To pass the Climate Reality Check, a film must acknowledge that: 1. Climate change exists. 2. A character knows that climate change exists. How many 2024 Oscar nominated films managed to tick these two fairly simple steps?
ADVERTISEMENT“Climate change is our reality. It’s happening here and now, not elsewhere or in the future. It touches every aspect of life. But that reality is still largely absent from our on-screen stories.”
So begins the study led by the Good Energy, a consultancy group which supports film and TV creators in telling stories that honestly reflect the current climate crisis.
They have partnered with a research team led by Dr. Matthew Schneider-Mayerson at the Colby College’s Buck Lab for Climate and Environment to ascertain representation of climate change on screen - specifically which of the year’s 31 Oscar nominated films have acknowledged the pressing issue.
To do so, Good Energy have invented the “Climate Reality Check,” an evaluation modelled after the Bechdel-Wallace Test, invented by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in the mid-1980s to measure the representation of women in film by asking whether a work features at least two named female characters who have a conversation about something other than a man.
It’s a “Bechdel-Wallace test for a world on fire.”
“Last year was the hottest year in recorded history, and our planet is currently warmer than it’s been in at least 125,000 years,” states the report. “We set out to see whether the most critically acclaimed films of the year reflected this reality.”
Of the 31 films nominated for Academy Awards this year, 13 fit the inclusion criteria: stories set primarily in the present or near future, on Earth, in this universe.
Those films were: Barbie, American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives, May December, Nyad, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, The Creator, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Io Capitano, Perfect Days, The Teachers’ Lounge, and Godzilla Minus One.
To pass the Climate Reality Check, a film must acknowledge that:
1. Climate change exists.
2. A character knows that climate change exists.
Pretty straightforward, and the results are surprising - “in a good way,” according to the study.
Three films passed the test: Barbie, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and Nyad.
Of the 13 eligible films, these three make up 23% of the eligible titles to address climate change, however briefly.
Here’s the breakdown of the Climate Reality Check laureates:
Barbie
Nominated for eight Academy Awards, Barbie features a quick mention that ties the climate crisis to consumerism. The character of Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) argues with Barbie (Margot Robbie) by saying: “You set the feminist movement back fifty years, you destroyed girls’ innate sense of worth, and you’re killing the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.”
The words “climate change” aren’t used, but the climate crisis (and one of its root systemic causes) is addressed.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Nominated for two Academy Awards, the film has character Kittridge (Henry Czerny) warning our hero Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) that “the next world war isn’t going to be a cold one,” adding: “It’s going to be a ballistic war over a rapidly shrinking ecosystem. It’s going to be a war for the last of our dwindling energy, drinkable water, breathable air.”
ADVERTISEMENTTicks the boxes – even if the film as a whole didn’t do much for us.
Nyad
The biopic Nyad, about extreme athlete Diane Nyad's attempts to swim from Cuba to Florida in dangerous conditions caused by rising sea temperatures, is nominated for two Oscars. Considering its subject matter, it should come as no surprise that it passes the test.
Climate change is explicitly mentioned, and when Nyad (Annette Bening) is stung by a box jellyfish, which almost kills her, her friend and coach Bonnie (Jodie Foster) tells her: “So the Miami folks think that the box jellyfish came up off the shallow reef when we left Cuba. Global warming.”
Climate change is often absent from the stories we consume, and initiatives like the Climate Reality Check provide new perspectives – which are valuable.
Granted, the Climate Reality Check's rules could be modified to not disqualify stories set in the past – Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon could have been eligible, considering it deals with fossil fuels – or dismissing films that make a climate statement through allegorical means, as opposed to explicitly mentioning certain terms. However, it’s a strong start, and hopefully more future Oscar-nominated films will pass the Climate Reality Check.
ADVERTISEMENTAnd wouldn’t it be something if the Bechdel Test was passed alongside this new metric?
From our calculations, Nyad passes both the Climate Reality Check and the Bechdel Test with flying colours, while Barbie, surprisingly, barely manages to pass the Bechdel Test.
Most of the conversations in Barbie have the context of men. Granted, the movie's message relates to feminine versus masculine identity in society, so chats about men are necessary. Also, many argue that the film does not pass the first test ("a work features at least two named female characters"), as "Barbie" is the only name attributed to all women in the movie. However, that argument fails to take into account the “real-world” characters of Gloria and Sasha. Jury’s out, but we think it gets a pass, all things considered.
At any rate, Nyad is hands down our double-test-passing champion for 2024.
The full Climate Check Reality report can be found here, and keep an eye out for an upcoming study which will apply the Climate Reality Check to 250 of the most popular feature films of the past decade – due out in April.
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