As we draw closer to the debut of Don’t Look Up on Netflix, giving some insight into just how much it’s a movie about “Armageddon in the age of idiocracy” is the lyrical content of Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi’s single from the movie, “Just Look Up.” On a side note, it seems like a bit of a serve that Ari teamed with Pete Davidson’s musical hero for the first time, also co-starring with him in the film as pop star (yes, quite a stretch) Riley Bina and DJ Chello, respectively. But then, that Pete Davidson connection is just the kind of frivolous detail Don’t Look Up aims to accent about humanity’s celebrity obsession. In fact, Riley and DJ Chello are a celebrity couple themselves whose breakup manages to usurp news about Earth’s impending destruction… in addition to many other inanities.
The title of the song itself is, clearly, indicative of how people need to literally be told to do the obvious at every turn. You know, like wearing a mask or getting vaccinated. So much hand-holding of these so-called adults. And that’s never truer than when they are faced with the unavoidable reality of the end.
Sonically, “Just Look Up” is a track that many will continue to take with a grain of salt when they hear it played on Top 40 radio, even after Grande reminds (in a tone that suggests the “sweetest thing”), “You’re about to die soon, everybody.” Because, yes, people are just so tuned out that they could genuinely “receive” the song as your garden variety pop ditty. While Grande is referring to the specific event of the film–namely, that a comet will hit and destroy Earth in six months (how timely, then, for Billie Eilish to pen “Halley’s Comet” for Happier Than Ever)–what director Adam McKay aims to highlight, bien sûr, is that the increase in climate change severity will only make such catastrophic phenomena more likely.
Called Comet Dibiasky in honor of one of the astronomers, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), who realized its impact severity, the imminent end of the world is announced before the next story about a TikTok sensation–since apparently both are on the same level of newsworthiness in our stupid world. As with all great comedies, Don’t Look Up is steeped in the sadness of where we’ve arrived as a society, particularly with regard to how we process information. Which is to say, by making light of every calamity through memes (look no further than the barrage that came out in the wake of coronavirus, including the self-referential one that said, “History essays in 2053: ‘Explain the use and role of memes as a coping mechanism during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020’”). After all, humor is an instrument of defense, a way for us all to deal with the underlying reality that no, none of this really matters, and yes, we are all going to die someday. We just didn’t think it would be this soon or this cataclysmically (“in the movie,” of course).
As for McKay finding plenty of inspiration for the script, the collective reaction to a global pandemic likely provided all the corroboration he needed that not only are we fucked as a civilization when shit continues to hit the fan, but perhaps it’s a civilization that’s not even worth saving. Or, as Billie Eilish put it from her Gaia-like perspective in “all the good girls go to hell,” “Man is such a fool/Why are we saving him?/Poisoning themselves now/Begging for our help, wow!” MARINA, too, released a banger of a pop song from the same Mother Nature perspective earlier this year via “Purge the Poison.” A single, in fact, that’s worthy of the Don’t Look Up Soundtrack were it not so real with its forewarnings, “Mother Nature’s on the phone, ‘What have you been doing?/Don’t forget I am your home/Virus come, fires burn until human beings learn/From every disaster, you are not my master.”
That’s certainly one of the takeaways from Don’t Look Up and “Just Look Up,” antithetically named perhaps as a direct nod to all the mis- and disinformation bandied throughout our little planet post-internet. Not to say that tabloid journalism and trolls haven’t always found their way to the forefront regardless of the medium available at the time.
But back to our culture’s inability to actually take anything seriously (while simultaneously taking the most superficial shit seriously): it leads to some difficult times for both Kate and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio)–though mainly the former. Tasked with the responsibility of trying to inform the public about what’s going on, they’re met with newscasters (played by Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry) who feel obliged to make a joke after everything they say, complete with Kate being turned into, what else, a meme when she tries to speak as candidly as possible. Maybe only Dr. Fauci can really understand how this feels right now. Which brings us to another lyric from “Just Look Up,” during which Grande belts out, “Look up, what he’s really trying to say is/Get your head out of your ass/Listen to the goddamn qualified scientists/We really fucked it up, fucked it up this time.”
Alas, because we’ve fucked it up so many times before and the world never seems to end (or did it in 2012 and we’re all just pretending?–another meme-centric theory), we’ve been conditioned to believe: what’s the worst that could really happen? Well, let’s just say that one has a feeling we’ll find out pretty soon.
