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Netflix's Don't Look Up is a satirical critique of real-life — and each member of the Don't Look Up cast drew inspiration from real-life figures. While Comet Dibiasky may not be hurtling toward Earth at this moment, it is easy to see parallels between our reality and Don't Look Up. With climate change and COVID-19 looming, Don't Look Up provides a humorous but sobering picture of our current reality.
Adam McKay's Don't Look Up follows a pair of astronomers as they fight to make the world take its own imminent doom seriously. After Ph.D. candidate Kate Dibiasky discovers a comet on a collision course with Earth, it becomes a race to save the world. However, they quickly discover that the world (especially the President, the scientific community, the media, and a large portion of American citizens) simply doesn't care. With a six-month deadline, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky are tasked with trying to save a world that doesn't believe it's in danger. Instead of ending with the cliché, happy Hollywood ending, Don't Look Up ends with the total annihilation of planet Earth – a clear warning of the fate that awaits the Earth if climate change isn't addressed soon.Don't Look Up is filled with a star-studded cast. Greats like Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jennifer Lawrence fill out the Don't Look Up cast, while household names like Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, and Sir Mark Rylance round out the supporting cast. The movie doesn't hold back punches when it comes to criticizing the current political climate, and no one – from the President to high-ranking government officials to the average Trump supporter – is safe in this satirical Netflix film.
Dibiasky's character in the Don't Look Up cast isn't a perfect mirror of the young environmentalist, but there are a lot of parallels between the two. Dibiasky, understandably, is passionate about the world's fate, and she isn't afraid to show it. Yet, when Lawrence's Don't Look Up character gets angry and tries to force the world to take its fate seriously, they ignore her and turn her into a meme. When Greta Thunberg burst into the public eye in 2018, she was met with a similar reception. Her righteous anger and worry were capitalized on by many who disagreed with her message. Instead of focusing on the sound science she presented, she was ridiculed for expressing genuine emotion surrounding the fate of the planet – just like Dibiasky.
Don't Look Up's Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), CEO of BASH Cellular, can be viewed as the strange love child of billionaire tech moguls like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and more. He starts the movie as the eccentric, oddly-charming genius trope, but as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that there's something more sinister brewing underneath. Isherwell, like many tech moguls in the real world at the moment, has a fascination with space travel. Isherwell prioritizes money and profit over the impending climate crisis – a common criticism that the world's richest are facing today as they funnel billions of dollars into personal space projects as the planet faces catastrophic climate change. Isherwell also uses his cellular company to peddle intrusive data – enough to accurately predict people's deaths — which is a clear comparison to Zuckerberg, who has faced serious backlash for Facebook's history of dating mining.
President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) is a clear caricature of former President Donald Trump. From narcissism to nepotism, President Orlean has it all. When Dr. Mindy and Dibiasky approach President Orlean with news of the Dibiasky Comet, she easily dismisses and manipulates the science to fit her own agenda. Even when the clear evidence of the comet arrives, "Don't Look Up" becomes a rallying cry at her massive rallies, which eerily mirror Trump rallies, cheesy baseball caps, and all. Like Trump and his supporters denied and downplayed the COVID-19 pandemic despite a myriad of evidence, Orlean and her supporters ignored a comet they could see with their own eyes. While some minor points of Orlean might be inspired by other presidential figures — like her Clinton-esque fashion sense – her portrayal is clearly a satirical mirror image of Donald Trump.