What’s the best way to feed a toddler their food? Do you leave a spoonful of green mush in front of them and let them decide if they want it? Do you explain every compound hidden in the heaping pile of pureed vegetables? Do you scare them and tell them they’ll starve if they don’t eat?

For decades, scientists have tried to spoon-feed the immediate danger of the climate crisis to the public, whether it's Greta Thurnberg being the cover on TIME Magazine or Al Gore’s climate change initiatives. Director Adam McKay decided to take the “here comes the airplane” method and mask the climate crisis as a fun, quick-paced, comedic satire in his new film “Don’t Look Up.”

“We felt the comedy could bridge some of the artificial divide that’s been created in our country so Big Capital can make a lot of money and rip us off,” McKay told the Panther. “Laughter is one of the ways that bridges that. You can’t fake real laughter.”

Mckay, known for slapstick comedies “Anchorman” (2004) and “Step Brothers” (2008) as well as Oscar-nominated dark comedies “The Big Short” (2015) and “Vice” (2018), met with several college publications across the U.S. to discuss the motives behind the symbolism of the film. He was joined by Dr. Amy Mainzer, the astronomer and consultant for the film who studies potentially hazardous comets and asteroids.

Mainzer hopes the film — which will be available in select theaters and Netflix beginning Dec. 24 — serves as a call to action for the climate crisis and other global issues. 

“If we can laugh at ourselves for a minute and recognize our own foibles and our own shared humanity, it lets us get over ourselves,” Mainzer told the Panther. “The message is that the future is really up to us. If we choose to go out and tackle some of these tough challenges about climate change and all these other issues that face us, we can actually have a better outcome."

The film revolves around astronomers Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), who discover a comet the size of Mount Everest hurtling toward Earth. With six months to take action, they embark on a media tour only to have their efforts minimized by the media conglomeration’s obsession with the latest pop culture fads and a disinterested President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep). 

The film also stars Hollywood A-list actors such as Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Rob Morgan and Timothée Chalamet. McKay said it was a luxury to have the star-studded cast during filming amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Right away, (these actors) know how to collaborate, they know how to communicate, ask amazing questions, be in a scene and use, give and take,” McKay said. “It was incredibly difficult filming with the (COVID-19 pandemic), but because we had all these tremendous actors, it made it doable.”

Mainzer served as an advisor to McKay to help flesh out aspects of the script rooted in science and relate about what it’s like to discover a comet and pass the information on to the government. She drew from her time at NASA when she and her team discovered Comet NEOWISE. 

Mainzer spent extensive time with DiCaprio, Lawrence and Morgan to decipher the everyday life of a scientist, and she even designed an accurate orbit for the film’s comet.

It was important to McKay and Mainzer that all the math and calculations in the film be accurate. For Mainzer, she said watching the scientific endeavors and peer review process seen on screen was a rewarding experience.  

“For me, this is the first time I’ve heard the peer review process so extensively discussed in a movie,” Mainzer said. “This is music to my scientist ears. It’s a movie at its core that really speaks to the importance of science based decision making in our society and our daily lives.”

To help unify the audience and avoid taking sides, McKay pokes fun at how he believes both sides of the political spectrum would handle the situation of a comet barreling toward Earth. In the film, some respond by denying the situation, while others start hashtags, protest with picket signs and create memes. 

In the writing process, McKaysaid he was inspired by the nature of the media as a whole in today’s society and their preference for profit over accurate information.

“If you turn on the news now, you’ll see footage of a bear going through a water cooler, or you’ll see footage of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez going into a convenience store,” McKay said. “It’s definitely inspired by the fact that we know the livable atmosphere is collapsing, but this pre-set economy of information just chugs along.”

Throughout the film, Dibiasky is seen taking Xanax and Dr. Mindy takes a large amount of medication to combat his anxiety and panic attacks. It was important to McKay and Mainzer that scientists were depicted as human beings as opposed to the typical caricatures of evil scientists seen on TV. 

“We’re not really shown as human beings,” Mainzer said. “If you learn something that’s bad news, what do you do? Usually we’re not the people that are empowered to actually make the changes that we know need to happen to fix the problem. All we can do is stand there like the Greek myth Cassandra, saying, ‘This is going to happen.’”

Akin to the struggles of Dr. Mindy and Dibiasky, McKay acknowledged the struggles of scientists studying the climate crisis to convey their information to the public. He liked the idea of “Don’t Look Up” being “a nice big open door” in terms of addressing global warming.  

“I call it a Clark Kent level of disguise for the climate crisis,” McKay said. “I think we’re at a point where we need to throw off the idea of being oh-so-clever and oh-so-subtle. I don’t look at it as a movie that will be studied for years to come thinking, ‘Oh, what did this mean?’ It’s a naked cry that we’re drowning.”

McKay hopes the “here comes the airplane” method of delivering his call to action inspires the change needed to take on “the biggest threat to life in the history of mankind.” Perhaps two hours and 25 minutes worth of laughs is what will allow skeptics to finally swallow the information he wishes to convey.