CHANGING NARRATIVES OF CLIMATE FICTION: CREATIVITY AS CLIMATE COMMUNICATION

Abstract

As applied dramatic works continue to grapple with the intensifying impacts of climate change, scholars have identified the creation of a new creative genre: climate fiction, also referred to as cli-fi. The release of Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up has reignited academic dialogues to review cli-fi and applied drama as a vehicle to promote public dialogue on climate change in lieu of traditional fear-based climate communication predicated on the Information Deficit Model. This thesis analyzes the ability of high-profile cli-fi (Don’t Look Up, Snowpiercer, and The Contingency Plan) to bridge gaps in climate narratives. An interdisciplinary analysis methodology of social psychology theory, viewed through the combined lenses of dramaturgy, eco-criticism, and climate communication, is used to explore potential impact of the selected works. Social psychology theories reveal that the surveyed cli-fi pieces continue to over-emphasize apocalyptic tropes of the disaster genre. In future, cli-fi needs to find new dramatic structures and devices to engage audiences, foregoing fear mongering in favor of realistic and humanized stories of environmental injustice that reach to dinner table conversations.