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Dear Hollywood Producers, Directors, Writers, Actors: It’s Time To Shed Some "Lights, Camera Action!" On Climate Change Issues, Too
Dear Hollywood Producers, Directors, Writers, Actors: It’s Time To Shed Some "Lights, Camera Action!" On Climate Change Issues, Too
Hollywood, the land of dreams and the boulevard of tentpole marketing campaigns. do something! With a plethora of films with boffo box office revenues annually, not one decent motion picture made on the burning - literally - topic of our age: climate change.
I mean Hollywood, California is on fire in 2019! Get with the program!
But for the most part, Hollywood relies on a false sense of escape instead of realism to survive and prosper.
Hollywood has slowly and steadily moved from the fantasy culture to more relatable and realistic cinema based on historical events, believable science fiction, and, most importantly, the day-to-day life of the audiences. But in terms of making cli-fi movies with important themes and A-List actors, there is still much work that needs to be done.
Ask Marshall Herskovitz, ask Sonny Fox, ask me!
One of the worst victims of Hollywood’s gross neglect of our society’s truth - other than people’s intelligence – has been runaway climate change risks. Whether or not, we as a society, indulge in measures to manage climate change, and the harmful effects of global warming, we all know one reality; that we have irreversibly damaged our ecosystem in the past, in a way that our ancestors couldn’t do in close to five millennia.
Almost everyone knows that the sea levels are rising, precipitation has become scarce, and the global temperatures continue to increase by the day. We, however, conveniently ignore the naked truth to live an apparently ignorant existence. Ask Greta Thunberg.There is no surprise then, that American and UK pop culture too, very skillfully ignores the topic of climate change, and doesn’t depict it at all on the silver screen.
Look at the history of the Film Industry, and you’ll realise that few viable movies or documentaries have been made on the harmful effects of climate change and global warming. When in the 2000s, Hollywood was making movies like The Core (2003) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), starring top Hollywood superstars, things started to look promising. Leonardo DiCaprio even gave a shout out to cli-fi in one of his Oscar acceptance speeches. But sadly, the handful of cli-fi movies that have indeed been made on climate change can be counted on one hand. [Listen to the sound of one hand clapping!]
Why is the American motion picture industry only a moneymaking venture? Where did the days go when a screen artist wanted art and social commentary?. We stand witness to the horrors that humans, animals, and nature have to undergo every day due to the damage we have done to our surroundings. What about them? Don’t they deserve their time on the infamous silver screen, too?
In fact, the thick smog of negligence and nature’s plight has gradually moved from the rural areas to the cities we live in. Wildfires, floods, killer hurricanes.
Hell, why not make a cli-fi movie on that?
DearHollywood, as Bob Dylan said long ago, the times are changing, and it is imperative that we change with it. Global Warming is no longer a ghost story mothers use to scare their children to sleep. Climate change is here and now.
Temperatures are climbing by the day, and sea levels are rising by the hour. Every year crops fail. And more of "America The Beautiful" becomes clouded by smog. If not for yourself, do it for your children’s health.
Dumb or dumber, we can’t deny the fact that Hollywood and its equivalent TV facets in other parts of the country are trendsetters. What they show on screen is what society follows and believes. Behind a small line of seemingly intelligent people, there are hordes of people who worship the actors and actresses as living gods, and goddesses. Distractions. A movie made on the right topic can hit the issue in the heart and make sure that people understand the gravity of the situation.
The human mind is a fickle thing, and it doesn’t work on fear. To make people more aware, and most importantly, more effortful and involved in the effort to reverse climate change, we have to indulge them in a personal way. We have to show the audience what happens when a farmers loses their crops and their land to floods caused by climate change. What happens when the climbing temperatures force climate refugees worldwide to change their homes and uproot their lives. Roland Emmerich is planning a movie of this theme right now, for release in 2025. Hollywood boys and girls, show audiences in the 2020s and 2030s how Mother Earth has done nothing except giving us food, water, and shelter all its life and in return, has received only suffering from the humans who inhabit this Earth's surface.
See also: ''The Cli-Fi Report'': www.cli-fi.net
And what better way to package all these dreadful and eye-opening scenes than cinema. If mainstream movies and big actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Arnold and Stallone and Meryl Streep can be cast in some good cli-fi movies in the future about climate change, the responses of our bankable Hollywood stars will go all the way from utter ignorance to asking what they can do about it. You can do a lot if you try, Hollywood movers and shakers!
Think about it. Cli-fi movies are here to stay. Start making more of them!
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