You're heading to the theater to see a quirky romantic comedy. Or maybe he's binge-watching Marvel's latest superhero show on Disney+ after work. Or maybe you're looking for a Netflix documentary about international cuisine.

Are these stories really based in reality, at least without a nod to the existence of a climate crisis?

I can already hear some of you complaining about why everything has to be about climate change. Let's have fun without worrying about the fate of the earth. Not all entertainment needs to be a vehicle for environmental messages.

Agreed. But some of it should be. And now we have the tools to pressure Hollywood studios to do their part.

You may be familiar with the Bechdel Test, which measures the representation of women in movies and other works of fiction. Basically, if a story includes two female characters having a conversation about something other than men, then the story passes the Bechdel test.

As of today, the Bechdel test for global warming exists.

it is called Climate change reality checkwas developed by nonprofit consulting firm Good Energy and researchers at Colby College in Maine. A story passes the test only if it is clear through the events depicted on screen, on the page, or on stage that global warming is occurring, and at least one character Only if you show that you know that warming is happening.

The designers of Climate Reality Check applied the test to this year's Oscar-nominated films. Three of the 13 fictional feature films set on modern or near-future Earth passed the test: “Barbie,'' the latest “Mission: Impossible'' and “Nyad.''

For me, it's not that much. A great start for Good Energy.

Anna Jane Joyner, founder and chief executive officer of the consulting firm, said that only a few scripted television episodes and films released between 2016 and 2020 contained references to climate change. It reminded her of a USC report her company funded that found it was 2.8%. list of related keywords). Three of the 13 Oscar nominees are a small sample, but far superior by comparison.

Not only that, “Barbie” and “Mission: Impossible” were the two most popular and critically acclaimed movies of 2023.

“Oscar nominees seem to be moving in the right direction,” Joyner said.

If you watch “Barbie” and have a hard time remembering references to climate change, you're probably not alone.

Colby College students, who worked with English and environmental studies professor Matthew Schneider-Mayerson to tally climate references in this year's Academy Award nominees, determined that this was the case with teenager Sasha ( The scene is where Ariana Greenblatt (played by Ariana Greenblatt) complains about Margot Robbie's Barbie doll. “You are taking the feminist movement back 50 years, destroying the innate values ​​of girls, and glorifying rampant consumerism that is killing the planet,” I told her.

At first, I was skeptical that this was really about climate. Consumerism comes in many forms.

But when I confronted Schneider-Myerson, he offered a convincing rebuttal. “Killing the planet” could theoretically refer to plastic pollution or the ozone layer, but context is important. For a film to be released in 2023, he said, the students decided that climate change could not be referenced by “glorifying rampant consumerism and killing the planet.”

Schneider-Mayerson hopes that Climate Reality Check will “go viral” and serve as a tool for viewers to put pressure on studios and hold screenwriters accountable. He hopes it will be applied to novels, plays, and video games.

“Stories are not frivolous or just entertainment. Stories are the way we understand the world,” he said.

I couldn't agree more and that's why I keep coming back to this theme, the nexus of climate and entertainment.

We live in a highly polarized and highly fragmented world, where it is difficult to get people to take action and even harder to change their minds. Publish truly good climate journalism if you don't believe global warming is real, or if you admit global warming is real but don't particularly care about it. There's not much anyone can do about it, even.

Hollywood is one of the few exceptions.

Beyond just climate-focused stories, if studios can normalize climate and clean energy as something people talk about and care about. Apple TV+ series “Extrapolation” and moreBut by a simple, subtle mention in a story that has nothing to do with the environment, they can go a long way toward saving the planet.

I'm talking about photos of solar panels on rooftops, fake meat burgers being eaten, or electric cars being charged. If “Lost” were made today — I spent six years recording the “Lost” rewatch podcast, so this is kind of a jam — Damon Lindelof would have asked Bill McKibben's classic would advise featuring a shot of Sawyer reading a 1989 climate novel. The end of nature. ”

The folks at Good Energy have these touches in mind, too.

“The psychological value of just hearing a character happen to mention climate change is huge,” Joyner says. “The purpose of this test is in no way to reflect that we want to put climate at the center of every story.”

Joyner and his colleagues hope that by 2027, 50% of scripted movies and TV shows set on Earth in the present or near future will pass the climate reality test. This could mean more scenes in which news broadcasters explain and characters participate in the unprecedented heat wave. Protests against climate change. Perhaps even sporting events will be postponed due to wildfire smoke.

After interviewing more than 200 writers, showrunners, executives, and others involved in storytelling, Good Energy found that 1) “Climate change exists,” and 2) “The characters know it.” A two-part test was developed. They wanted the test to be fun, easy to use, and non-prescriptive. In other words, this test does not tell writers how to incorporate climate themes into their stories.

“When you say, 'This is how you should approach it,' writers often shut up,” said Carmiel Banaskey, editor-in-chief of Good Energy.

So far, Hollywood studios have primarily told climate stories that promote specific solutions or warn about specific disaster scenarios, such as: “How to blow up a pipeline” or “Please don't look up.” This helps explain why Good Energy has developed a climate reality check that, as Banaskey put it, is “the most compelling version we could think of.” Their goal was to have writers incorporate climate “in a way that doesn't force it, in a way that's relevant to the characters, and in a way that enhances the world of the story.”

Banaskie cited Sasha's “rampant consumerism” line in Barbie, calling it “one of the most Sasha-like lines in the movie.”

“I never feel forced,” she says.

I'll be very interested to see if the powers that be in Hollywood take this seriously. You should, even if you only care about profit.

“If climate change isn't present in your story right now, that's how your audience will feel,” Banaskey says.

For a gut check, I ran a “Climate Reality Check” over Cyle Zezo, an unscripted television producer and former vice president and head of alternative programming at The CW Network.he founded the group reality of change, working to promote awareness about climate change and sustainability with unscripted television. he also hollywood climate summit.

Zezo told me in an email that he likes the simplicity of “Climate Reality Check.” This should make it easier for writers, executives, and others to evaluate projects and discuss changes. He appreciates that testing sets a “baseline for building.”

He also wants studios to recognize that passing the climate change reality check “represents a minimum standard.” I completely agree. As Zezo says, acknowledging that global warming is real should be a “starting point” rather than an “end goal.”

“Knowing Good Energy, they will always be fighting for the big picture. So my caution is to make sure that they are working more broadly to avoid a situation where this tool becomes a destination rather than a launch pad. “The focus is on how it can be used in different industries,” he said.

Zezo also argues that Hollywood executives and other industry players have solved the problem of on-screen climate representation by broadly interpreting what counts as a reference to global warming. He also mentioned the potential risks of this.

“If that storm that ruined the date in the movie isn't clearly identified as an atmospheric river effect caused by climate change, how is it different from other storms?” asked.

good question. It's up to those of us who care about the climate to take our TV shows and movies seriously and demand what we want from the people making the stories that help make the world a better place. It depends on all of us.

More data should soon be available digitally.

Schneider-Mayerson, a professor at Colby College, is working on another analysis that applies a climate reality check to the 250 most popular movies of the past decade. This analysis includes some other interesting metrics, such as which director has the most films that pass the climate change test, and whether Marvel or his DC Comics has more films passing. Masu.

Schneider Meyerson expects the report to be completed in April. Now let me tell you the details.

By the way, do you want to know how “Nyad” and the latest “Mission: Impossible” passed the climate change reality check?

Sorry, I haven't seen either movie. However, according to Good Energy, a character from Mission: Impossible tells Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt that the next world war will be “a ballistic war over a rapidly shrinking ecosystem…which continues to decline. Last energy, drinkable water, breathable air.'' In “Nyad,'' Diana Nyad, played by Annette Bening, is stung by a box jellyfish while trying to swim from Cuba to Florida. Other characters blame global warming for the unexpected presence of jellyfish in the area.

That's a small thing. But a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single jellyfish.

one more

If any of you know the acclaimed film director Jason Reitman, please send me a message.

Reitman's Juno and Up in the Air are two of my favorite movies. He is also a co-writer on Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which opens later this month. trade newspaper headlines is considered to have a climate change perspective.

My message is this. Jason, why not host an event focused on climate change to coincide with the premiere of your film at the historic Village Theater in Westwood that you and other directors just purchased? ? I grew up a 10 minute walk from the theater and love this place. I would like to moderate a discussion, ideally connecting the fantastical themes of the Frozen Empire to the real-life climate change challenges we face.I recently I did something similar It was held at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and it went really well.

So, Jason: Do you want to continue?

This column is the latest edition of Boiling Point, an email newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West.You can sign up boiling point here.For more climate and environment news, check out @Sammy_Roth At X.