DISCOURSES OF GREENWASHING AND CLIMATE DELAY IN DON'T LOOK UP (2021) AND GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (2022): A COMPARATIVE CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Abstract
This study compares how manipulative environmental rhetoric is constructed in Don't Look Up (2021)
and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022). It distinguishes greenwashing, understood as
communication that creates overly positive beliefs about environmental performance, from adjacent
discourses of climate delay and media trivialisation. Using a qualitative comparative case study, the
analysis integrates van Dijk's sociocognitive Critical Discourse Analysis, Fairclough's threedimensional

model, Lyon and Montgomery's greenwashing framework, and visual semiotics. The
reporting corpus comprises six focal sequences selected from the two films and examined through
dialogue, scene context, visual design, and relations of power. Don't Look Up primarily depicts
institutional climate-delay discourse through bureaucratic temporisation and entertainment framing;
its BASH extraction narrative moves into greenwashing when a profit-driven, high-risk intervention
is branded as responsible technological rescue. Glass Onion presents clearer corporate greenwashing
through selective disclosure, unsupported clean-energy claims, symbolic sustainability, and the
suppression of known safety risks. The comparison shows that environmental manipulation operates
through different but connected institutional and corporate arrangements. The study contributes an
operational distinction between greenwashing and climate delay in film discourse and demonstrates
how lexical choices, visual prestige, and control over public communication can reduce accountability.
The findings support critical environmental media literacy while recognising that the analysis is
interpretive and limited to a small purposive corpus