Films about the climate emergency: a problem without responsible or solutions
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Abstract
The film industry has opted to include the climatic emergency in its stories, thus configuring a narrative universe in which the spectator negotiates his identity and his own actions through the situations that appear on the screen. Through the application of content analysis, our research aims to reveal the discursive keys on which the film discourse is based, paying attention to the thematic variables represented, the construction of the characters, and the spaces recreated in the productions shown in Spanish cinemas between 2000 and 2019. The results reveal a biased treatment, both in the selection of variables and in the design of characters and settings, presenting a problem that mainly affects the Western population. In line with the above, the cinematic account of the climate emergency presents the same narrative deficiencies as the informative discourse, thus losing a valuable opportunity to transmit sustainable values. To avoid inaction and complacency among audiences, we make a series of recommendations based on contextualizing and empowering civil society through the design of recognizable situations and characters for the audience.
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