Choose Your Climate Story: Extrapolations or ReGeneration

Just finished watching Extrapolations and I can't help but share a few thoughts about it.  

Most of you know me from my environmental advocacy with Sustainable Tucson or from following my blog about sustainable living. But in another life I wrote reviews of meaningful films for Reel Inspiration. Before that I was actually a theater major! Funny how our journeys don't always go the way we imagined. I went on to get my MFA in playwriting which led to writing screenplays, which led to becoming active in Tucson's indie-film community, which led to me writing film reviews - where I watched a few documentaries on climate change. I couldn't help but notice the impact of climate change on our desert town. Every year was getting hotter than the last. Our normally raging monsoon season diminished to a mere whimper. That inspired me to learn everything I could about climate change: the causes, impact, and ways to mitigate it. We adjusted our everyday lifestyle to have less of a negative impact and more of a positive (regenerative) impact.  

Experience has shown me that no education is ever wasted. Even my theater background could be used to educate people about climate change. Much of the research I conducted was incorporated into ReGeneration: The Tucson Story, a play about the impacts of climate change on Tucson in the near future. It was a vehicle to share solutions I had learned about. Unfortunately, by the time the play was stage ready, all the theaters and schools were shut down due to COVID. So I ended up directing a virtual play reading in 2021 (that you can still find on YouTube.) 

Meanwhile, another climate story was in the works.

Extrapolations, a limited series by writer, director, and executive producer Scott Z. Burns, "introduces a near future where the chaotic effects of climate change have become embedded into our everyday lives." The marketing team couldn't have come up with a better logline for my play! Naturally, I had to check it out. It's been a while since I've written a movie review for Reel Inspiration. But I couldn't help forming a few thoughts on the series. Occupational hazard. Once a reviewer, always a reviewer. And, it was only natural that I would compare the series to my own script. 

First, I'm not sure it's correct to say that Extrapolations is set in the "near future." (I guess it depends on how you define "near future.") The time line goes from 2037 to 2070. 

But my play ReGeneration actually is set in the near future. Here in Tucson we are already seeing many of the impacts of climate change dramatized in my story. While we haven't had to suffer through the grid going down (yet), we recently had a scare when the power went out for a few days in some parts of town. We have seen the impact of extreme heat on the most vulnerable. Everything that happens in the story is based on things that are already happening here. 

To get a better understanding of the series, I looked up extrapolation - the name of the title.

ex·tra·po·la·tion
noun: the action of estimating or concluding something by assuming that existing trends will continue or a current method will remain applicable.

Given this definition, it seems that Burns created each episode based on an extrapolation of a current trend in climate and technology taken to a potential extreme. There was some continuity where some characters reappear in later episodes, but for the most part, each episode was a standalone exploration of a potential future outcome of climate change and new technologies; like mass extinctions of animal species, the effects of extreme heat, or possible unintended consequences of attempting to solve global warming with geoengineering. 

While it is evident that the writers did extensive research on the causes of climate change and impacts, Extrapolations plays more like science fiction or dystopic sci-fi. It explores the dichotomy of the "chaotic effects of climate change on the everyday lives" of the underserved masses in contrast with the luxurious comforts the privileged few corporate CEOs are afforded due to future scientific advances. The general public endures rationed geo-engineered food, while billionaires enjoy gala events catered with the real food. Workers pay for shots of clean oxygen to endure the polluted air, while the rich are safely transported in flying machines to their domed, climate-controlled mansions. The idea of relying on for-profit corporations for the technological advances needed for our survival is a frightening theme of the series.  

I guess the biggest difference between my play and Extrapolations is that in my play there is still hope as the teen protagonists fight for a livable future in our desert town. In most of the episodes of Extrapolations, the protagonists goals revolve around survival in a world that is rigged for profiting big corporations. Sort of a bummer, but an insightful theme. 

If you are looking for hope in this time of climate change, you might want to watch the recording of my play. I find the most hope in taking action. My goal in writing the play was to present realistic solutions and impactful actions we can all do to lessen the impact of climate change - hopefully in an entertaining way.  Maybe you can find some ways to share your own talents and skills to create a more resilient future, too. 

Here's a few ideas...   

What Kind of Climate Champion Are You?

For the Love of Tucson: Creating a Desert Oasis to Combat Climate Change

Docs on Climate Change and Hope: The Anthropologist and This Changes Everything

Since Dan and I started our blog, Sustainable Living Tucson, we’ve seen a plethora of films on climate change. Recently we watched “This Changes Everything,” screened as part of the Social Justice series held at the Loft Cinema. In the opening, narrator Stacey Raab admitted that she didn’t want to make another climate change documentary with polar bears. I found her doc in turns infuriating and inspiring. It was particularly painful to see conference attendees from the Heartland Institute (a think tank owned by the Koch brothers) cheering their success in convincing Americans that there was no global warming. But I loved the overall theme that we could rewrite our story. We don’t have to continue the narrative of profit at all cost. We can work together to take care of each other and the planet.

The film shared powerful stories of people from all over the globe uniting to do just that. Members of the first peoples of Alberta, Canada investigated a pipeline oil spill on their ancestral hunting lands. Indigenous people were studying up on the law in order to better fight for their rights. They were even installing their own solar panels. The movie demonstrated how much power people have when they stand together. Villagers in India succeeded in stopping a coal-fired power plant from being built in their backyard by using their bodies to block anyone from the power company from entering their village. People from around the world are now successfully using this ploy. This is the kind of message that people can get behind – one of hope.

Friday night at the Arizona International Film Festival, we had the pleasure of seeing “The Anthropologist.” One of the great things about attending a film festival is hearing the filmmakers illuminate us on their process and what inspired their projects. Director Seth Kramer also commented on how he didn’t want to make yet another climate change movie with polar bears and scientists explaining the greenhouse effect. Fortunately, the National Science Foundation sponsored the project based on the angle of an anthropologist studying the effect of climate change on people.

Compared with other environmental docs I’ve seen, this is a light-hearted romp. It stars a squabbling mother (Mary Bateson) and daughter (Susie Crate.) Susie is your typical American teenager. She doesn’t understand why she has to go with her mom to third world countries when she just wants to stay at home and hang out with friends. The film also featured segments with legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead’s now adult daughter about what life was like growing up in the field. It was included to explore how Susie might turn out.

As audience members we might relate to her discomfort of being dragged along on physically challenging trips to witness communities suffering from the effects of climate change, while being very aware of the great opportunity it is to see breath-taking scenery and colorful cultures.

Their first trip is a sort of family reunion with Susie’s relatives on her father’s side in Siberia. (Her mom met her father while working there as a young anthropologist.) We soon discover that Susie knows the language. In fact, she has a keen ear for languages and blatantly expresses her embarrassment when her mother struggles to communicate. We watch this teen grow as she sees firsthand how climate change is affecting that part of her family. The permafrost has melted causing the ground to turn to mush. The hay they need to feed their cows (their main source of food) has died as well as the trees. The change in Susie is especially evident when they return home and she visits with her friends. You can see it in her eyes as one of her friends says she doesn’t know if she believes in climate change because her father says it isn’t true.

After witnessing the devastation on island villages in the South Pacific being bombarded by the rising sea or the impact of glaciers melting in Peru, it’s hard not to believe in climate change. Traveling along with an anthropologist, we got a glimpse of the effect on the indigenous people, their cultures, and communities. What we learned about people left us with hope. People are durable and capable of change, and will find a way to adapt.

Both of these movies express hope for the people who inhabit this planet that we call home. “The Anthropologist” shows us how people are capable of change and “This Changes Everything” shows how we can change our story to one where we unite to save it.

PLEASE, SHARE! 

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal-Stormont
www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Mad Max: Fury Road - Patriarchal Dystopia

“My name is Max. My whole world is fire and blood. I am the one who runs away from the living and the dead. A man reduced to a single instinct – survive.” Pretty much your average guy.

“Mad Max: Fury Road” is the ultimate action flick - a total adrenaline rush of continual action, one long explosive car chase. It is a practical effect picture. Everything you see on the screen is real. Real people driving those trucks, real trucks rolling over and crashing in the Libyan desert. Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy did most of their own stunts. The production had military advisers for the battles.

This is a man’s world. A world out of balance. A world where aggressive masculine traits have overshadowed maternal traits such as responsibility, nurturing, and caring. The result is chaos. The Earth’s resources have been destroyed. It has become a wasteland.

Max (Tom Hardy) is captured by slaves - pawns of the powerful warlords. They drag him, kicking and screaming, to the citadel where he becomes the lowest of all of the slaves. He is used as a blood bag for the half-lives - the slaves who don’t have long to live. They are only kept alive long enough to sacrifice themselves in battle.

The citadel seems to hold the only source of water. The one who controls the water, controls the people. And Warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrn) controls the water.

“It is by my hand that you will rise up from the ashes of this world.” With a flourish, he releases the water to the desperate citizens.

Imperator Furiosa (bad-ass Charlize Theron), a seasoned warrior entrusted with the water truck, escapes with Immortan Joe’s pregnant “wives” (ie. his best breeders). When Joe searches the compound for them, the nursemaid taunts him, “You cannot own human beings. Eventually they push back.”

“I want them back!” Immortan Joe bellows. “They are my property!”

In this patriarchal world, the women are men’s property, kept as sexual objects and breeders. Their chastity belts are a symbol of how men control women’s bodies, sexuality and reproductive rights. Even mother’s milk is extracted, not to nourish infants, but as a product to be sold for profit.

The breeders are a metaphor for the feminine side of humanity. They have witnessed man’s atrocities. They see how old men enslave young men and throw them away as the fodder of war. “Our babies will not be warriors!” they proclaim. “We’re going to the green place of the many mothers.” They fight for a future for their children.

A half-life war boy named Nux (Nicholas Hoult) attaches Max to the hood of his dune buggy as his blood bag. “If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die a hero on Fury Road!” he cries. Immortan Joe uses religion to control the slaves. The promise of the after-life inspires his slaves to sacrifice their lives to his will. Nux proclaims that it is his destiny to return the breeders to the almighty Immortan Joe.

An accident frees Max from the front of the buggy. Max, only concerned with his own survival, carjacks the women’s ride.

Nux is persistent in his pursuit. “I am the man who grabs the sun while flying to Valhalla! I live, I die, I live again.” The women are even protective of Nux. When he is captured, they don’t let Max kill him. “He is just a boy.” Perhaps it’s their maternal side; perhaps they relate to him as a fellow slave. Nux tries to convince them to return to Immortan Joe by preaching his word. “By his hands he’ll lift us up.” One of the wives replies, “You’re an old man’s battle fodder. He killed everyone and everything.” “He’s not to blame.” “Then who killed the world?”

Through the women’s courageous example of compassion and hope, both Nux and Max grow. Max goes from animalistic survival instincts (only out for himself) to fighting to protect the future of humanity alongside the matriarchs.

Right now there is an imbalance in our patriarchal country. We have forgotten to protect and uphold our feminine side, our responsibility for our children and our home. “Mad Max: Fury Road” shows what happens when masculine aggression isn’t tempered with responsibility and caring. The worst masculine characteristics are given free rein to destroy, fight, conquer, exploit, enslave, and rape.

It took over 15 years for “Mad Max: Fury Road” to come to fruition, which may have been a blessing since the themes are so timely and relevant to our issues today. This dystopian vision may seem outrageous, but our planet is currently being devastated by our single-minded pursuit of profit at all cost.

This year, Arizona representatives snuck a last minute rider into a must-pass military budget bill to allow a national park (protected by law) to be mined by a foreign company. Extracting the minerals will use too much of our diminishing ground water supply. And mining companies leave behind poisonous tailings that leak into our rivers and lakes. To make matters worse, our representatives are currently fighting to allow mining in all of our National Parks.

As climate change reaches a dangerous tipping point, our Congress voted to decrease environmental protections such as the amount of emissions allowed from coal refineries. They continue to subsidize profitable oil companies who pollute our air and water.

In March, 47 Republicans tried to sabotage peace talks with Iran so a select few could continue to profit from our multi-billion dollar military complex. Our young men are cannon fodder for old men who profit from war.

It is inspiring how some big action directors are making an effort to counteract some of our negative, fear based programming. For instance, “The Hunger Games” demonstrated how the government uses fear and the media to control us. Visionary filmmakers, like "Mad Max: Fury Road" director George Miller, are using the subtext to illuminate important issues of our time.

Movie blessings,

Jana Segal-Stormont 

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Oscar News: "Mad Max: Fury Road" WON Best Directing, Cinematography, Editing, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound Mixing, Production Design, Sound Editing.

"Mad Max: Fury Road" was also nominated for Best Picture and Visual Effects.