![]() Orlean also smokes constantly throughout the movie, bringing to mind Obama’s admission that he smoked nine cigarettes a day while in the White House. A close-up of a desk photo shows President Orlean wrapped in the arms of Bill Clinton. Representing American politics at its worst is President Orlean, a character definitely meant to conjure up a female version of Donald Trump, but also, for the attentive viewer, a mashup of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. The imminent impact of a large comet is just this film’s context for getting its characters-and us-to reflect on how we would live, what we would do, if we knew that our own lives, and in fact the existence of the entire planet, were about to expire in just three more hours.Īs heavy-handed as the satire sometimes is in this film, most of the characters are critiqued gently, as if some omniscient being is laughing at their real foibles, while also understanding their root causes. But, as we all know, death is one of the few certainties in life. Yes, that is the darkly funny but true context for the film.Īt one point, American President Orlean (Meryl Streep) exclaims, “You can't go around saying to people that there's a 100% chance that they're going to die.” Her point seems to be that people prefer a comfortable lie over the uncomfortable truth. I think, at heart, it is a memento mori, Latin for “remember death.” What does it mean to live well and choose well, even when the world is ending and you are about to die? Because COVID or not, climate change or not, current disaster averted or not, there is a 100% chance we are all going to die. Many critics seem to have missed the deeper layers of this film. The film is much more than a satire, though. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as a scientist and doctoral student from Michigan State University who discover a comet that is on a collision course with planet earth, the film is a satire of American politics, the news media, social media, Hollywood, technology, big business, and yes, even the very scientists who attempt to warn the rest of the world about the latest impending disaster. It also has the honor of instigating another shared cultural moment as many Americans have watched this trending movie at the end of the holiday season, when the spread of Omicron and the onset of extreme weather across the country have induced people to stay home. Get it in your inbox every Monday.Netflix’s Don’t Look Up is a masterpiece of sorts-it has an all-star cast and is funny, thought-provoking, interesting, poignant, reflective, and timely. Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. It appears the message in modern cinema is more subtle and, in the end, probably more reflective of the surreptitious age we live in: that sometimes the shiniest of objects are filled with decay. If a woman looked like Barbie, she was probably a love interest. These signifiers are ableist, but they’re also obvious. No had a scar so deep on his face it impacted his vision. Captain Hook – well, it’s right there in his name. Shakespeare’s Richard III had a hunched back and a withered arm. Barbie-perfect modest pink dress.”įor generations, the villain in any story was identifiable via their physicality. When Tilda Swinton played the villainous heiress to a corrupt fortune in the 2017 movie, Okja, she wore oversized, false teeth and openly admitted to channelling Ivanka Trump, with, what Swinton described as the First Daughter's “glossy blond hair, expensive orthodontics, and. It’s an interesting fact of our times that, despite the meteoric rise in cosmetic procedures and filtered imagery, we often conflate inauthenticity with maleficence. ![]() “Looking fake for example, in some circles, is associated with inauthenticity.” “As audiences become savvier at detecting photoshopping and filters, there are often calls for greater authenticity: that people who show their true selves and flaws are celebrated as more ‘real’ than those who are filtered and nipped and tucked” says Dr Lauren Rosewarne. Without it, a person’s humanness, or relatability, collapses, leaving us suspicious. Like keeping a couple of soft lines left around the eyes though the forehead may have Botox. The aesthetic to aspire to, then, is a kind of imperfect perfection. “We also add translucency to the edges of the teeth to give them a more natural appearance.” We use gradient shading, so it is not all one colour.” he says. “To guard against this, we add different features to each of the veneers, so they aren’t just one block of porcelain. ![]()
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