In Focus

Have you watched the movie Don’t Look Up on Netflix? Spoilers ahead...

This movie has received a lot of backlash, mainly from those who the movie seems to target, including mass media. I personally loved the movie.

So, the premise of the movie is an asteroid is heading toward earth, if it hits, that is the end of life as we know it. Now there are many movies with the same premise but this is honestly the closest to reality I have seen. Honestly, if something like this were to happen now, this is exactly how I would see it playing out.

Here is the first thing I noticed about the movie that made it that much more interesting. Replace the asteroid with COVID-19 and that is what is playing out right now.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is basically the “hot scientist” and I can’t stop seeing this character as Fauci. Both these people have been interviewed and share their findings on the issue, trying to warn people of the dangers. The scene that got me was when the public found out about the asteroid and social media went crazy. The internet was divided in two: the asteroid is real, and the asteroid is not real. Sounds familiar right?

Meryl Streep plays the president in this, and it’s awesome. She’s not the most intelligent, is easily swayed by money, and is basically controlled by a big tech company. This is something many of us have known about politicians for years.

What made this so interesting was this company stepped in just as the U.S. government was deploying a mission to destroy the asteroid and save the world. Why? Because the asteroid contained precious minerals that could be harvested for technology. So what did the president do? She stopped the mission!

Wow. That was an intense move in the movie, but in real life, I compared it to the battle of big pharmacies for the COVID vaccines and treatments. Vaccines versus ivermectin anyone?

So, the big tech company devises an untested plan to break up the asteroid and harvest the minerals. Needless to say, this failed miserably. And the scientist basically had an “I told you so” moment.

The ending, which I will not give away, was unlike anything I had seen or expected in this movie. But I see it as a warning.

We know COVID is real. We know it is still here, mutating and getting worse. It doesn’t seem to help that the CDC keeps changing their guidelines, confusion over masking, and misunderstandings about how the vaccines work. People are losing trust in the agencies that are supposed to help us. Who wouldn’t question why you have to follow a masking and vaccination protocol in one instance but then it’s perfectly fine to pack into a gym to watch some type of sports game.

People are entitled to their own thoughts and opinions, and nothing is going to change that. We are at the point where people have to make their own decisions. They are tired of the run-around and are over these mandates and guidelines.

Was this movie meant to be a euphemism for COVID? Probably not but it's hard not to see the similarities.