Hollywood superstars like Leonardo DiCaprio occupy an unusual position in popular discourse. On the one hand, they are at the forefront of progressive causes. DiCaprio, for example, has been one of the most visible and vocal champions of the environmentalist movement in recent years. On the other hand, they are among the richest and most privileged people on the planet.

Perhaps there is a connection there. It is easier to stick your neck out for a political cause and be bold in your beliefs when you have nothing to lose, and you do not have to worry about money or consequences. There is a multiplying effect, too. When everyone around you is an activist, as is the case in Hollywood, your echo chamber naturally drags you along and makes you more likely to do the same.

However, this phenomenon has its downsides. It’s not all harmless – if cringeworthy – speeches at awards ceremonies. For one thing, they can end up setting back the cause they are championing, because their activism risks alienating people rather than bringing them onside. In the case of DiCaprio, for example, it would be easy to find his green virtue-signalling irksome given his own jet-setting lifestyle. He has a known affinity for diesel-devouring mega-yachts, and he once took a private jet thousands of miles – ironically, on his way to accept an environmental award.

But the primary problem with stars getting involved in political discourse is that they tend to get complex things wrong. Celebrities have blind spots. They often wade into issues they know little about. Thanks to their enormous reach and lack of accountability (they’re not grilled by the media like politicians, for example) they can more-or-less say whatever they like and be lauded for it. That can result in misinformation and skewed perspectives, especially on complicated policy issues like the environment.

Climate policy is anything but straightforward. There are nuances and trade-offs involved. Countless green policies fail to slow climate change, and many make us poorer in the process. We could end climate change tomorrow, by undoing the Industrial Revolution and plunging ourselves back into the Dark Ages. There are debates to be had about which policies are worthwhile and reasonable people can disagree. It’s not as simple as ‘supporting climate action’ without caveats, as the Hollywood brand of activism demands.

Environmental debates require level-headed discussions, but the Hollywood model of virtue-signalling does not lend itself to that. It is much more comfortable for celebrities to broadcast their message out into the world, pushing simplistic solutions to multi-faceted problems, and then shut themselves off to legitimate critiques and nuances.

They often get things factually wrong. They end up fuelling popular anger when the simplistic solutions we see on screen fail to materialise in real life, or even fomenting existential fear through disaster narratives, like DiCaprio’s film Don’t Look Up. Having not learned his lesson from the controversy around that release, DiCaprio has now thrown his weight behind a new film, Ozi: Voice of the Forest.

Produced by Appian Way, DiCaprio’s company, Ozi: Voice of the Forest is a cartoon tale telling the story of a young orangutan who battles malign forces to save a rainforest. In the film’s simplistic narrative, unaccountable private companies ravage rainforests for profit in order to make palm oil. But as is so often the case, the reality is rather different.

Palm oil is used in countless household products including foods and toiletries. It is so widely used because it is cheap to make, which is in turn because it is the most land-efficient product in its category. If palm oil were to vanish tomorrow, companies would have to switch to other ingredients like rapeseed oil or soybean oil, which require up to ten times more land clearance than palm oil, meaning much more deforestation.

The film, by attacking palm oil, loses sight of the bigger picture and risks misinforming viewers, leaving them with the false impression that palm oil is a uniquely harmful product and that ditching it would be a good thing. Even the world-renowned Orangutan Land Trust and Chester Zoo have voiced concern about this.

“The vast majority of conservation organisations and experts do not agree with a blanket boycott of palm oil, and we are concerned that children and families watching this film will be left with the impression that this is the right action to take,” they said. “We believe that one of the most effective ways to tackle forest loss and help orangutans like Ozi is to support sustainable palm oil, instead of boycotting it altogether.”

In fact, thanks to industry innovations, palm oil deforestation has tumbled 70% from its 2014 peak, according to Global Forest Watch. Today, more than 90% of the palm oil imported into Europe is certified as sustainable. Even the World Wide Fund for nature has endorsed sustainable palm oil as an environmentally-friendly solution to the problem of deforestation. It is a sustainability success story, not that you would know that from watching Ozi: Voice of the Forest.

Granted, the film is not a documentary. But if a celebrity like Leonardo DiCaprio is going to go out of his way to blast an environmental message out to his audience, especially in a film aimed at children, it is incumbent on him to double-check his facts first. Otherwise, Hollywood stars risk undermining their own causes and setting back the quest to save the planet by effectively producing mass-market misinformation.


Jason Reed is a policy analyst and political commentator for a wide range of media outlets around the world. He tweets @JasonReed624