“Everything Is Not Awesome”

Abstract

In 2014, Greenpeace released a new installment of their “Save the Arctic” campaign, which promotes environmental stewardship and advertises the international nongovernmental organization. The music video “LEGO: Everything Is Not Awesome” reinterprets Tegan and Sara/The Lonely Island’s exuberant anthem “Everything Is Awesome” from The LEGO Movie (2014) as a melancholy lament, using musical parody to pressure the LEGO corporation to end its marketing link with Royal Dutch Shell in response to Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic. The video features an Arctic entirely made of LEGO with cameo appearances by characters from The LEGO Movie, depicting the slow violence of an oil spill decimating the Arctic ecosystem. This advertisement, among others, was released in the context of public protest and political controversy over the environmental and social risks associated with the oil industry. It is one of many examples of Greenpeace’s use of audiovisual communication strategies to sell environmental issues and brand the organization as a leader in the environmental movement. This chapter analyzes a collection of Greenpeace advertisement videos from their “Save the Arctic” campaign, sketching the sonic choices and processes of musical adaptation used to communicate environmental risk and progressive environmental policy.