By Marion Miclet | @Marion_en_VO
For a long time, doom mongering has dominated the representations of global warming on the small screen. Thankfully, a host of TV creators are now attempting to awaken the viewers’ consciousness without bringing them down.
The world’s environmental crisis has literally made its way to Hollywood. Two days after the Golden Globes, apocalyptic fires engulfed several Los Angeles neighborhoods that many of the participants and nominees call home. But most TV productions that tackle the subject don’t use our reality as a starting point. For instance, season 4 of True Detective—which was among the winners of the night—might be set in 2023 in Alaska, but when denouncing the local pollution it veers into supernatural territory, at the risk of making us forget that it is a very real issue. As for the eco-thrillers that are trending on our screens right now, they only allude to global warming as the catalyst for an uncontrollable entity. Whether the threat might be solar (as seen in the Belgian TV series Into The Night and in the Spanish fare Apagón), hydraulic (see the Danish production The Rain and the Scottish thriller The Rig—season 2 is just out now) or infectious (a parasite in Fortitude, a bacteria in The Swarm and a fungus in The Last of Us), the scientific coherence is part of the entertainment.
Sensationalist survivalism
Thrills abound in these dystopian tales, alongside a few philosophical considerations on returning to the state of nature. But, here, the collective responsibility for the degradation of the environment already belongs to the past, as individual survival becomes the most pressing issue. Even the recent Danish series Families Like Ours, which puts the environmental crisis at the heart of the plot, ends up focusing on the fate of a handful of climate refugees in the aftermath of rising sea levels. Extrapolations on Apple TV+, with its prestigious cast who probably all drive a Toyota Prius (Meryl Streep, Edward Norton, Marion Cotillard…), positions itself as serious cli-fi (climate-fiction). Based on the IPCC predictions, the series takes us into the near-future, depicting how the year 2037 would look like if humanity hadn’t done more to save the planet by then. Thanks to the realistic elements, it is possible to connect our present to the one experienced by this multitude of characters, torn between their personal interests and their vision of the common good.
Families Like Ours
Still, it makes for a grueling moment of television. The measured pessimism of each episode is admirable, but doesn’t it defeat the initial purpose of inspiring change? Is it possible to warn against the consequences of global warming—or at least acknowledge its existence—while remaining in the realm of aspirational storytelling? While they belong to an economy in transition, but still largely polluting, American TV productions have a long way to go toward normalizing these issues. A study from the Norman Lear Center analyzed scripts from 37,453 TV episodes and films that aired in the US media market between 2016 and 2020 and found that only 2.8% had any mention of climate change keywords. Of course, there are other, more implicit ways to bring up this topic, whether it be through metaphor or character development. So, let’s see how the representations of the environmental crisis on American and European TV screens have evolved towards more nuance and optimism.
The green caricature
There have been mentions of global warming in television series since the 1960s. An episode of The Twilight Zone showcases increasingly oppressive heat as a possible reference to the atomic age. The long-running Doctor Who occasionally discusses environmental issues, often in the form of an ideological confrontation between a pacifist scientist and a dangerous technocrat. In the 1990s-2000s, a new wave of content aimed at young audiences propagated a simplified green message: the cartoon Captain Planet, the Australian import Ocean Girl, the sci-fi show Life Force which takes place in… 2025, even The Simpsons with Lisa, the precocious environmentalist.
The most extreme variation regarding the defense of the planet appears post 9/11. When activism (as seen in the thriller Burn Up) becomes radicalized, a new character emerges: the eco-terrorist (who commits violent acts in the name of ecology). This trope is present across several genres: sci-fi, as seen in Star Trek, procedural dramas, and even the suburban soap opera Desperate Housewives. We have to turn to Europe to see the stereotype reexamined with more subtlety in the Finnish limited series Tellus that follows a controversial environmental group, and in the German show A Thin Line (part of the 2023 Séries Mania line-up) featuring cyberactivist twins.
Greenzo, from 30 Rock
For the past few years, the prime time slots on network television and state-owned broadcasters have been colored in green to celebrate Earth Day or Green Week, with mixed results. When NBC launches its green initiative in 2007, a third type of TV trope pops up (the other two being the apocalypse and the eco-terrorist): the “bitchy, annoying neighbor yelling at you about your recycling,” to quote Good Energy founder, Anna Jane Joyner. She adds, in the Volts podcast: “It’s somebody shaming someone else about their plastic straw or their flying or their SUV.” As seen in Scrubs, Community, 30 Rock (Greenzo played by David Schwimmer) or Dwight/Recyclops in The Office. Riddled with honorable intentions, those types of episodes are actually damaging to the cause: not only is the green plot disconnected from the rest of the narrative, but the goal is to make us feel good about ourselves without asking the hard questions.
Tools for more diversity
In the 2010-2020s, a sense of optimism about the future of the planet has yet to materialize on the small screen, but the storylines are at least becoming more realistic. The environmental crisis features as an extra, or as an unforgettable supporting character, in several TV series focusing on the news, from geopolitics to the economy: Madam Secretary, The Morning Show, Reservation Dogs, The Politician, Succession, Grey’s Anatomy. And thanks to a new generation of creators who are aware of what is at stake when talking about the environment, the cause now plays an even more central role. In order to tell nuanced stories of climate change, these artists borrow methods from investigative journalism (Jeux d’influence by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade), question the errors of the past (Chernobyl, Occupied), display a plausible dystopian future (Years and Years, The Fortress) and marry survivalism, feminism and intergenerational trauma (The Handmaid’s Tale, The Affair S5).
Leaving no room for ambivalence and passivity, these nightmarish parables invite us to understand the collective power of our individual decisions. Unfortunately, our sense of unease and revolt doesn’t necessarily galvanize us into action when the credits roll. Activist Cyril Dion explained this contradiction during a conference at the 2023 festival Séries Mania: “If we keep showing the future as a hopeless, dystopian horizon, we are accepting that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy”. We become discouraged by the (almost) fait accompli. As the magazine Scientific American reports, it is crucial to use the right words. “To inspire people, we need to tell a story not of sacrifice and deprivation but of [… ] flourishing in a post-fossil-fuel age. It might be an alternate history, but the third season of For All Mankind imagines a future dominated by clean nuclear energy.
Jacob Hill and Janine Teagues from Abbott Elementary
What if a truly revolutionary way to raise awareness was building fictional worlds that resemble ours, where the addition of micro-changes could have a positive impact, without downplaying the many challenges we face. Here are a few recent examples: the workplace comedy Unstable set against the backdrop of advances in biotechnology; the feel-good show Ted Lasso where the soccer team drops a polluting sponsor; the rom-com The Sex Lives of College Girls which normalizes the existence of climate refugees; in The Good Place, veganism gives you more points; High Maintenance and Call me Dad present bike-delivery businesses; and in Abbott Elementary, the characters adopt simple, healthy habits for the planet.
And this is just the beginning. Several green non-profit organizations are working hard to encourage this momentum. The fantastic playbook from Good Energy (mentioned above) has put together a multitude of resources for eco-curious screenwriters. Without preaching, they recommend exploring on the screen the contradictory feelings associated with the ecological crisis (climate anxiety comes up in Big Little Lies, Big Mouth and Hacks). In France, the artist collective La Fabrique des récits offers a similar tool called L’écran d’après. The Climate Reality Check, similar to a green Bechdel test, has also recently launched. So, is your favorite TV series doing its part for the environment?