An image of an ice shelf shedding in West Antarctica, Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jefferson Beck
***SPOILER ALERT***: This post contains extensive spoilers for the film Digger so if you want to enjoy Digger in its fullest, go see it first.
I saw the movie Digger in cinemas last week. It’s a movie about an oil tycoon who has to quickly do damage control after his drilling activities in Greenland dislodge a gargantuan ice shelf headed to destroy north-western Europe. He has successively colluded with the government of the United States of America to drill ever more oil and ignored the warnings of the environmental scientists he employs. Digger is a visual feast, and utterly sumptuous in its set and sound design. The film remains about as subtle as the name of its main character, Digger Rockwell (played by Tom Cruise), in its satire of contemporary global politics and the climate crisis.
In this blog, I want to briefly engage with the themes of personal culpability and systemic injustice that the movie touches on. This will require me to reveal key scenes of the movie, so if you want to watch the movie without knowing plot details, do not read on!
Hypocrisies
The climax of the movie is a ten-minute long monologue from Digger to the European Parliament after the ice-shelf (nicknamed Judy) has begun to wreak havoc on the continent. Digger is being condemned in this international forum for his wanton exploitation of the environment for profit, leading to the deaths and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. The European politicians he addresses are all grey-clad, and look as though they have a layer of white paint daubed on their faces. Lady Justice is reimagined—her scales now weigh a snake against an apple. Digger retaliates against these condemnations.
He proclaims that every country represented has also profited from his company, from the drilling of oil. He cries out: “You want the freedom of your unsustainable lives!”, giving the examples of cheap gas, cheap tickets to Mallorca, 48-hour delivery, and, even, the “the energy to ask questions of artificial intelligence to fix the disasters it fuelled.” He betrays his sister’s interests in the renewable energy industry by saying it would take years to put in the necessary infrastructure for adequate renewables. He can prove that all those at the Parliament are hypocrites, armed with a file listing every politician and country’s investment into Rockwell industries. In the end, he claims, “oil is what God gave us!”.
He has placed his finger on something important here. Although he is, of course, attempting to absolve himself of his own responsibility for an environmental cataclysm (he ignored around 50 warnings before the ice-shelf dislodged), he identifies the gulf between our aims of a sustainable future and our actions towards that future. As we at the JCFJ pointed out last month, Ireland’s purported commitment to a zero-carbon future is continually hindered by the State’s investment in fossil fuel infrastructures like the Shannon LNG terminal and the Galway ring road, while simultaneously disinvesting in policies that reduce dependence on them. In that blog, Dr. Ciara Murphy describes this cognitive dissonance, asking “how bad does it have to get before we take serious action?”. In the movie Digger, we see a fictionalised account of what might happen if we never do. Perhaps we, too, will delude ourselves into thinking that oil is our only option; that it is what God gave us.
Hamartia
About a quarter of the way through the film, a very important tree falls over. A hatch opens, and the cinema audience has to quickly accept that everything thus far has been an elaborate staging of a cult-classic play ‘Fossil Fools’. This explains the occasionally ham-fisted humour and didactic tone. The play was supposedly written in 2027, but this staging is taking place a generation later. So, Tom Cruise is acting as an actor, Curtis Markson, playing the historical figure of Digger Rockwell. Very meta. He is struggling, however, to accept the ugly caricature that the play makes of him. He points out the historical inconsistencies and, towards the end, almost refuses to take part in this farce. Rockwell, was, though larger-than-life, no less a person for all of his (many) faults. Markson has stumbled across the sins of the past generation, and he is struggling to laugh at them.
In both Digger’s monologue to the Europeans, and Markson’s refusal to caricaturise Digger, there is a question of culpability and humanity. Theologically read, Digger and Markson both struggle with the tension between individual choices and structures that cause harm. In 2026, the year before the fictional play was written, we are also struggling against perpetuating the dead-end policies that prioritise fossil fuels to the detriment of Creation.
In Catholic Social Teaching, this is referred to as structures of sin, or structural sin. This concept emerged from the work of liberation theologians in Latin America as a way of describing the difficulties of avoiding sin within unjust societies. In the Church’s teaching, structures of sin originate in the sins of individuals, but through their commitment to certain decisions, become replicated and calcified in structures of society (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 119). This concept was developed by Pope John Paul II, who, during his time as Cardinal wrote:
“[Institutions and practices being] necessary in themselves, they often tend to become fixed and fossilized as mechanisms relatively independent of the human will, thereby paralysing or distorting social development and causing injustice. However, they always depend on the responsibility of man [sic], who can alter them, and not upon an alleged determinism of history.”
As a result, they live on beyond the lifespan of the original sinner. We might think of the institutional incarceration of women in Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries in the Irish context as sins against the human dignity of the person which found widespread structural support. What about the injustices embedded in our contemporary economy? Are we culpable for the suffering of people in the global south, whose labour is exploited for the commodities we own?
Theologians grapple with the idea of structural sin, just as Digger and Markson do in the movie. Structural sin enables us to name the economic, political, and social impediments to acting in accordance with the common good. But there is the danger of lessening the personal responsibility of individuals, and overlooking our intrinsic human freedom. Does this naming exonerate personal sin, as Digger attempts in the European Parliament?
In his exploration of this theme, the theologian Daniel K. Finn, incorporating sociological criticism, finds that such structures do not prevent the freedom of the human person, but they do have a causal effect on her. Thus, the restrictions, enablements, and incentives generated by social structures impact the free decisions of the individual. He grants that we can ignore these restrictions on our actions, but shows that there are inevitable social consequences to acting contrary to social structures. Finn points out, too, that not all structures are sinful. For example, the structures of democracy enable everybody in a society to contribute to its government. The rules of the road, when followed, prevent casualties.
Hope?
Riz Ahmed’s character, Dr. Ganesh, the head of sustainability and security at Rockwell Industries, is a sort of refreshing balm of competence and reason in the movie. Digger does not fire or kill him for the express reason that he tells the truth. In a theological reading, this gives us a clue as to the way out of structural sin. It is the telling of truth. The continuously reproduced structures of sin in our society obscure the truth of human dignity, and of the importance of care for Creation. Charity (or love) in truth was Pope Benedict XVI’s response to the global financial crash. He states:
“Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like the present.” (Caritas in Veritate, 5)
Analogous to original sin, structures of sin are something that we inherit. But the gift of freedom which God imparts upon us allows us to, however gradually, however imperfectly, critique these structures and replace them. We remember Lady Justice observing Digger as he proclaims that oil is what God gave us, the snake and the apple embodying that first sin of humankind.
For the audience of Fossil Fools, it is already too late. As the movie ends, we see them leaving the underground compound where the play has taken place, donning masks as an announcement warns that the air quality outside is at a ‘Level 4’. Chillingly, the same announcement plays at the end of the credits to Digger. Perhaps, one day, JCFJ will also be hosting its annual lectures in this kind of compound. I hope not. In the meantime, we commit ourselves to telling the truth that God gave us much more than oil.
