Jen Psaki Shows 'Don't Look Up' Was A Documentary
The climate emergency can't compete with a discussion about ice cream.
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson once said that Don’t Look Up was a documentary — and MSNBC’s Jen Psaki seemed intent on proving that during a her weekend interview with Biden administration climate envoy John Kerry.
As Kerry was outlining the worsening ecological crisis, Psaki abruptly shifted the conversation into a discussion about…ice cream.
You really have to watch this clip to believe it.
This wasn’t a brief digression in the larger discussion. The interview soon became a travelogue of Psaki and Kerry’s visit to a D.C. ice cream stand, where they enjoyed Dove bars.
In fairness, there was some climate focus at the top of the interview. But Psaki — the immediate past Biden press secretary — didn’t bother asking Kerry about Biden betraying his campaign promise, ignoring climate scientists’ warnings and recently approving a huge oil drilling project in Alaska as well as a big sale of offshore drilling leases. And the abrupt shift to ice cream really does seem like an MSNBC version of that famous UK television interview that also had Don’t Look Up vibes.
It all spotlights how determined corporate media is to ignore, downplay and change the subject from the destruction of the livable ecosystem that supports all life on the planet. Indeed, as Media Matters recently noted: "Climate coverage still accounted for just around 1 percent of all corporate broadcast programming in 2022."
I joked on Twitter that we should’ve made this a scene in Don’t Look Up, but then remembered that we actually did that here, when Jennifer Lawrence tells a Psaki-esque morning television host that “maybe the destruction of the entire planet isn't supposed to be fun."
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Let’s remember how anything uncomfortable or challenging to the status quo is treated in this very same manner: Long COVID, the ongoing pandemic, forever wars, how statistics like unemployment and inflation are altered, etc.
To truly understand nowadays, the public must investigate further.
Trouble is, the public is often too overwhelmed with just surviving to have any energy, health, or time for such political accountability.