The Oscars can always be counted on to prompt discourse. From “Barbie” snubs to racial diversity to a certain on-stage slap, the prestigious awards ceremony often serves as the impetus for societal debates. This year, Good Energy and Colby College are hoping to spark conversations about the representation of climate change on screen, with the invention of the “Climate Reality Check,” an evaluation modeled after the Bechdel-Wallace Test measuring female representation on screen.
Examining the slate of 31 titles nominated for 2024 Academy Awards, the climate story consultancy partnered with Colby College’s Buck Lab for Climate and Environment to ascertain which of the year’s most lauded films acknowledged the pressing issue of climate change.
A film must meet the following criteria to pass the Reality Check — It must acknowledge that: “1. Climate change exists and 2. And a character knows it.” The 2024 Oscar-nominated films that pass the test are “Barbie,” “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One” and “Nyad” —three very different movies that touch on the topic of our rapidly shifting environment in various ways.
13 out of 31 Oscar-nominated films met the two eligibility requirements for the Climate Reality Check, which include taking place on Earth during the present or near future. Of those 13 eligible films, “Barbie,” “Mission Impossible” and “Nyad” make up 23% of the eligible titles to address climate change, however briefly.
Good Energy and Colby College pointed out which moments in these three films took note of climate change. In Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” the acerbic tween Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) tells the titular doll (Margot Robbie) once she’s reached the real world, “…you’re killing the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.”
In the latest installment of the “Mission Impossible” franchise, Kittridge (Henry Czerny) acknowledges the scarcity of natural resources, saying, “It’s going to be a war for the last of our dwindling energy, drinkable water, breathable air.” Finally, in the biographical sports drama “Nyad,” Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster) says, “The box jellyfish came up off the shallow reef when we left Cuba. Global warming.”
Per the organizations behind the test, “The purpose of the Climate Reality Check is to provide an easy tool for writers and industry members to evaluate their stories, researchers to measure whether climate representation is present in any group of stories, and audiences to see if Hollywood is representing their reality on-screen.”
The Climate Reality Check was invented by Good Energy founder and CEO Anna Jane Joyner; Good Energy editor-in-chief Carmiel Banasky; Good Energy director of strategy Bruno Olmedo Quiroga; and Colby College associate professor of English Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, PhD. Over 200 writers, showrunners, executives and communications experts served as consultants in the development of the test “to ensure it’s easy, measurable, and creatively inspiring.”
Joyner said, “The Bechdel-Wallace Test debuted in a 1985 comic strip. Four decades later, it still resonates as one of the most effective tools for measuring female representation in film and television. Good Energy set out to capture that same light-hearted yet incisive quality in measuring climate visibility. I’m thrilled to see that several of my favorite Oscar-nominated films from the last year passed the Climate Reality Check. It’s a clear demonstration that acknowledging the climate crisis on-screen can be done in entertaining and artful ways that are authentic to the story. More proof that audiences crave seeing their own world and experience, which now universally includes the climate crisis, reflected on screen.”
Schneider-Mayerson said of the undertaking, “Humans are storytelling animals and climate change is the biggest story of our time. It affects every part of our lives and threatens everything we depend on and hold dear. Yet it has been absent from the stories we consume. The Climate Reality Check is a simple, illuminating, and powerful tool that can be used to evaluate any group of narratives — from films and TV shows to video games and novels—for their reflection of our climate reality. In this way, the Climate Reality Check provides a new and necessary perspective on storytelling in and for a world on fire.”
The two-part evaluation is adapted from the popular Bechdel-Wallace Test, which addresses the inclusion of women on screen; to pass, a film must include at least two female characters talking to one another about something other than a man.
Perhaps next year, even more Oscar-nominated films will pass the Climate Reality Check and the Bechdel-Wallace Test.
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