The Power of Monstrous Cli-Fi

The Power of Monstrous Cli-Fi

With a Metacritic score of 84 that points to universal acclaim, Snowpiercer seems to suggest monstrous cli-fi film has the potential to move audiences to both awareness of and action to address climate change. Whether or not cli-fi movies can wake up viewers to the dangerous repercussions of climate change seems to depend on audience size and demographic composition. Preliminary results suggest cli-fi can potentially alert audiences to these dangers. 

These results, however, are as yet limited in scope. For example, a study by risk perception analyst and director of the Climate Change Center at Yale, Anthony Lesierowitz concludes that The Day After Tomorrow “had a significant impact on the climate change risk perceptions, conceptual models, behavioral intentions, and even voting intentions of moviegoers” in the United States (“Before and After” 34), based on results from a global audience research survey published in a 2004 Environment journal article.

But these results were constrained by the numbers who attended the film (10 percent of adults in the U.S.) and by the level of national exposure. According to Lesierowitz, “Surveys conducted immediately before The Day After Tomorrow was released and three weekends afterward found no shift in broad public attitudes or in behaviors”(“Before and After” 35). And an international study published in a later Environment issue found that when U.S. viewers were asked, “Why did you watch this movie?” “Only 17 percent said they went because they were ‘interested in global warming.’ 

Anthony Leiserowitz, Director

Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

By contrast, 83 percent of moviegoers went because they liked the trailer’ (29 percent), ‘like disaster movies’ (21 percent), ‘like to see all big films’ (21 percent), or ‘another reason’ (12 percent)” (Leiserowitz “The International Impact” 44). Leiserowitz concludes, “We have only scratched the surface, however, in the effort to under­stand the role of popular representations of risk (such as movies, books, television, fiction, and nonfiction) or of cross-national differences in public risk perception and behavior” (“The International Impact” 44).