3.20 | watching for climate at the oscars

✉️ letter #78

The Academy Awards aired last Sunday, and by one specific metric, it was the most climate-aware ceremony in history. I won’t blame you for not having noticed.

The statistic comes from The Climate Reality Check, a “Bechdel Test” for climate change that evaluates whether our current climate reality is being represented in films. Much like the Bechdel Test, which measures gender representation and only requires that two female characters speak a single line of dialogue to each other that isn’t about a man, the bar is set pretty low.

🎼 the soundtrack | perfect hand (power snatch version) - this is lorelei

To pass, a film only needs to acknowledge two things:

1. That climate change exists: something within the story portrays that extreme weather is a new thing - like an “unprecedented” heat wave or “rising” sea levels. It could even be background graffiti.
2. That a character knows it: there is some demonstration that a character understands the concept of climate change. The action could be active, like actually mentioning changing weather patterns in a conversation, or passive, like reading/watching something on the news.

Most historical eras are left out, since climate change is a post-Industrial problem. Sci-fi is only included if it’s about our actual Earth — so no Dune or Avatar, despite the very obvious environmental allegories. Since the characters DO need to know what’s going on, movies like last year’s Flow, about a cat drifting through a world of rising waters, also don’t technically pass the test. Essentially, the test just looks at if movies set about or around our contemporary world have any nod at all to this very contemporary problem.

Of the sixteen Oscar-nominated feature films that met the eligibility criteria, five got in: Arco, Bugonia, Jurassic World Rebirth, The Lost Bus and Sirāt. Of those, two are specifically movies related to the environment:

• In Arco, a 10-year-old journeys to a 2075 where sea level rises, extreme weather and wildfires have led to domed communes where people actually work together to survive and thrive. I guess the implication is that we wouldn’t until the world was already too hard to live in.
• In The Lost Bus, an elementary school teacher and a bus driver rush to evacuate 22 children from the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California. It’s made clear that the reason this terrifying experience exists is because “every year the fires get bigger. And there’s more of them.”

Five out of sixteen is 31%, a massive leap from last year’s dismal 1/10, and even an improvement on the slightly less embarrassing 3/13 in 2024. You can see all of the research done by Good Energy, a climate film consultancy, here.

You could critique this test for being both too broad and too narrow. On one side, the Climate Reality Check praised Twisters last year, despite the fact that director Lee Isaac Chung admitted to erasing mentions of climate change in the movie for fear of sounding too preachy. On the other side, does ignoring mythologies and the fantastical make sense when they often do the heavy lifting in shaping our environmental values?

But ultimately, the Climate Reality Check is here as a litmus test for our own provincialism. The bar is set so low — a single line, a news report in the background — because we are still trying to wake up the protagonist. In the 'most American' of industries, entertainment, we treat the climate crisis as a niche genre rather than a baseline reality.

This leads to surreal moments: Last January, I was in Las Vegas for a work trip and ran into an old MBA friend, now an executive in international sports programing, who asked me with genuine curiosity if climate change was “actually a big deal” to anyone else in the world. Yeah, I assured him, the rest of the world cares very much.

Outside the bubble of American exceptionalism, the entire debate is a relic. In a panel two weeks ago, Cassie Flynn, UNDP Climate Change Global Director, echoed that surreal disconnect, “the rest of the world has moved so far on from 'is the climate crisis real' that it feels really weird when you hear it in America. Even Saudi Arabia and the UAE are talking about a transition away from fossil fuels.”

The rest of the world is already living in a reality Hollywood is still catching up to. But, I suppose if this year is more than a statistical blip, maybe we'll see much more realistic levels of climate talk coming to a theater near you.

🪢related threads

• How do the world's other major movie-making industries talk about climate change? "Bollywood is beginning to weave environmental themes into its narratives, reflecting the urgent climate realities facing India. Nollywood, deeply rooted in social issues, is effectively capturing the human dimension of climate change through its compelling stories." Looks like I need to compile a watch list. [ClimaTalk]
• As for China, I find it amusing that most of the major eco hits have been about how collectivist governments functioning well will save us all (I see you Wandering Earth, Fatal Resurrection), less "micro-narratives of individual participation." Certain film festivals are now hoping to change this. Otherwise, we get a nation of a billion people who sigh, "I’ve heard all the advice and I still can’t live right." [Dialogue Earth]
• If you're interested in diving into the research behind why sustainable storytelling matters, the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance has a frequently updated database of research on creative and commercial opportunities. [Sustainability on Screen: A Research Database]
• And of course, a quick shout out to the Climate Film Festival here in New York City, of which I am a happy and eager volunteer. Sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Instagram to keep abreast of some great screenings we're going to be participating in during Earth Month.

✨enjoy these culture notes

For two years now, I've held an Oscars watch party at my apartment in NYC. We load the stream up to a projector thrown against a wall, invite a bunch of friends, and feed them with Best Picture-themed victuals and libations. You can see pics of the creations on my insta. On the menu:

• Frankenstein Charcuterie - an attempt was made to plate it to look like the Monster on Dr. Frankenstein’s table the first time he introduces his work to Elizabeth, but I am no art-of-charcuterie master. That’s probably for the best though; on look back, the scene was a bit gruesome.
• Marty Supreme Onigiri - made to resemble ping pong balls. I also made two ping pong paddles out of scallion pancakes.
• Hamnet Ham, Apple & Raisin Pies - The pork was included in there for the pun, and pies are just my favorite dish out of traditional British cuisine. I only watched the movie last night and was delighted to see that they did in fact make some herb-forward apple pies in a scene.
• Sinners Fried "Catfish" & Collard Greens - A dish mentioned pretty prominently in the movie (which, incidentally, was my favorite movie out of all the Best Picture nominees I saw).
• Sentimental Value Swedish Meatballs & Lingonberry Jam - Because that's what a Skarsgård deserves.
• Bugonia Honey Cookies with "Anti-Histamine" Frosting - I added half a cup of honey to a Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix and it turned out pretty delicious. Better than the movie deserved, climate change mention be damned.
• The Secret Agent Caipirinhas - Cachaça showed up in the movie, drank straight, but adding limes and sugar makes it fun.
• Train Dreams Black Manhattan - Also known as a Night Train, it's a bourbon drink with Amaro. Much fancier than anything anyone in the movie drank.
• F1 French 375 - Kilometers per hour. Because it's a movie about fast cars, get it? Hehe. Gin, sparkling wine, and a lemony twist.

Tell me about your Oscars Parties if you had one.

🗨️a final quote

“Story as it turns out was crucial to our evolution – more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to."
-- Lisa Chron

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