Grist says they are about “the environment”, but, it’s interesting how they mix that with Hotcoldwetdry. Oh, and just insane. Warmists can’t let any holiday go to waste
With a week left to go until Halloween, we are seriously ready to get our spook on. But candy will kill you, and Umbra sure wouldn’t let us get away with toilet papering your house (as far as you know). So for our scares, this year we’re putting the Sexy Gina McCarthy/Al Gore costume back in the closet and turning once again to the cinema.jaws
Few genres are as loaded with subtext as horror — from racism to consumerism to the unquashable scourge of adolescent sexual activity, the lens of horror has a long history of focusing on the important issues of the day and drenching them in blood. Why not climate change and the environment? Here are some of our favorite films you may not have realized are actually horrifying environmental parables.
The Evil Lies Without: The Thing
In John Carpenter’s classic and terrifying The Thing, a receding ice sheet (WHOA) in Antarctica (DOUBLE WHOA) reveals an alien ship containing a creature that can mimic anything it kills (mostly humans and dogs, though, cuz Antarctica). And, trust us, if you didn’t care about receding ice sheets before, this movie makes a pretty compelling argument for keeping our glaciers intact if only to keep any possible döppelganging aliens imprisoned therein.
Like climate change, The Thing is insidious, difficult to explain or understand, it thrives by taking advantage of humanity’s worst instincts, and it’s vulnerable only to a handsomely bearded Kurt Russell’s flamethrower. (Wait, I’m being told that last one does NOT apply to climate change. Well, shit.)
Yeah, shit.
Next up is The Black Swan, which I didn’t realize was a horror movie.
You know that feeling: You’re trying, REALLY HARD, to be the perfect green citizen. You don’t eat meat, because you’re watching your carbon footprint, but avoiding all that sumptuous face bacon requires some complex choreography. You walk or bike everywhere, unless — OK, it’s rainy and you REALLY want that chai latté. Plié, jump, repeat, tiny green dancer. You sort all of your trash into the correct composting/recycling/upcycling/peecycling/unicycling bins, even though your friends all abandon you while you peer into the dark heart of the post-consumer waste system. Everyone looks to you as the environmental paragon — but in the mirror all you can see is Pashon Murray covered in feathers. Scratch yourself. Hard.
Could it be — might it be — you are the true source of all that you hold evil in the world? YOU? Perfect little you? (Spoiler: Yes. It’s you.)
Donnie Darko is about the suburbs being souless or something. Dawn Of The Dead is about evil consumerism. Jaws is about ocean acidification. They Live (I’ve come to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I’m out of bubblegum) is about being able to see climate change with magic glasses. The Shining is all about humans being bad caretakers of the climate. Shaun of the Dead is about over-population. Tremors is about digging too deep and fracking. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes gets linked to GMO. And Godzilla is about it all being bigger than us, and climate change!
These people really are nuts.
