Actor Megan Prescott has joined with Adam McKay in the hope that showing bite-size web videos of women undressing will persuade us to save the world. Will it work?
T
he world, as we know, is in trouble. The last three years have been the hottest ever recorded. Global emissions are still at record highs. The planet is now consistently flirting with the 1.5C limit it promised not to cross. Increasingly, it feels as if we need a genuine miracle to stop us from sleepwalking into catastrophe. Could that miracle be an environmental warning from a woman in her pants?
This is the stated desire of Headline Newds, a new series of web videos by actor Megan Prescott, film-maker Bree Essrig and “climate narrative strategist” Jessica Riches. Released through the not-for-profit Yellow Dot Studios – belonging to Adam McKay, creator of movies The Big Short and Don’t Look Up – Headline Newds is made up of bite-size videos in which the climate emergency is broken down and raunchily explained to us by a variety of OnlyFans models.
It’s an interesting trick, and one that we have seen trialled elsewhere. When McKay made The Big Short in 2015, it was a gamble. As compelling as the story was, it hinged on an understanding of mortgage-backed securities and their integration into the broader credit markets underpinning the 2008 financial crisis. And rather than risk alienating audiences with a long, boring explanation, he hired Margot Robbie to talk us through the subject while wiggling around in a bubble bath.
