I watched Disclosure Day with my husband in theaters this week despite the fact that so many people were ragging on the movie in social media posts.

I think a lot of complaints people have about the movie are pretty valid, but the biggest personal complaint I have about the movie is the way they portrayed humanity having such an incredibly shocked and mystified reaction to the announcement of alien lifeforms existing on this planet.

In real life, our government has been dropping hints and clues about alien lifeforms for a while now, and it doesn’t move the needle.

Literally no one really cares because the mundane monotony of our daily lives is still pressing on as usual.

Rent is still due on the 1st.

Bills still have to get paid.

All of our student debt is still owed.

Most people still have to wake up and go to work to maintain positions in 40-hour workweeks.

So many people are living in survival mode right now, just trying to figure out ways to sustain ourselves in a failing economy under this current administration.

It’s actually asinine to portray humanity as being that level of stunned when, in the real world, an announcement of alien lifeforms with legitimate video footage wouldn’t even slightly move the needle to that degree.

Unless aliens were making themselves known to us in a way that truly allows us to break free of the matrix—a.k.a. break free of this capitalistic hamster wheel where everyone currently feels physically, mentally, and emotionally worn down from working just to survive and sustain ourselves—then I don’t know how meaningful it really is.

Unless aliens are offering some sort of abduction-style travel plan where we can agree to safely migrate to their territories to escape what we’ve currently got going on on planet Earth, then it doesn’t really matter.

The second point that kind of grinds my gears with this movie is that the one super religious Catholic nun we spent time hearing from was probably the most progressive nun to ever exist in the world, which wasn’t very realistic in my opinion.

If you interact with genuine Christians and Catholics who are super hardcore about their religion, they often get kind of put off and upset by the concept of alien lifeforms.

I know from personal experience because my mother is a devout evangelical Christian.

She believes in the Bible from front cover to back cover, and when I tried to have a conversation with her about alien lifeforms like a year ago, she was extremely offended and super bothered by the entire topic.

Not only did she deny that anything I was saying could be true, but she also got kind of irritated at me.

And my mother’s super-Christian reaction is in line with a lot of real-life Christians and Catholics.

So the fact that all we got was a super progressive nun just didn’t ring realistic to me.

I felt like we, as viewers, deserved to hear thoughts from people of Christian and Catholic faith that are more in line with what feels realistic in the world.

And most Christians and Catholics are completely closed off to the concept of alien lifeforms because they think God only created humankind on this one singular planet based on the story of creation written in the book of Genesis.

I was someone who grew up in the church, who is currently deconstructing a lot of what I was taught in my Christian faith.

I feel like it’s pretty narcissistic to believe that we are the only lifeforms to exist, knowing there are endless universes and galaxies that literally go on forever.

Earth is a planet that floats in one singular solar system.

There are trillions beyond trillions of solar systems within trillions beyond trillions of galaxies.

It literally goes on forever, and there’s no end to it.

So logically speaking, it simply doesn’t make sense for us to be the only living creatures or intelligent lifeforms.

It’s actually kind of narcissistic to think we’re the only intelligent lifeforms to exist out of all the never-ending galaxies and universes out there.

However, a lot of super hardcore Christians and Catholics really strongly believe that.

So the fact that we didn’t even get to realistically confront any characters with that mindset throughout the entire movie was definitely a fail and a missed opportunity.

People who have that mentality need to be confronted.

People with that mentality need to be shaken awake.

Because… at what point does ignorance and closed-mindedness morph into true stupidity?

NSA.gov, a.k.a. the National Security Agency, published a seven-page document discussing alien lifeforms with its opening line stating:

“We are not alone in the universe…”

It honestly just feels like old news.

No shade, no tea, but I feel like they’re kind of dragging out this topic.

The argument is that exposing the truth about aliens with genuine footage will ruin world religions and shake up the way a lot of people view God and their own individual faiths.

My argument is that maybe it’s a good thing for people’s worldviews to be shaken up.

But again, I don’t know how much difference it would make if the mundane reality of our lives stays exactly the same as it’s always been.

As of now, prices for gas and groceries are constantly climbing.

Credit card debt among the average American citizen is the highest it’s ever been, currently sitting somewhere around $1.28 trillion.

On the topic of trillions of dollars, Elon Musk just became the world’s first trillionaire while innocent children are currently starving to death in third-world countries.

AI is growing at a rapid pace, thoroughly disrupting the job market.

Almost 100,000 job losses have already happened across America alone, and the number is actively growing by the day.

Companies are heavily relying on layoffs with AI as the reason, along with several other reasons.

Tons of government jobs have been lost due to this administration, and the job market is stuck in an extremely toxic and competitive place with no end in sight and no light at the end of the tunnel.

Millennials have decided to remain childfree, with 52% of women of childbearing age intentionally choosing not to bring kids into the world right now, myself included.

And we’re getting heavily critiqued for that decision.

But how does it make sense to bring kids into this world when everything feels uncertain and we feel completely unprotected, with women’s rights being stripped back in different states across the country?

The fact that companies have made it normalized to lay off so many employees on a consistent basis is weird because it used to be shameful and embarrassing for a company to lay off a bunch of its workers.

But now, it’s just business as usual.

Some of the biggest businesses that cut thousands of employees include Oracle, UPS, Amazon, Cisco, Disney, Pinterest, Meta, Groupon, Dell, Heineken, Nissan, Nike, General Motors, IKEA, Volkswagen, Capital One, Target, and many more.

Spirit Airlines completely went under and is no longer functioning as an airline.

As much as it would be cool to have the energy to care about alien lifeforms, the reality is that we’ve got bigger fish to fry.

Unless they’re coming down to actually change the way things are currently running right now, then a lot of us just don’t have the capacity to give them any of our time and attention.

And if Disclosure Day was going to be a realistic alien movie, then it should have taken time to touch on that topic because that’s what would have brought the most realism to a movie of this nature.

But the problem is that the movie was created by Steven Spielberg, a film director with a net worth of billions of dollars.

He’s not relatable to any of us regular people. So, in other words, he’s completely out of touch.

He made this movie with the mindset that a disclosure day revealing alien lifeforms would actually move the needle among people in this country.

And that’s simply not the case.

And doesn’t that just prove how out of touch ultra-wealthy people really are?

They don’t understand what’s actually happening on the ground floor in this country or around the world.

Therefore, I really do wish creative opportunities were left in the hands of people who actually get it.

I wish creatives who were genuinely relatable had more resources and accessibility to create art that would become just as widespread as a movie like Disclosure Day.

This movie got so much advertising and marketing, but there are highly intelligent, brilliant, and incredible artists, creatives, and filmmakers who’ve created beautiful content that no one in the world will ever discover, simply because they don’t have the finances to promote themselves.

And that’s honestly devastating to think about.

This movie would’ve been a lot better if Spielberg had consulted with regular everyday Americans who are waking up, going to work, and trying to exist in this world without getting consumed with thoughts of hopelessness and despair since it feels like we’re on a never-ending hamster wheel with no escape until the day we die.

I know everyone’s big complaint is that the movie was corny, the dialogue was cheesy, and the subject matter of this film would’ve performed better if the movie came out a couple of decades ago instead of today.

And all of that, I do agree with.

But the complaints I have go beyond that because I feel there was such a missed opportunity with this movie when it comes to the intersection of critical thinking and religion.

My husband’s big complaint about the movie was in alignment with a lot of other people’s complaints on social media, and it’s that more time should’ve been spent showcasing the fallout after Disclosure Day.

The true reactions of how people felt about alien lifeforms.

Because all we saw was a bunch of people watching the news feed as the truth was revealed, and then the movie ended promptly before we witnessed any real conversations being had.

And as I previously said, I would’ve loved to see some highly religious people giving their reactions.

But at the end of the day, if this movie was meant to be realistic to the landscape of our current society, the reactions everyone would have to this news would be pretty boring and dry.

Because, as I said, if all that footage was released, people would watch clips of it on their phone and then get back to their regular daily schedule—from going to work, going to school, picking up the kids, going to the grocery store, etc.

It would genuinely make no difference at all.

One of the positive things I do want to mention about this movie is that I really loved Emily Blunt’s performance.

Especially the scene when she was having a panic attack because I felt it was extremely realistic to what panic attacks look and feel like.

Anyone who’s been through the darkness of a panic attack can probably appreciate the realism Emily Blunt brought to that scene.

Just generally speaking, I’m biased toward her, and I feel she can do no wrong.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Devil Wears Prada sequel that came out earlier this year, but again, I felt Emily Blunt was fabulous in that movie, too.

I also appreciated Josh O’Connor’s performance, especially after seeing him in Challengers and Knives Out.

I also really love Colman Domingo.

Obviously, we all recently watched him absolutely kill it in his performance in the third season of Euphoria.

I wasn’t big on the third season of Euphoria because I feel there were too many unfinished storylines and plots, but one person I have zero complaints about in season three was Colman Domingo as Ali.

Anyway, back to Disclosure Day.

A couple of plot holes that stood out to me in this movie include the fact that Colman Domingo’s character shut down the concept of releasing the footage on social media because he wanted it to be released on official news networks.

But if this movie was intended to be realistic to today’s day and age, releasing the footage on social media would’ve made more sense since not everyone watches news channels, and certainly not at the same time like that.

Most people get their news from social media at this point.

And I’m well aware that a lot of people would assume the footage was AI, but that’s just a realistic response people would have if this type of footage were leaked on social media.

And that could have been addressed in this movie.

I also didn’t understand why the footage was so heavily prioritized when they already had a live alien they were ready to introduce to the world.

Having a live alien kind of shuts down the need for all that footage.

Although the footage is definitely nice to have, a live alien seems like enough evidence to me.

And people are pissed off that the movie ended with her saying the word “listen,” but that’s a part of the movie that didn’t really bother me that much, because the clear message in the movie was that everyone needs to start listening to each other.

We need to be better listeners to each other.

And we need to stop causing each other harm and stirring up so much chaos.

The video evidence proved that human beings were harming and torturing the aliens.

So I assumed the aliens’ message was something along the lines of trying to pursue a more peaceful coexistence.

Which is something we already struggle with as human beings, since we’ve got racist individuals who don’t want to peacefully coexist with Black and brown people who look like me.

If we already have racism issues among regular people based on skin color, then it’s obvious that issues similar to racism would arise if aliens tried to coexist with humans.

But I believe the ultimate message in the movie, when she told everyone to listen, was that we need to be willing to listen to each other better.

I could be wrong, but that was my takeaway.