To those who haven’t seen it, a primary conflict in the new film Digger revolves around the drilling for gas in Greenland. Through a “profit-first” mentality and several ignored warnings, a massive iceberg breaks off of the island and toward a collision course to northern Europe. The main source of this negligence throughout the movie is spread pretty evenly around the ensemble cast, but the source stems with Tom Cruise’s Digger Rockwell, an uber-wealthy oil tycoon.
This movie is many things—a comedy, a disaster movie, a commentary—but most importantly it is a satire. It makes fun of billionaires, government, environmentalists, and the arts as a whole. The entire premise of this movie is built on satire while the plot tells a very convincing absurdist comedy. This is what every element of this movie should be: absurdist. It should be absurd that a massive chunk of Greenland would collide with northern Europe. It should be absurd that the most viable solution that Digger Rockwell and the President come up with is to nuke the iceberg. Every decision made in this movie should be absurdist and so detached from reality it is comedic.
And yet.
Mere days ago, President Trump announced that the United States would begin oil, gas, and mineral exploration via his social media platform Truth Social. Now, while this does not mean that the destruction of northern Europe is imminent, it does point to an alarming pattern that is becoming increasingly noticeable in recent years. Satire is becoming reality.
Previously, there have been less noticeable instances of this, or at least less alarming instances. The best example is The Simpsons. From “predicting” the Trump presidency to the Lady Gaga Super Bowl halftime show, this satirical show has stumbled into these “predictions.” This was not because Matt Groening is a pre-cog, but rather if you make more than 800 episodes over 36 years, you’re bound to stumble into writing some events before they happen.
But now this is changing. News events are no longer stumbling into existing material. Instead, the pure absurdity that is the current administration. Somehow, each day, a decision is made that rivals the stupidity of the last. This can be traced back to 2020 when The Onion posted an article about hoarding disinfectant as a way of treating COVID-19. Around a month later, Trump suggested that Americans inject hydroxychloroquine to fight the disease.
Another, less concrete example is The Onion’s famous headline, “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.” Originally published in 2014, this headline resurfaces with each school/mass shooting that enters the mainstream media. Without fail, there is at least one representative giving thoughts and prayers for the victims instead of doing their job and finding a way to fix it.
One final example that has come back into prominence is Mike Judge’s 2006 movie, Idiocracy. This movie portrays a future where the average IQ is incredibly low and the world is run, for lack of a better term, by idiots and morons. Around the 2024 election, this movie came back into the conversation with the appointments of the new cabinet members like Linda McMahon who said publicly she wanted to dismantle the Department of Education or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was appointed as Secretary of Health despite having no medical degree.
I used to find comfort in satire. I still do, SNL UK is electric and SNL has its moments. But when a satire’s premise is made reality less than a month after release, I start to question if the last few years have even been real.
