One of the things that tends to happen with The simpsons (since 1989), the long-running animated series featuring Springfield’s most famous family, is that some of its radio and television shows are no longer available social parodies eventually become reality. For example, in the episode “Bart in the future” (11×17), which aired in March 2000, our dear Lisa Simpson succeeds the abominable Donald Trump as President of the United States. And, now, something similar happened with Don’t look up (2021).
In one of the most memorable scenes from the film directed by Adam McKay for Netflix, a huge ratings success and multiple nominations for High-Profile Film Awards, Dr. Randall Mindy and Dr. Kate Dibiasky played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, are interviewed on a tv show with Tyler Perry’s Jack Bremmer and Cate Blanchett’s Brie Evantee.
When they try to warn that a huge comet will crash into Earth if no action is taken to prevent it, both hosts react with unbearable frivolity as if it didn’t matter, and the guest loses his temper. And some facts that can remind us of those frustrating circumstances of Don’t look up have recently been observed by spectators of the British GB News channel with meteorologist John Hammond.
Scientists against media frivolity
It was Ben Phillips, who made the connection between the incredible show and that of the Adam McKay film and his tweet which has become a stratospheric viral phenomenon. He deserved no less. “At the start of next week, it may be twenty degrees, but it could well be forty,” warned the scientist. “I think there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of additional deaths next week. ” He added : ” The graphics I see in front of me are terrifying. »
“We all love good weather, but it won’t be good weather, it will be potentially deadly for a few days. It will be brief, but it will be brutal,” he continued. And at that moment, presenter Bev Turner interrupted him like those of Don’t look up To say impressive words: “So, John, I want us to be happy with the weather. I don’t know if anything happened to the meteorologists who makes them a bit fatalistic and have presentiments of calamities”.
“All the shows, especially on the BBC, every time I tune in someone talks about the weather and says there will be tons of deaths,” he continued. ” But haven’t we always had hot weather, John? To which he was able to reply: “No, and we are seeing more and more traces of it, more and more frequently and more and more severely, of this…” Heat waves are becoming more extreme. And here’s another one coming our way.
Meteorologist John Hammond, GB News’ Kate Dibiasky
Himself Adam McKay shared the video comparative video on Twitter with this message: “There are clips like this in several European countries, but none in the United States. Why ? Because the United States, for the most part, doesn’t have substantive discussions with climate activists or scientists on news channels and TV news. The ball of this unfortunate reaction rolled so far and got so big that… Bloomberg wanted to interview John Hammond himself.
After admitting that he has yet to see Don’t look up on Netflix, explains: “As a meteorologist for many years, the build-up to this event, the UK heat wave, has been quite amazing in that I have never seen charts as disturbing as those that I saw at the end of last week. Computer models increasingly agree that the UK was going to experience unprecedented heat. »
” People just weren’t prepared because they live within their own experience,” he explains. “I therefore believe that it was my duty, as a meteorologist, to highlight the expected impacts of this extraordinary heat, not only on vulnerable people, but also on people in perfect physical condition who do not have the used to experiencing forty degree heat in the UK, and the impact this has on infrastructure, health, transport etc. »
Are we already at the point of not looking up?
” I wasn’t surprised by Bev Turner’s reaction recognized John Hammond, responding with the calm that Kate Dibiasky does not have in… Don’t look up. “I’m not pointing fingers at her individually. I’m not surprised because I think that, in general, when people hear it’s gonna be hot and sunny the default thought, not only among media presenters, but in general among a large part of the public, is: “Oh, that’s a good thing”.
“In Britain in particular, where the weather is often very gray and cold, the heat and the sun are a novelty and it makes people smile and think ‘it’s going to be nice and sunny’, because it never happens. not very often,” and he concludes, “So I wasn’t surprised by their reaction when I said the story was ‘we’re going to have a heat wave’; the media generally treats this as a good thing. “Too sympathetic for our taste, the climatologist.
Not like Kate Dibiasky, who tells the Netflix movie presenters, “I’m sorry, weren’t we clear? We are trying to tell you that the whole planet is about to be destroyed”. Screenwriter Dan Greaney who wrote the episode The simpsons with President Donald Trump, said in 2014 The Hollywood Reporter“It was a warning to the United States. And it seemed the last logical stop before hitting bottom“. Are we there already?
When the Don’t Look Up interview took place in the middle of a European heat wave