This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer who lives in North Calais.
We’ve grown fond of saying “It’s not rocket science” while chiding a confused someone into divining their own solution to what they mistakenly perceive as a particularly challenging problem.
Since we’re inundated with a near-constant buzz of technology reinventing itself every 30 seconds or so, actual rocket science is generally forgotten, or perhaps written off, something we either take for granted or perceive as just another side gig for the fabulously wealthy.
Gone are the days when we were riveted by the static-filled transmission between orbiting astronauts and earthbound space nerds: “Houston, we have a problem.”
Two recent endeavors — one factual, the other fictionalized (though easily confused) — threaten to upend our complacency regarding Earth’s relationship to the vast unknown, offering both a preview of how a media-addled culture such as ours might deal with an apocalyptic, interstellar threat as well as the opportunity to travel to the past — transcending time itself for a glimpse at the beginning of the universe.
“Don’t Look Up” is a fictionalized account of a wayward comet destined for an extinction-level impact on earth, while NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has the potential to look back 14 billion years, at galaxies so distant that their infrared light has been traveling far longer than the duration of history.
Based on a variety of circumstances, not the least of which is that our brains have evolved to become as malleable as cookie dough, a meticulously crafted film makes the case for imminent doom far more convincingly than the factual account of a telescope that feels more like a time machine. The film’s comet is a stand-in for climate change, an issue director Adam McKay feels quite strongly about, particularly his notion that the media has dropped the ball. According to The New York Times, he believes “good journalism is a balance between what people want to hear and what they need to know.” The “want to hear” part is troubling.
It probably says all it needs to about the state of our culture that, despite his conviction, McKay felt it necessary to disguise climate change as a comet to get his point across. But while the telescope brings us to the stars, “Don’t Look Up” brings star power to the masses with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Blanchett, Tyler Perry and a thoroughly whacked Meryl Streep as president and former self-help guru with far too many self-interests to acknowledge something as trivial as the end of the world. Although comedic, it’s thoroughly familiar enough to render laughing a decidedly guilty pleasure.
Arriving in Hollywood’s familiar packaging, “Don’t Look Up” is easily accessible, requiring little of the audience beyond slipping into the comfortable formula, laughing on cue and feeling the proscribed outrage, at least until the next distraction comes along. In fact, we’re trained to respond pretty much the same way to pretty much the same kinds of things as the cast of the movie does, begging questions about whether our decisions are really our own or we’ve been programmed to react in specific ways to certain stimuli.
For that matter, are we still capable of bucking the tide and generating responses of our own? Do we even know what that means anymore?
Our vulnerability to believing fiction while denying objective reality has been honed to so fine a point that many of us are perfectly willing to sacrifice our health and maybe even our lives in fueling what has become a red-state delusion regarding Covid, masking and vaccinations. Convinced that the virus isn’t real, masking up spreads infections, and getting vaccinated is the real danger, millions of Americans are exercising their “freedom,” opting out of any and all restrictions while endangering themselves, their families and their communities as the Omicron variant overwhelms intensive care units.
The intermingling of fantasy and reality has been a staple of entertainment for years but our inability to tell them apart, even in the face of ironclad evidence, is a more recent phenomenon. Well documented and once considered a symptom of psychosis, our estrangement from objective reality is now considered a prerequisite to joining certain groups or organizations — the Republican Party for instance — with oxymoronic belief in the “Big Lie” mandatory for GOP entry. Needless to say, this continues to have as chilling an impact on interparty negotiations as would speaking entirely different languages.
Even broadcast news, once a bastion of objectivity via reporting from the likes of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, has succumbed to fiscal necessity, selling either a political philosophy — Joe Biden’s socialism — or a product — magic pills preventing aging, stupidity, wrinkles, farts, flaccidity and psoriasis. Toss in several billion misleading or erroneous social media posts on a daily basis and it feels like the die is cast.
We’re at a point where the sheer momentum of these unprecedented changes in how we get our information, and even what constitutes “information.” makes any course correction seem impossible.
Humans have looked to the stars for thousands of years, eventually noticing and naming various constellations that looked like humans or animals, prompting numerous stories. Cave drawings suggest ancient astronomers were making observations 30,000 years ago and early Egyptians aligned their pyramids toward the North Star, believing their pharaohs became stars in the northern sky after they died.
Some of their speculation was pure guesswork but, without instruments, they managed to get some things uncannily right. They made accurate calendars and even observatories to chart planetary changes.
We’re more interested in stars of a different type if you consider the buzz around this film and the yawning disinterest in what promises to be the James Webb Space Telescope’s exploration of actual galaxies far, far away. Earthly description feel wholly inadequate.
But we’re focused on entertainment, ensuring our fascinations will remain earthbound, incendiary special effects notwithstanding, content with what French new wave director Jean-Luc Godard called “the most beautiful fraud in the world.”
