies in a small group of production companies who are financially tied together into a handful of enormous holding companies. This entertainment monopoly, like most other monopolies, shifted to a subscription-based model and Netflix is one of its many faces. Monopoly has simply become more efficient at influencing culture.

Adam McKay, the producer behind Don’t Look Up, is represented by the entertainment financial capital enterprise, Endeavor, which has assets across the industry. It’s board of directors features a rotating cast of bankers and executives from every branch of industry including Twitter, Dell, Exxon, and a variety of private equity firms. One member, Elon Musk, stands out the most.

The art of the enemy only serves the enemy.

So why would the Ministry of Culture and Propaganda of the financial oligarchy release a $75 million-budgeted satire about the US government’s incompetency in the face of public crisis, corruption of major political leaders, and literal Earth-shattering greed of multinational tech monopolies? It didn’t. Rather, Don’t Look Up is about pessimism, abstracting the enemy, “Listen to Science!™,” scapegoating, non-violence, and hidden under critiques of American culture, American exceptionalism.

Before we begin: If you liked the movie or its premise, don’t feel bad. The ruling class is really good at what it does. Their propaganda glosses over my own eyes half the time. There is a reason why the imperialists convinced a vast majority of workers against their own interests. People are not inherently stupid or naive. Rather, the enemy of the people is incredibly organized. What enemy wouldn’t be this organized with such overwhelming control of media and the capital needed to fuel it?

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Plot (Spoilers)

Two scientists (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) discover a comet heading straight for Earth. Nearly 10 Km in width, the comet will guarantee the end of all life on Earth. Through connections with a government space agency, the scientists are able to report this to the US president (Meryl Streep) who, with her aide (Jonah Hill), laugh it off. Next, the scientists appear on a liberal-tabloid TV show with airhead hosts (Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry) where they get minor airtime during a science segment. They are turned into memes and disregarded by the public. The president calls the scientists back in after she realizes that she can use the comet to push her career by portraying herself as the savior of Earth. A new wave of media reports that the comet is a reality and the US government preps a nuclear attack at the comet. Just as the president launches the mission, a billionaire tech-monopoly owner (Mark Rylance) commands her to cancel it, as his own team has discovered rare minerals on the comet. Now, media begins to spread misinformation about the comet as the tech company schemes to break the comet and let it crash in smaller pieces to harvest its resources. Of course, this fails and the comet inevitably destroys the planet.

Themes

On a very surface level, the movie makes a parody of the American response to the real life COVID-19 pandemic and the current state of American media consumption: “science” is ignored, career politics drive policy, and a mass of people are left distracted by pop-media. The movie offers nothing of substance to even dive into these three points. However, this does not mean that the movie is without substance.

On a deeper level, and with richness, the movie pushes the following core themes: (1) depoliticizing science; (2) nihilism, pacifism, and pessimism for the working class; (3) American exceptionalism; (4) individualization and abstraction of the enemy. We will cover all four.

Depoliticizing Science

All of the scientists who understand the reality of the comet are kept extremely politically neutral. “Listen to science,” becomes the center point. Science is once again reduced to a set of facts, rather than a process of truth-seeking which is influenced by the perspective of the class in power and subject to counter-influence by a class struggling for power. Political squabbling is portrayed as something which takes away from scientific truth, rather than scientific truth being caught up in the very real politics of class struggle.

For example, the two scientists were frantically going on media platforms to convince people that a comet is really coming. The idea is that if people believed them, the world can do something about the comet. The comet was not being stopped because enough people didn’t believe in the comet. This idea was especially pushed towards the end when the scientists, along with liberal celebrities, started a #LookUp trend to get people to believe in the comet which was now visibly near Earth’s orbit.

However, people already believed the comet was there when the president was ready to blow it up, before she was stopped by the tech monopoly which wanted to harvest it. The tech monopoly was also operating on “science.” The CEO had a team of his own scientists modelling and strategizing to harvest the comet. People changed their perspectives and then listened to that science.

Joe Biden @JoeBiden

Listen to the scientists.

The problem in the movie, and in our real world, isn’t necessary science vs. no science, but rather, the scientific perspectives and ambitions of imperialists vs. the scientific perspectives and ambitions of the rest of us.

Dr. Fauci defended the reduction of COVID-19 quarantine time from 10 days to 5 by stating “if you are asymptomatic and you are infected, we want to get people back to jobs—particularly those with essential jobs to keep our society running smoothly.” It took a scientific analysis to make this business-favorable decision. It also takes a scientific analysis to make a life-saving decision, such as China’s recent lockdown of Xi’an in response to 1,000 new cases. Science cannot be depoliticized because, like everything else, it exists within the superstructure of class struggle.

Nihilism, Pacifism, and Pessimism

Throughout the movie, there is absolutely nothing to be done in terms of struggle. The masses of people are without agency, completely at the whims of overarching corrupt politicians and businessmen. The one time people learn about the corruption, they break out into destructive riots, attacking storefronts and each other, reminiscent of scenes from the George Floyd protests from the perspective of liberals. The images of misdirected chaos leave the viewer with a feeling that nothing can be done about the way of the world, other than letting out anger.

Jennifer Lawrence’s character, the PhD student behind the discovery, retires in frustration with a group of implied anarchists and nihilist conspiracy theorists who rightfully distrust the government (but of course are portrayed as ignorant teenage-minded Antifa types). As they talked about how the ruling class plans, she interrupts them to say that the ruling class is actually just dumb.

At the end, the scientists gather with their family and quietly eat dinner, defeated, as the comet closes in. They accepted their predetermined fate: they were to be killed by the “inherent” greed and selfishness of mankind.

In a small moment of “resistance,” scientists, liberal celebrities, and other people start a movement to bring attention to the comet. Their organizing reminded me of campaign building for electing a local mayor with hashtags, organized marches, and hand-made signs with the message “Look Up!” It seems that non-violence is a principle for liberals even in a world where the violence of the capitalist class is bringing the world to an immediate and final end. Their strategy is to convince, rather than seize.

Not once is the obvious solution to the comet disaster ever hinted at. Both in the movie, and in our real world, the technological and organizational capacity to deal with such a crisis exists. The only problem is that these technologies and organizational frameworks are under the authoritarian control of a very small group of people who make all decisions over them. The solution is democratic control of these infrastructures, meaning the seizing of them by the masses. Scientists can be led by people, just as they can be led by capitalists. Instead, the masses stay non-violent until they all start fighting each other, only to inevitably wait for their doom in complete pessimism. This is how the ruling class wants us behave. This is their propaganda.

American Exceptionalism

The most absurd part of this movie was the hyper-focus on the US, as the only savior of Earth. Leonardo’s character, the lead scientist, even scoffed at the idea of having to deal with scientists from other countries who were taking the problem seriously.

In one ridiculous scene, President Xi sent a private text message to the US president, pointing out that the comet is still whole after the CEO’s failed mission to harvest it.

First of all, if this was real life, it is clear that China would have dealt with the problem already, as they did with the pandemic. Hell, they completely shut down one of their biggest cities again this week to deal with new infections. They didn’t sit back and wait for American pharma monopolies to sell everyone vaccines (as if that will solve the problem).

Second, Not only is China competent with handling crises, but they also have a strong and growing national space program. China would not have to rely on a stooge like Elon Musk, who along with the weapons industry, has built a private monopoly over the American space program.

Third, it was implied that Xi has a private relationship with the corrupt US president—apparently two demagogues who lead their countries through propaganda were hoping that the tech CEO will bail them out. In reality, the Chinese Communist Party, took complete control of private factories who did not comply with the national strategy to combat the pandemic. It was clear that this Pentagon-approved script wanted to muddle the Republican-reminiscent fictional incompetency in Don’t Look Up with the Chinese president, as they do in real life with Trump and Putin or Biden and Xi.

Worse, the movie even managed to make explicit digs at the Global South. Apparently China, Russia, and India (surprised they didn’t say Iran) united, went rogue, and launched a failed mission to destroy the comet which ended in disaster, leaving America as the only party left capable of cleaning up the mess. My insistence of this movie being pure propaganda is best highlighted in this point. This part seemed to flash by but had an important purpose.

Apparently a global struggle against the comet could not even be conceived of. Only the US was capable of dealing with this—other countries were barely mentioned. This is exactly how it works with the pandemic. The American public only sees a fight against the pandemic coming from America and its pharmaceutical companies. When will we hear about a policy idea which requires multiple countries coordinating disease screening on travel, open-access vaccines, and specifically learning from the few governments (China Vietnam, Cuba, Kerala) who have successfully defeated COVID-19?

Abstraction and Individualization of the Enemy

In the movie, a parody of the far-right was pushing a #DontLookUp trend, though it was clearly the liberals, backed up by big tech, primarily pushing against destroying the comet. The movie was as good at subtle psychological scapegoating as the real world media is, with the blame of ignorance solely falling on the “right-wing” of capitalists.

The movie seemed to have two main “bad guys.” The tech monopoly CEO and the US president. They both had power, and they both subjected the Earth to the effects of their selfishness and greed. In the real world, this was the case with the pandemic too. From the American perspective, depending on who you are asking, individuals like Trump, Xi Jinping, or Bezos are pointed out as the individual bad actors behind the failure of dealing with the pandemic. However, the interwoven class of Pharma Board Members and US intelligence leadership, are rarely ever pointed to. Worse, the capitalist class as a whole is never pointed to. This is because pointing to an enemy capitalist class inherently means identifying a revolutionary working class. However, when an individual is pointed too, there is no obvious solution other than replacing the “defective” individual with another, good-heated, individual.

Finally, the portrayal of the CEO was interesting. Unlike all other characters who directly seemed to represent something (Leonardo’s character as Dr. Fauci, the Meryl Streep’s character as a vague conglomeration of US leadership, etc). The tech CEO, for some reason, seemed to be a mix of Steve Jobs and Joe Biden, with an emphasis on Biden. Steve Jobs is dead and Biden is actually the US president. It really made no sense. Biden oozed out of the character, complete with stuttering, dentures, and creepy sniffing. I believe that it was a conscious decision to not tie that character in with a real-life tech CEO. Biden brought the laughs but Musk would have brought too much reality. Choosing to parody someone like Zuckerberg, Bezos, or Elon Musk would have made sense. Though, like I mentioned, Musk sits on the board of the holding company behind the producer and this is art of the enemy.

Conclusion

The only valid cultural criticism that the movie made was far from profound. Yes, we all know the media keeps distracting us from important events and processes with celebrity gossip and the unification of reality TV with US government politics. The industry has been making satire on this for decades. Netflix didn’t need to invest $75 million to get that message across. Though they did need to invest $75 million to get across most of the other points I covered above.

Adam McKay, a cultural lackey of the ruling class and executive producer behind Don’t Look Up, is working hard to produce effective propaganda. His future works include a production on Epstein and an American adaption of Parasite, a fabulous Korean picture on imperialism and class struggle.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

PS. I didn’t want to leave out one final disturbing detail. Leonardo’s character cheated on his wife with the TV celebrity hostess. At the end, his wife took him back, no issue. It was kind of annoying because it heavily downplayed the situation. Further, for a short moment, Leo’s character advocated the line of the tech CEO on TV as he grew famous. I think this was meant to instill the idea that Dr. Fauci, also a well meaning scientist, may also make “mistakes” as he is caught up in the politics of mainstream media. The scientist, in my opinion, was as villainous as the president or tech CEO but in the eyes of liberals, it’s impossible to give science any political dimension.

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