Does Hollywood hate clean energy?

We’ve just wrapped up awards season in Hollywood. The season's biggest snub? Clean energy. Actually, it gets snubbed every year—there’s hardly any organic mention of clean energy or sustainability in mainstream movies or TV shows, even though it’s becoming more popular in real life.

To make matters worse, when these things are mentioned on screen, they’re typically painted negatively. For example, the Netflix movie Leave the World Behind presents electric vehicles as a major issue when the electric grid gets hacked. And the popular Paramount+ show Landman—about a family in the Texas oil industry—has a scene that bashes wind energy with the main character sharing “facts” about wind turbines that aren’t even true. (Watch Ben Sullins’ YouTube video, The Landman Show is Lying to You, for more on that.)

Hollywood professionals need to remember the power they have to shape public perception if we want to make progress toward a cleaner, more sustainable future. Tune in to our episode of Plugged In below to learn more about clean energy misrepresentation in media and why we need to see subtle nods to sustainable choices on screen.

Ben Sullins

Ben Sullins is an electric vehicle advocate and content creator focused on debunking climate misinformation.

Matthew Schneider-Mayerson

Matthew Schneider-Mayerson is an associate professor of English and environmental studies at Rice University, where he currently teaches a course on Environmental Storytelling for Social Change.

The Climate Reality Check evaluates whether climate change is represented in films, TV shows, and other forms of media. It was inspired by the Bechdel-Wallace Test, which measures gender representation.

The Climate Reality check runs a very simple test, asking whether in a given story:

1. Climate change exists

2. And a character knows it

In a previous role, Schneider-Mayerson led a research team at the Buck Lab for Climate and Environment at Colby College in analyzing the content of 250 popular fictional films released between 2013 and 2022 using the Climate Reality Check. Their findings were published in partnership with Good Energy, a nonprofit that works with TV and film creators to reflect our honest climate reality in their stories.

Here’s what they found based on the 250 films studied:

• 9.6% of films passed the Climate Reality Check

• 12.8% of passing films passed only part one of the test (climate change exists)

• 3.6% of all films included more than one mention of climate change

• Climate change was present in twice as many films released in the second half of the decade (2018-2022)

Hey, Hollywood, films that reflect climate reality are more profitable

We asked Schneider-Mayerson why he thought most movies weren’t talking about climate, and he said it’s because there’s concern that including climate change will be “offputting to some audiences and will lead to films making less money.”

The Climate Reality Check report considered that, so they looked at the box office profits of the films included. They found the opposite to be true:

• Films that passed part one of the test earned, on average, 8% more at the box office than those that didn’t.

• Films that passed both parts of the test performed 10% better at the box office than those that didn’t.

“I don't think that means that if you just throw a climate mention in, you're going to have a blockbuster on your hands, but I think it shows that, at the very least, there are a lot of audiences that really want to see their reality reflected on screen—and there’s research on this,” said Schneider-Mayerson.

Unless you’re sitting in the writer’s room for the next big film or TV show, you may feel powerless to encourage change in on-screen media. But our voices are still powerful; that’s why EnergySage wrote an open letter to Hollywood urging the Academy to use its platform to normalize clean energy through film.

As Schneider-Mayerson suggests, any of us can use social media to let creators know we want to see these changes. You can apply the Climate Reality Check or simply point out the parts in a movie or TV show where clean energy was absent or misrepresented. 

“Publish that information on Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, TikTok, or wherever. Tag every actor in these films or every director and say, ‘Here's what's happening in the world, here's what's happening on screen—there’s a gulf between these things,’” said Schneider-Mayerson.