Honestly, if feels like you watched a different movie than I did, or at least, that you brought a lot of baggage to your interpretation.
I find it interesting how very different the movie was interpreted and received when you look at the various comments about it here on the forum. It looks like "you watched a different movie than I did" summarizes quite well the stark contrast in how people here evaluated what they saw. I think that has at least partly to do with everyone's own biases being brought in before watching it. I think there are a number of reasons for all of this confusion and different interpretations. See below.
I found the anti-Trump propaganda blatant (the president played by Meryl Streep and her supporters wear baseball caps with slogans and in a speech the president's son says in public that she is sexy or something like that and if she wasn't his mother...etc).
I know what you mean, and I certainly noticed that as well:
- The woman president and her son and the movement they created, which is called the "don't look up" movement, seems to me to be a parody of Trump and his son(-s) and the Trump rally movement. There are several places in the movie in which this becomes rather clear IMO.
But have you noticed the following too?:
- Interestingly that crazy woman president is shown in one picture to be hugging Bill Clinton so IMO it could also partly be a depiction of Killary as president...
That woman president
hugging Bill Clinton on the photo doesn't quite describe what you see IMO, since it is extremer than that. What it looked like to me is that she rather
flung her arms around Bill's neck in a similar fashion that a woman would do who
admires Bill and/or
is in love with Bill, or more accurately, from the context of her being an
evil witch in the movie,
parasitically pretending to
admire Bill and/or
love Bill for her own
nefarious reasons. So how exactly does this square with the idea of her
representing Trump in a metaphorical way?
Or the fact that
the president is a woman? Well, if that President is primarily meant to
depict Trump metaphorically, one could ask why the writers would be so very extremely "metaphorical" to let a woman play that role?
Here is what Meryl Streep said about here character as president. Apparently the primary reason Meryl decided to do that movie was
because she liked Adam McKay's comedic streak and apparently not because she wanted to play "a Trump character".
Or have you noticed the following?:
- That certifiably crazy/autistic/libtard billionaire that is depicted to direct/control and advice "the president", his administration and society seems to me to be meant as a mixture of Elon Musk (head of Tesla), Tim Cook (Head of Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). I think the sheer insanity and libtard craziness that is depicted in that character is just brilliant and to the point.
Again, how does that square with the idea of that president
representing Trump in a metaphorical way? And how about the fact that that
Billionaire seems to be the real power behind the throne, at least at the end? It seems to me quite clear that large portions of that
Billionaire character
is modelled on Tim Cook (Head of Apple), or rather, Apple itself, which is by all intents and purposes clearly one of the most lefty/libtard companies in the world that is pushing all those "democrat" lefty/libtard ideas hard onto society. Another big part of the
Billionaire Character IMO is modelled around
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), which again, by all intents and purposes is as lefty/democrat/libtard as you can get. Same for
Bill Gates (Microsoft) and maybe to a lesser degree
Elon Musk (head of Tesla), who are both, for all intents and purposes, pretty lefty/democrat/libtard. As for
Musk being partly a model for the character: we have another contradiction there since
Musk was at least in the beginning pretty outspoken against the Corona Craziness.
So again, how does that square with the idea of that president
representing Trump metaphorically? Also, how does that square with the fact that
the son of that woman president is clearly exhibiting very libtard/snowflakey behavior toward
the scientist and others? And
the Billionaire himself is clearly depicted very libtard/snowflakey himself with a lot of autism/pathology on top of that. And he is
"best buddies" with the president. Would
Trump be best buddies with people like
Zuckerberg/Facebook or any other of those
billionairs on which the charcter seems to be based? We know that
Trump is pretty much anti
Zuckerberg/Facebook etc. for good reasons in reality. And everybody knows that. How does that square?
In fact, almost all in the movie (not matter which "side") is depicted to be very
libtard/snowflakey/superficial/crazy IMO, just like in an
idiocracy:
Basically the entire civilization is depicted as hopelessly lost in trivialities, libtard thinking etc, with the fitting end for such a civilization in the form of comet.
So how does that square with the idea of the movie being primarily a propaganda piece against the "right-wingers"? If for some reasons the "left" side in the movie was really seriously meant to be portrait as the "sane ones" by the scriptwriters, that would make all of it even more ironic, since they come across so very deranged and libtard to me as well, that it would be hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that the writers/creators really thought what they showed there is sane "on the left side".
Which all brings me to the following points:
- How would we here in the forum have interpreted the movie if we wouldn't have been told by the media, the writers, the actors and the producers that it is meant to be "a metaphorical satire for the real threat of climate change/global warming caused by humans"? Think about it. How would you have reacted? How likely would you have interpreted the movie in that intended way? I think the likelihood of interpreting the movie in that "intended" way would have been very, very low for everyone
here on this forum. Pretty much 0 I think.
- Now, in contrast to that, how would you think people in the public would have interpreted the movie if they wouldn't have been told by the media, the writers, the actors and the producers that it is meant to be "a metaphorical satire for the real threat of climate change/global warming caused by humans"? Think about it. How would they have reacted? How likely would you think it is that the movie would have been interpreted in that "intended" way? I think the likelihood that the general-public would have interpreted the movie in that "intended" way would have been also quite low.
- So obviously, the primary thing that makes this a "propaganda piece" for global warming for some of us here, and for still others here "a propaganda piece against Trump and/or the right/conservatives", and a "great satirical depiction of the climate threat" and maybe "a great depiction of the crazy/inhuman Trumpers/conservatives" for the general-public on the other hand,
is not the content of the movie itself, but what we have been told about it and how we should interpret it, in combination with our own worldview and biases we bring to the table individually.
- The primary scriptwriter (
Adam McKay) is a comedian, and comedians of that sort are often very sarcastic and make fun off all sides, even if they are "lefty". It's their job. He apparenly said that when the pandemic hit in the middle of filming this movie, that (paraphasing) obviously,
he had to make it more extreme/crazy. Which means, one would assume, that he felt the comedic urge to make it even more satirical/crazy/hilarious/ridiculous while being confronted by "the pandemic" in order to bring the point across. So what we see is partly an even more extreme version of the "original script" because the "pandemic" agitated/fueled the comedic/satirical streak element in Adam McKay, the actors etc., to make it more extreme. I'm sure everyone there also believed the pandemic nonsense, similarly to the Trump and global warming propaganda,
but underlying or fueling that whole thing was probably also in big parts the human element, that is feeling that something is indeed terribly wrong but attributing it to the wrong causes.
Like feeling that something crazy/big is indeed happening and needing to vent that feeling in some way. And a comedian being a comedian does that exactly in such ways by making fun of all sides. It reminds me of what the C's once said:
Q: (Joe) 16% of voters said they'd rather have a giant comet than Hillary or Trump. What if we actually get one and then all those people get blamed? {laughter}
A: Interesting what mass consciousness conceives, yes? And asks for?
Q: (Pierre) Well, it's close to what we've been saying for a long time. It's getting so bad...
(L) ...that people would rather have a giant comet than to go on. And I don't think the suffering is over yet...
A: Not by a mile!
So I would propose that exactly that kind of mass consciousness described by the C's has fueled the writers/producers and actors to deliver what they did. With that absolutely hilarious result of actually depicting reality more or less accurately, while they themselves overtly believe that they indeed created a "metaphor for climate change".
- I think another big reason why there is so much confusion/controversy here on the forum (and to a lesser degree, in the public) about that movie is
the factor of not really taking into account how creative pieces (such as satirical movies, or a painting or music etc.) are created, or come into being. We see here people who watched the same movie but came away with very different feelings and interpretations. While we also argue about "the real meaning" or "the real intent" of the whole movie and/or specific parts of it because of our own personal understanding of things. I think many satires are made in a way that could apply/resonate to many preconceived notions. In a sort of open way that can be interpreted on a number of different levels and orientations. That is partly in order to reach as many people as possible and make it as attractive for as many and varied people as possible (to make as much money as possible for example) but also in order to stay true to the comedic philosophy of making fun of all and everything that feels funny not matter which camp.
- Which brings me to the main point:
We usually think that a creative/comedic act such as this movie is created by a very strict script which is in large parts set in stone clearly and specifically in advance, in pretty much every important detail. But in reality, that is very seldom what happens! Take music (as just one example of a creative outlet) for example, and specifically, the creation of a song: In most cases a song is created in some of the following ways:
- A musician plays a short lick on his instrument more or less accidentally without having thought about it in advance. It just somehow "comes to him". Sort of a short free flow. Then he thinks "oh, that sounds good actually!". Then he starts to build on top of that "initial inspiration" and searches for additional line licks, either by himself or together with fellow musicians in order to "make a song out of it". Little by little, a whole tune comes into being, sometimes informed by conscious effort and sometimes by things "that just come to him" or to other musicians at that moment in time. Often the musician gets stuck for days/weeks or even years and just doesn't know how he could put together or finish the song. He is searching and searching for "the right elements/parts" which can take years, and often it is never finished. Finally, the melodies and the harmonics are all done, and the tune is finished, but wait, there are no lyrics yet, to make it an actual song! So again, the same process starts: he thinks hard about a fitting phrase/sentence/word or sometimes "they just come without efforts". Again it can take years to finish the lyrics while in other times it just is done very quickly, while in still other times sometimes just a word is missing and he just kind of finds the right one by accident that "feels" right in the musical and lyric context but doesn't have to make much sense otherwise. Sometimes by just goofing around with his fellow musicians (or in a totally nonmusical context as well) the "right words" just pop out. If you have watched the new Beatles documentary/movie, you can see such processes in action a lot.
For example, a musiaian has almost all of a song finished and somebody says "oh, that word, phrase or lick doesn't sound right, how about using this phrase instead" and then they play it together with the new phrase/word/lick and sometimes it fits sometimes it doesn't and sometimes that little change of phrasing/wording/melody/harmonics chances the whole overall script/context and so on. Then somebody says "how about using this word?" and then the script is changed again accordingly. In other words; it is a script/song that is not very much set in stone until it is finished at all. Nobody really knows what will come out at the end. There are a myriad of other variations and ways a song can come into being too. For example, a sentence or word is created "or just comes to you" at first and all the other elements (such as melody and harmonics) are added in such a long or short process as described above later on. Or sometimes a whole song/script with all its parts "comes finished to you" but that is very seldom. Usually, processes like the above create a "song" (or movie of that kind for that matter!). And especially in this movie, that was so loose/free from the get-go: Many influences/contributions create and change it in the moment they are created/produced/filmed. See below.
Which brings me to the way the movie seems to have been made. The
actors stated on several occasions that the script was very loose to begin with and they were given
much freedom on what to do and say. Case in point is the following part in which one actor says that Adam McKay just lead him loose on purpose and
encouraged him to just goove around and say and act in whatever way came to his mind at at that moment for a whole day. So it seems like much of the movie is created in processes like the ones described above where they did it "as they went along" in the moment. That also explains why we are so confused and try to put meaning behind this or that, where there probably wasn't much meaning intended to begin with in the moment it was filmed other than that it "felt right" or "funny" or "it just came in the moment" and they felt it should be in the movie "because it is so great".
Of course such free minded processes lead much room for "channeled" material to be inserted here and there as well, from whatever source. But often we ascribe "meaning" and "intend" on something were there was little meaning or intend other than that it "felt right" or "funny" to those who created it at that moment. Our own interpretations and world views often inform what that supposed "intend" must have been. My guess is that large portions of what we see are things that were created in the moment that they were performed by the actors in such prozesses as decribed above and not really following a fixed and always meaningful/intentful script.
- And a final point that might explain some of the different interpretataions and take aways is that I for example watched it in the german version. And german dubbing actors are often praised (IMO rightfully, LOL!) to be the best in the world. So depending which dubbing actors and which language is used, can add another layer that makes dubbed versions distorted/different from the original english one. I don't know if you noticed, but most often what dubbing actors say doesn't really deliver what the original is saying. Sometimes (and I would say often!) what the dubbing actor is saying is very different from the original text, both in content and speech pattern! You can easily notice that when you turn on subtitles. You will be amazed how different the original can be! Some of the reasons for this are that the translating process can be very much favoured towards "what sounds good in the language" rather than delivering the exact content of the original speech in the original language.
). But despite the bad acting, at least I could follow the plot in Don't Look Up, and I had a few laughs and a few tears in the end too. If I hadn't read ahead of time about some of the "politics" behind the movie, I wouldn't have seen them. Not the global warming scare, nor the jabs against the republicans (Are we sure about that? There was a picture of president Orlean in the arms of Bill Clinton in her office. I thought she was being Killary as POTUS 
) And as a mirror to humanity currently, pretty accurate.
) and what I see is that stupidity, insanity, immorality and a materialist worldview- all of which seem to saturate life on earth currently - do not make great movies. It's like there is no creativity or vision to tell a worthy cathartic story anymore. Or very little, and very rarely. So I wouldn't recommend it either, and would advise for (re)watching instead: It's a Wonderful Life, the original Marry Poppins, The Sound of Music, Joyeux Noël, etc. I rewatched all these during Xmas with my stepson back when he was 17 y.o. It was the first time he watched any of them and he loooved them.
