The world is doomed?

Don't Look Up (2021)

Director: Adam McKay

That is the problem with the modern world, is it not? Nothing gets moving. Everything gets hijacked along the way by self-interests, personal agendas and public image. Trivialities are rewarded, and no one gives credence to knowledge and intelligence. Social media just gives an illusory comfort to the Joe Public that he is in control of everything. This becomes a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and fringe movements that are hellbent that there is a higher plot to annihilate our civilisation as we know it. It seems that movie stars and singers are prerequisites to get public services messages across.

Slowly, these things are unravelled in how the world deals with the Wuhan pandemic. It seems that for every innovation that the scientific community comes up with, there is an equally opposite move to convince the public on the contrary. Science, which had saved mankind from major catastrophes many times before, is no longer held in high esteem. It is comical that comedians are viewed as making more sense than elected leaders in the modern world. In the meantime, businessmen, carpetbaggers and money peddlers make the world go round.

This film is a cruel satire of everything around us. Even when the bull is on a rampage knocking everything in its path in the china shop, it appears that people are more concerned with capturing the perfect Kodak moment, not the imminent danger that the rabid bull poses to the bystanders. 

Nobody gives importance to substance anymore. Everyone is more interested in superficialities, skin-deep appearances and self-gratifying desires. Pokemon, TikTok and Instagram are testimony to these. This is what Nietzsche had predicted about the future, anyway.

Diabasky, an astronomy PhD student, discovers a catastrophic comet that may soon hit Earth to the brink of extinction. She and her Professor, Dr Mindy, brought their discovery to NASA, the White House and TV shows. Instead of getting their hands dirty, working against the clock to save Earth, everyone thinks it is just another doomsday prophesy. They are more interested in their appearance and that they are on anti-anxiolytics.  

From a society that was curious about its environment and wanted to turn the tides and make Nature work for it, it has become conceited. The inquisitive zest has dwindled. Individualism and self-gratification had taken over universal progress.