There Is a Tool to Increase Climate Propaganda in Movies

There isn’t enough climate propaganda in the movies, so our friends in the environmental community have created a tool to help pressure Hollywood to become even more woke on environmentalism. 

“Climate columnist” Sammy Roth wants to use it to ensure that more propaganda is pumped out of Hollywood. 

Let’s demand more from Hollywood on the most important story in the world, writes Climate Columnist @Sammy_Roth https://t.co/Fz36oJv6fj

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 1, 2024

As you know, the Left is all about Narrative, and when they aren’t getting the results they want, their solution is always to amp up the propaganda. And, to be honest, at least in the short-to-medium term, the propaganda works pretty well with a large fraction of the population.

Unfortunately for the Left, there are diminishing returns when you pump out the BS. Once the low-hanging fruit is harvested, the rest of us start rolling our eyes and then looking away. 

Sammy Roth understands this, so he is pushing a tool to be more subtle but more relentless in pushing The Message. 

Let’s say you’re a heading to the movie theater to catch a quirky romantic comedy. Or you’re on Disney+ binging the latest Marvel superhero show after work. Or maybe you’re looking for a Netflix documentary about international cuisines.

Are any of those stories truly grounded in reality if they don’t at least nod at the existence of the climate crisis?

GROUNDED IN REALITY?! Romcoms and Marvel movies are exactly where audiences go to look for grounded-in-reality entertainment, right?

I can already hear some of you grumbling: Why does everything have to be about climate change? Let me have some fun without having to worry about the fate of the planet. Not all entertainment needs to be a vehicle for environmental messaging.

Agreed. But some of it should be — and now we have a tool for pressuring Hollywood studios to do their part.

The tool, it turns out, is a rating system modeled after one that helped create a feminist revolution in movies. Roth wants to do for environmentalism what the Bechdel test did for DEI. 

It was today that I learned there is an actual tool to force feminism into movies, but I shouldn’t be surprised. And, as of this week, there is another to force climate propaganda into movies. 

Oh, joy!

Hollywood has been striking out quite a bit of late, so it’s not quite clear to me that building a new tool to enforce an ideological bent in movies will help it recapture the magic, but what do I know about what people want to watch? Trust the people who brought us She-Hulk and the string of successes that Marvel and Disney have been pumping out lately. They are the “experts.”

It’s called the Climate Reality Check, and it was developed by nonprofit consulting firm Good Energy and a researcher at Maine’s Colby College. A story passes the test only if it’s clear through the events being portrayed on screen, on the page or onstage that global warming is happening — and only if at least one character demonstrates that they know it’s happening.

The Climate Reality Check’s designers applied the tests to this year’s Oscar-nominated movies. Of the 13 fictional, feature-length films set in present-day or near-future Earth, three passed the test: “Barbie,” the latest “Mission: Impossible” and “Nyad.”

To me, that’s not very many. To Good Energy, it’s a great start.

Anna Jane Joyner, the consulting firm’s founder and chief executive, reminded me of a USC report, which her firm funded, finding that just 2.8% of scripted television episodes and films released from 2016 through 2020 included any mention of climate change (or a long list of related keywords). Three out of 13 Oscar nominees is a small sample, but a lot better by comparison.

God help save us from “nonprofit consulting firms.” I wonder to whom they provided their “consulting.” 

I haven’t seen Barbie, but I hear it hit the mark. Mission Impossible? What a disappointment. I’ve never even heard of Nyad, proving that my knowledge of contemporary culture is pretty much nil. 

If you have ever wondered where all those people with useless degrees wind up employed, it turns out that Starbucks doesn’t have nearly enough jobs. But all those nonprofits do, and of course public schools and HR departments soak up a lot them as well. 

And what do they do? Build propaganda efforts like this. 

Aren’t you glad your taxes are paying off the student loans for these folks?

Lord, help us.