A comet is about to collide with Earth, causing a tsunami and the end of humanity, and no one seems to care. That’s the plot of “Don’t look up,” the movie everyone’s been talking about on Netflix this Christmas, with a cast of stars going from Leonardo DiCaprio to Jennifer Lawrence and passing through Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and Ariana Grande. The film, the audience loves it or hates it, there is no middle ground, it is a parody of the contemporary world that never seems to be able to give proper weight to events (see pandemic, see climate change), where scientists and scientists are ridiculed or treated as phenomena Weird and where everything can be turned into a meme or story that gets posted on Instagram.

Comet yes, comet no?

In the film, we see the population split into two factions: those who believe in and fear the comet and hope that the US government will find a solution to divert its course and those who do not believe in it at all. Indeed, the title of the movie “Don’t Look Up” is nothing more than the slogan launched by the President of the United States to call on people not to look, and to ignore the warnings of the scientific community, which is alarming and complaining. “It’s a situation not far from the situation we’re in today – Comment on Fanpage.it la Psychologist and psychotherapist Alicia Romanazi, author of the podcast TV Therapy – On the one hand we do not have vaxes and on the other hand those who fear the coronavirus and believe in the efficacy of vaccines and science. Two factions mock each other and cannot communicate in any way. And that’s what we see in the movie as well as in our daily lives, it creates an enormous distance between people.” However, the lack of communication, staying grounded and consistent in one’s attitudes, produces another negative consequence:Fear of ridicule causes isolation. Those who are afraid to become a laughing stock will begin to withdraw into themselves and will continue to obtain information only through sources that agree with them, and the prospects for openness and dialogue will decrease more and more to zero. ”

Communication from the crisis

Another element that emerges from the movie has to do with Crisis communications. Telling millions of people that humanity is in danger certainly isn’t easy, and in the movie, the PhD student who discovered the comet allows herself to go to an outlet on the most-watched morning TV show, which achieves the exact opposite effect of that. Hopes. “When the doctor shouts “We’re all going to die!” The immediate reaction is to create memes with his face. They make fun of her, they make fun of her, and no one really believes her. And this is exactly one of the typical effects of disturbing communication. When the connection is so raw, it’s hard to accept. There have also been social experiences about this: people tend to turn away.” For this reason, reporting a crisis, or danger, should always be entrusted to experts and publishers. “Even highly scientific communication, like DiCaprio at the beginning of the movie, may not be effective because it is not fully understood. There are famous people and experts who study for precisely this purpose. Scientists (as we think of virologists today) are not always able to convey an effective message to those who listen to them.”