I'm baffled by the reaction, unless as you say it is disingenuous. I thought the ad was quite funny and I don't even like much of what Curtis writes. Someone on BBC today was saying "you can't show children being killed and expect any different reaction" but that's rubbish; it was all done in such a Tom and Jerry style, it clearly wasn't serious. Is it possible Curtis has got a lot of backs up? if not, it must just be people trying to discredit the green movement.

Of ocurse there are an awful lot of humourless nits about.

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Perhaps because people are looking for excuses to discredit climate change, it was a mistake to make something so open to misinterpretation? Not because people will really misunderstand it, but because it gives them an excuse to pretend to be affronted. But, how boring if we can never make a joke.

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I'll go along with anyone who says he got the metaphor wrong, which ain't surprising because he must be pretty thick not to have noticed Notting Hill was a mixed-race community. It was wrong because, one, not only refuseniks will suffer by environmental disaster and two, it should have been their hands on the button. It could have been far better visualised. But I'll say, and maintain, that it is no way offensive unless you are looking to be offended - and I did find it quite funny when the kids went up in smoke in that cartoon way.

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Yes, the way to do it was to have refuseniks (preferably famous people) rolling their eyes when (other famous) people mention the new campaign and reaching for the red button. Then cut to some real-life examples of the knock-on effects of refusenikdom. And use a slogan like "Your Hand's On the Button" or something, with a hand hovering over a red or a green button.

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I don't think the controversy was intentional. I do think it's a bad film - or, more precisely, I think it's half a bad film.

The first two sections (in the classroom and in the workplace) just aren't funny. They're lame and smug. (Also, "Get Dad to do your insulation!"? Dear oh dear, can't we be both green and non-sexist?)

But the bits at Tottenham and then with Gillian Anderson are funny. Because it's funny to see celebrities pretend that they're tossers and then get blown up extravagantly (slightly funny). Like a mad version of Extras. More importantly, the section at Tottenham concretely describes some of the campaign's achievements. (Assuming all the stuff about the floodlights and organizing coaches for fans is all true.) And then Gillian Anderson is great in the last bit: "You want me to do more than a voiceover? Geez! You people!"

So I think it's a lazy film, and nowhere near as clever or funny as it thinks it is. And it's let a lot of pretty ghastly people get to be very pompous.

Also - taking their own version down but saying you're not going after other copies on YouTube? Pathetic. Either stand by the film you made, or don't.

(Of side interest, Johann Hari has an interesting piece about not supporting the focus of the 10:10 campaign.)

Edited for more accurate statement of my sentiment.

Edited at 2010-10-03 03:08 pm (UTC)

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Yes, I see what you mean. It is a bit smug, and it's very Richard Curtis. I am increasingly wondering whether it's unwise to make jokes at your own expense in a charged political atmosphere. It's getting riskier to do that.

But, I don't mind that they didn't go after the copies. Because I don't like organisations pressuring YouTube to take things down.

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I see your point about not liking organizations pressuring YouTube to take things down. I guess my irritation stems from my impression that either they don't have the courage of whatever convictions made them make the film in the first place, or else they're prepared to superficially apologise while letting viral marketing do the work.

The message is hopelessly confused. Is it trying to make us think about people who are really suffering? (I think that's what it thinks it's doing.) Is it simply taking a pot shot at unbelievers? (I think that's what it's actually doing.) Are the people who made it really as unpleasantly smug as the characters in the first couple of sections, and nobody has pointed it out to them until now? As I say, not as clever or funny as it thinks it is.

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I really think the film is moronic. The message should be "if you refuse to reduce your carbon footprint, you are risking our physical existence", but this us-versus-them stuff doesn't get it across at all. It's more creepy than funny.

I think it falls into a common trap of failed propaganda—preaching to the choir but antagonising the unconverted. "You should join our side, because if you don't we'll think you're a dick. We won't say so, of course, we're far too nice for that, but that's what we think."

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(speaking as one of the lazier members of the choir)

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Yes, I think that was a miscalculation in the metaphor. Because it's not the people driving 4x4's that will die first, it's some poor sod in Bangladesh. It would have been better, and less open to misinterpretation to show the 'can't be bothered' types pressing the button. Though it's nice to see celebs get exploded.

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Yeah, getting celebs in to play the victims is funny. I agree with altariel, it's the first half that sets the unfortunate pompous tone.

The metaphor is just so broken! They say "no pressure", but nobody actually gets any warning before they're disintegrated. The warning is directed at the people who already joined the cult. I guess it's to make sure they don't get any funny ideas about leaving.

"Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this red button."

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sttorm, tea cup. I reckon environemntalism is now like wearing seatbelts and smoking. If people don't feel it is important enough to do something about it now more propaganda is just gonna wind them up. Better to spend the film production money on something useful...

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Watching Mad men you notice these - drinking and driving is another that I have seen in my lifetime. And one way it works is to make people think that it's social death to be on the wrong side.I suppose the question is when we reach a tipping point, beyond which further propaganda is unnecessary.

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See this for some explanation from someone who was upset.

I really disliked the ad myself. Part of it is a cultural shift in some quarters to take violent images more literally, and I've been hanging out with that sort of people. I think my sensitivity has gotten miscalibrated, but meanwhile, it is where it is, and I won't necessarily move all the way to the range where you're comfortable.

Part of it is that I didn't recognize the stars, so I wasn't going to get that part of the joke.

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I don't think the film is dramatising the argument 'believe us or we will kill you'. it's saying 'believe us or you will die'. Like the Terminator saying 'come with me if you want to live'.

But I think it would have been better to dramatise 'believe us or you will kill us'. Because nature is not fair, and (if the theory is right - leaving that aside) then we will suffer regardless of our beliefs.

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Yup.

It could have been visualised a lot better. People saying no then dying in localised flash floods or forest fires.

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I don't think the film is dramatising the argument 'believe us or we will kill you'. it's saying 'believe us or you will die'.

Assuming the general good faith of "environmentalists", it's likely that the intent of the film wasn't to dramatize the argument "believe us or we will kill you". But that certainly was the result. I'm not sure how the folks who put the video together were so tone-deaf that they didn't realize that would be the result.

I didn't watch the whole thing, and I won't. Starting with a classroom scene, and moving to a corporate setting, in both cases where you have a fairly absolute authority preaching to a captive audience, then killing dissenters (or the apathetic), sets a really, really nasty tone, one which is only a somewhat more extreme version of the tone that "environmentalists" set in so much of their public discussion.

Would it be effective Catholic propaganda to make a film where the teacher in that first scene was a nun, discussing the moral and spiritual dangers of masturbation, and when one of the students challenges her, a trap door opens, and he's suddenly bathed in hellfire, being pitchforked by a demon, while the teacher laughs? Because that's pretty much what's been made here.

Edited at 2010-10-05 04:28 am (UTC)

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I think that would be an awesome Catholic film. After all isn't that the point? If you believe that masturbating will lead to a billion years of torture (which I don't, but let us suppose the film maker wanted to publicise that idea) then your film idea would be perfect.

You are assuming that both ideas are false, and therefore films which dramatise their implications are wrong. But if (let us imagine) religion is right and teenagers are going to go to hell for masturbating (I know it's wrong, but imagine you are a religious person making a film) then why not show what you believe, the urgent news you want to convey, in a dramatic metaphor.

Now, that we should drive less to save our lives is another idea which you may not believe, but this film dramatises it.

I am honestly amazed at the painful literalism of the anti-environmentalists posting comments here.

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I see people who don't believe that they need to do their bit (or don't want to do it) being blown up. It seems pretty simple and straightforward to me.

If you're putting something out there to raise awareness then you need to think about how the average person is going to see it. It doesn't matter if the 3% who are already onside and have the right sense of humour appreciate it in the way you intend them to.

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you need to think about how the average person is going to see it

I think that is the crucial question I am wondering about. I mean - whether that is a ground rule for propaganda or not. Perhaps it is.

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It's definitely about those who don't comply (or those who believe it when an authority says "no pressure") who are targeted. Belief doesn't come into it except to the extent that it drives non-compliance.

I have no idea how the general public would see the ad. My guess is that most of the public (except those who'd had very bad experiences with authority or had been too near explosions) would take it as intended, but there's no way to tell without testing. Think about the failure rate for tv shows and movies.

I wonder about those "reduce by n%" campaigns. Don't they punish people who'd already made a major effort to reduce whatever it is?

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The most perfectly reliable way to reduce carbon emissions by 10% would be to kill 10% of the population. Which is what they actually show happening in the video - roughly 10% of the people on-screen were blown up. If they did that in real life, the people who weren't blown up wouldn't need to do anything to meet the goal!

...Or at least not this time around. But you'd be pretty nervous and eager to say whatever the authorities tell you you're supposed to believe when they come back the following year and say the quota's been raised to 20%.

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I watched the first two sketches and then stopped watching in disgust. Of course I come from a background where I don't really find it hilarious if people get blown up.

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No exceptions?

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I have to admit that "twelve missing, believed cured" was funny. I'm not sure whether it's different that those explosions weren't on stage.

Also, note that the best friend blowing up is presumably only funny because her behavior was horrendous.

I'm a bit surprised that the vicar didn't get blown up. Is there more to the skit?

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Thanks for taking that clip in good spirit. After I posted it I thought I might have gone too far. It wouldn't be the first time. I think that was from early Python and they more or less just made it up as they went along without much rhyme or reason.

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People blowing up unseen and in a puff of white smoke is often funny. People blowing up before our eyes in a "realistic" shower of blood spatter...not so funny. Doubly so when they're being blown up by an authority figure for the crime of not being willing to parrot platitudes in support of the local religious beliefs.

Anybody with any minority beliefs at all (say, an atheist or non-catholic) is likely to find that video appalling. We already give kids too much pressure to conform and believe what their teachers tell them to. Being willing to express to authorities the view "I'm not yet convinced that you're right about that" should be celebrated! Murdering those who dissent is not a way to produce healthy scientific dialog nor is even *joking* about murdering dissenters.

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The more I think about it, I think that's the core issue. "Joking" about how amusing it would be to murder dissenters from one's view, historically, has often been a prelude to *actually* murdering dissenters. It's how you test the waters. "Never again" is the right response. Making fun of people you disagree with: good. Pretending to exterminate them in a bloody and conspicuous way for the humor value of it: bad.

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I think you are arguing in bad faith here. You are in America? I don't believe you think people who refuse to reduce their driving will be inconvenienced in any way, let alone 'exterminated'.

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I'm in America, but I was raised Jewish; my dad's family escaped from Poland. So I might be a little overly sensitive about campaigns that appear to dehumanize people based on their stated beliefs.

The war on drugs and the war on terror already give our authorities substantial ability to punish both children and adults for thought-crimes based on the flimsiest of "this if for the good of society" pretexts; I can pretty easily imagine adding environmental offenses to the list. Extermination is indeed an unlikely punishment for unmutual and/or un-green behavior, but part of the *reason* it's unlikely is we're socially conditioned not to even *think about* killing people for disagreeing with us. Disliking videos like that - nipping that sort of sentiment in the bud whenever and however it's expressed - is part of the way we *keep* extermination an unlikely punishment.

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And yet real people will die as a result of your decisions, not those of green campaigners.

ETA - but by saying 'your decision' I incorrectly personalise my barbed remark. Let me more accurately say our decisions. I am running a tumble dryer right now as I type this. I will drive my car later today. I am not in fear that anyone will exterminate me for this.

Edited at 2010-10-04 08:30 am (UTC)

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> And yet real people will die as a result of your decisions

Sure, and if we decide to reduce carbon emissions now - and actually do it, and it actually works, and it actually reduces warming - why then, real people will die as a result of that decision too. Real people who weren't the ones making the decisions.

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I was thinking overnight about this (it's morning here) and I think that my main argument is with those who claim that they think this film 'reveals the truth about the green movement' (that it aims to kill people).

A secondary issue is the construction of the metaphor, and I think the detailed analysis from various commentators includes some good points. I agree that the intervention of an authority figure is a bad image, because it reinforces the mistaken view that this is a human-human issue. I am reminded of my son, when he was young, feeling that doing his homework was something to do with his relationship with me, not his relationship with his own future. In fact that's a close analogy.

However, I think it's clearly not the case that environmentalists are in the ascendancy in real life. Policies to address global warming remain very limited, and the impact on individuals will probably be more or less zero. So, I think your framing that dissenters will be punished - even in trivial ways - by humans is incorrect. Instead those who do not act - and everyone else - will be 'punished' by physics.

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The opening scene hits pretty hard. One place where environmentalists are absolutely in charge is at the grade-school level - kids that age are floating in a sea of green propaganda. The message *of the video* was that dissenters will be punished. The fact that one can kind of imagine some more-valid point they might have been *trying* to make doesn't really affect the point they actually *did* make.

But to answer to the commercial you *wish* they had made...

The next 1-3 degrees of warming is believed to be on-net beneficial for agricultural productivity even according to the IPCC, meaning for the next 50 years or so there are likely to be fewer starving people in the world *due to warming* than there would have been without it. Bangladesh is currently *growing* by about 20 square km per year and the country has begun working on engineering projects such as those used by the Dutch to control erosion in the places where people live near or below sea-level. For every negative trend due to warming there are some similar positive ones the doom-and-gloomers tend to downplay. If emissions were to continue along current projections it might stop being a net benefit to humanity and start being a liability after those 50 years or so are up, but we can be pretty sure emissions *won't* continue along current projections because 50 years is quite a long long time in this technological age - we'll probably have all sorts of decent no-regrets renewable and/or nuclear options we don't have now. Our grandkids will be incomparably wealthier than we are, better informed, and possessing of *much* better economic and technological options than we now have, so I tend to trust them to make better decisions then than we could today if and when they need to do so.

Failing to "act" in the particular ways being advocated by this group might still be the best course. In any case their video doesn't make a *logical* case why it should be.

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